Pho Mai Lan

Yelp

1160 Maunakea St
Honolulu, HI 96817

(808) 528-3663

One of my favorite things to do when I'm at home is to try new pho places in Chinatown. Pho is one of the few foods that are impossible to find in Shanghai (well, there are Vietnamese restaurants, but none of them make a decent bowl of pho. Which makes no sense to me, since all of the ingredients are readily available here. And it's more similar to Chinese food than other foreign cuisines.) So basically I am craving pho every day by the time I get home.

I really liked Mai Lan as a new option downtown. It has a very extensive menu - way more choices than just pho and summer rolls (even though that was all we ordered...will have to try something new next time!)

One last meal

This is quite an old post, but I still wanted to put it up here. On my last night in Honolulu, I insisted that the fam go out to eat with me...first pho at Hale Vietnam (not my first choice for pho, but more convenient than going to Chinatown) and then red mango in waikiki!

The pho:


Lemongrass chicken bun:

Seafood soup (this was pretty bleh)


Highlight of the meal:

An old favorite

Mmmm, Gina's meat jun plate...it felt like 5 pounds of food in there!

Highway Inn

94-226 Leoku St
Waipahu, HI 96797

(808) 677-4345
yelp

Consistently rated one of the best hawaiian restaurants/catering businesses in Hawaii. Don't really make it out to Waipahu all that often, but we were driving back from Makaha and thought it would make a great lunch stop. It's super casual inside and looks like it hasn't changed a bit since 1960. I thought the Hawaiian food was equivalent to Ono's (my fave!) but the beef stew was to die for. Definitely try it if you are out there.

Hana Sushi

Hana Sushi

377 Keahole St Ste C3
Honolulu, HI 96825

(808) 395-4330

Yelp

A tiny hole in the wall in Hawaii Kai (by the Safeway) that looks like it would have your standard, Kozo style takeout sushi turns out to have a creative menu of fun sushi rolls.

The lobster roll

Red Dragon roll (this was my favorite)

Minna (or something like that)

Salmon – nice touch with the radish sprouts

Maui Tacos

Maui Tacos

Yelp

539 Kailua Rd Ste 102
Kailua, HI 96734

(808) 261-4155

Starving on the day before Christmas, tacos sounded like a delicious lunch choice. We stopped at Maui Tacos, in Kailua. The menu was too complicated to read, in our starving state, so we just ordered a chicken soft taco and the nachos. Maui Tacos appears to be a chain, since there are several listed on Oahu. While not spectacular like what you could find in California, this was good Tex Mex for Hawaii.

The soft taco did not look so appetizing, but the chicken was actually good and very filling ($3.75)

The nachos were heavily loaded and very satisfying ($6.00)

*these were the highlight!*

Merry Christmas from Oahu & back on the island for 2 weeks!

Menchies
Ward Warehouse
1050 Ala Moana Blvd.
Honolulu , HI 96814
808-592- 9292
http://menchies.com/

The latest fro-yo place in Honolulu, Menchies offers serve-yourself frozen yogurt in a variety of flavors, similar to Yogurtland on University. While they didn’t seem to have as much variety as Yogurtland, they did have some flavors I hadn’t seen at Yogurtland, such as “pomegranate tart” and “lychee” tart, both of which were yummy. But overall, I still prefer Red Mango.

Dim Sum

Won Kee

100 N Beretania St Ste 106
Honolulu, HI 96817
(808) 524-6877

I haven’t had much dim sum in Hawaii in years, so when we decided to go for Sunday brunch dim sum in Chinatown, I had no idea where to go. After consulting with the parents and Yelp, I narrowed the choices down to two at Cultural Plaza: Won Kee and Lam Fook. Still undecided when we got there, we just picked Won Kee, since it was the first one we saw.

There were 3 of us for brunch, the perfect number for dim sum, since everything comes in orders of 3. Won Kee has the cart ladies, who push around steaming carts of dim sum in bamboo steamers and lift the lids off each type of dim sum as they walk past. Since I can speak mandarin, I ordered most of our dim sum by name, but it was fun also to see what they had available (they kept pushing this one order of seafood in a tofu wrapper on us, it kind of felt like it was the one order they couldn’t get rid of!)

Everything (except for the cha shao su/char siu soo, similar to ma tai soo) was delicious. The cha shao su was mushy (instead of flaky) and had a very congealed (too much cornstarch?) filling.

Char Siu Look Fun

Char Siu Soo

Pineapple Buns

Xia Jiao (har gau?)

Char siu bao and spinach dumplings (bo cai jiao)

Dim sum cart