We've only been on the island for a couple months now, so I think we can be excused for trying out some of the more well-known eating establishments in Waikiki. We had received recommendations for restaurants there from friends and family that had vacationed in Hawaii. But, the longer we stay here, the more we think that vacationers spend 90% of their time on the island within a few square miles of the Waikiki hotel area, except to visit the USS Arizona Memorial and look at a pineapple field.
However, Waikiki does have pretty beaches (even if overcrowded) with a nice view eastward of Diamond Head, and several nice shopping areas, especially compared to the small Midwestern town we lived in prior to moving here. So, as a Sunday morning rolled into afternoon, we decided to window-shop and eat when a place caught our interest. We noticed Duke's, and decided to have lunch there.
Duke's is named after Duke Kahanamoku, Olympic swimmer, surfer and Hawaiian goodwill ambassador. Duke helped make the sport of surfing an international phenomenon. The restaurant is located in the Outrigger Waikiki, overlooking the beach.
We were seated on the lanai promptly, and were able to watch the beach, and had a spectacular view of Diamond Head.
As it was lunch, we ordered from the Barefoot Bar menu. The menu consists of standard pub fare: apps, salads, pizzas, sandwiches and burgers, a small selection of meat and fish, and desserts. There wasn't really enough on the menu to distinguish eating there as a "Hawaiian" experience. It only seemed like a Hawaiian version of TGIMcChiliAppleby's.
My wife decided on a tomato and basil grilled personal pizza. I had the kalua pork on a taro roll sandwich, with BBQ and tomatillo sauces, watercress, tomato and red onion. My wife was satisfied with her pizza; my sandwich was OK. The roll was sweet, with a nice purple hue due to the taro. The watercress was not trimmed, however, and the stems were left on, which was surprising, since they were like woody twigs. Not pleasant.
The real standout of the meal was the hula pie for dessert. We were somewhat full, so we decided to split a slice, which was a wise choice, because it was quite large. Supposedly this is the pie that "sailors would swim ashore for." I can see that, it was pretty good, if not particularly difficult to make. It was a chocolate cookie crust, piled high with macadamia nut ice cream, topped with chocolate fudge, whipped cream and more chopped macadamia nuts. Very tasty; I plan on making it at home.
Our biggest issue was with the service. In short, it was terrible. Our waiter was basically absent. It was a long time before he took our order; he did not bring the soda I asked for until after our lunch was served; he never came to check on us, and a waiter from an adjacent section refilled our water. We expressed our displeasure with the service to him, and a manager came to speak with us. She was kind enough to comp us our pie, a nice gesture, but as the food was only average and the service poor, it was not enough to make us want to return. Skip this place and GET OUT OF WAIKIKI, fer crying out loud.
Rating: NO ONO
Duke's Waikiki
2335 Kalakaua Ave., Suite 116
Honolulu, HI 96815
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
Leonard's Bakery - Honolulu
My wife and I moved to O'ahu on a Thursday. We rented a car for a month, and decided to drive around Honolulu over the next couple of evenings to get our bearings. Having seen "Hawaii Five-O" on television, and reading a few travel guides, we recognized a few Honolulu landmarks: the Aloha Tower, Diamond Head...and Leonard's.
Pathetic cell phone pic, but I do love the neon.
Leonard's Bakery has been in business since 1952, and is a Honolulu institution. They make all sorts of pastries, cookies, pies, and breads, including pao doce, a Portuguese sweet bread. But say "Leonard's" to most people and they think the same thing: malasadas!
Malasadas are a Portuguese fried dough, nicely browned on the outside, and soft, doughy and moist in the center. To me, they are quite yeasty, which I like. Leonard's fries them all day long, and they are generally busy, so when you order, most likely you are going to get fresh, warm malasadas right out of the oil. Malasadas come rolled in either sugar or cinnamon sugar; malasada puffs are the same, but filled with either custard, haupia (coconut) or dobash (chocolate).
A half-dozen original. They lasted about 5 minutes, tops.
Leonard's Bakery
933 Kapahulu Avenue
Honolulu, HI 96816
http://www.leonardshawaii.com/
Pathetic cell phone pic, but I do love the neon.
Malasadas are a Portuguese fried dough, nicely browned on the outside, and soft, doughy and moist in the center. To me, they are quite yeasty, which I like. Leonard's fries them all day long, and they are generally busy, so when you order, most likely you are going to get fresh, warm malasadas right out of the oil. Malasadas come rolled in either sugar or cinnamon sugar; malasada puffs are the same, but filled with either custard, haupia (coconut) or dobash (chocolate).
A half-dozen original. They lasted about 5 minutes, tops.Leonard's is a must-do for anyone visiting Honolulu, and makes a great stop for dessert after a meal out.
Leonard's also has several trucks that travel around and set up at different locations. We have visited two: one was set up in the parking lot of Hilo Hattie's off of Nimitz Highway, and one in the Macy's parking lot in Kaneohe. Might have even been the same truck, just different dates. The malasadas were cold at the first truck, and piping hot at the second, so how fresh they are can be hit or miss. But they are popular, so you may find yourself waiting up to 20 minutes or so if there is a line at the truck; they only seem to fry three dozen malasadas at a time.
Rating: ONOLICIOUS GRINDZ
Leonard's is located at the corner of Kapahulu Avenue and Charles Street. It is easy to find from Waikiki; just head east on Kalakaua Avenue, then turn left onto Kapahulu Avenue - you will see Kapiolani Park directly ahead of you at the intersection.
Leonard's also has several trucks that travel around and set up at different locations. We have visited two: one was set up in the parking lot of Hilo Hattie's off of Nimitz Highway, and one in the Macy's parking lot in Kaneohe. Might have even been the same truck, just different dates. The malasadas were cold at the first truck, and piping hot at the second, so how fresh they are can be hit or miss. But they are popular, so you may find yourself waiting up to 20 minutes or so if there is a line at the truck; they only seem to fry three dozen malasadas at a time.
Rating: ONOLICIOUS GRINDZ
Leonard's is located at the corner of Kapahulu Avenue and Charles Street. It is easy to find from Waikiki; just head east on Kalakaua Avenue, then turn left onto Kapahulu Avenue - you will see Kapiolani Park directly ahead of you at the intersection.
Leonard's Bakery
933 Kapahulu Avenue
Honolulu, HI 96816
http://www.leonardshawaii.com/
Sunday, March 13, 2011
The Oceanarium - Pacific Beach Hotel, Waikiki
Yesterday we lounged around in bed until we decided to get up because we were hungry. Kristen thought a brunch at one of the hotels would hit the spot, so we decided to try one we had seen online, the Saturday brunch at The Oceanarium Restaurant, located in the Pacific Beach Hotel on Kalakaua Avenue across from Waikiki Beach.
The unique feature of the restaurant is its aquarium, which according to the website, sports "nearly 400 fish from more than 70 different species of marine life." The aquarium is over two stories tall, and is visible from most locations in the restaurant.
We called and made a reservation, and were able to get one, only one hour before arriving, which made us wonder how popular this brunch was. We were able to get a parking spot on the street only one block over, and walked to the hotel.
We were ignored by the two young hostesses at the kiosk to the restaurant, who were looking at something on a computer screen. We were greeted and seated by a host a couple minutes later, who looked up our reservation, then escorted us to our table. The host was gracious enough to hold the chair for Kristen, but that seems to be where the good service ended. When we called to make the reservation, we were told that the tables with the aquarium view had been reserved, but that didn't seem to matter as we still had a decent view. This was nice, as a diver entered the tank while we were eating our meal, and fed the fish. Most spectacular was a large ray, about 6 ft across and almost 10 ft long with tail, that fed from the diver's hand and follower her around, begging for more.
The brunch menu is the same for Saturday and Sunday. In most ways, it seems to be a (slightly) upscale version of your local Chinese buffet restaurant; it definitely had a Japanese inspiration for many of the dishes, which made sense, as the majority of the diners while we were there were Japanese tourists.
There was a salad bar with fresh fruit (Kristen said the pineapple was very fresh and delicious); futomaki and sushi rolls (none with fish); hot dishes (tempura shrimp, eggs benedict, cioppino, various chicken and beef dishes); breakfast foods (sausage, bacon, potatoes, waffles - not made to order); omelet station with the standard ingredients; prime rib (which was rare and actually pretty good, although the au jus was watery and strangely flavored); snow crab legs (with a yellow dipping liquid that was not drawn butter!) and seafood chowder; and a dessert station.
Drinks offered with the brunch are limited to water, coffee or "punch," which was basically red Kool-aid of some flavor.
I plowed through a pile of crab legs (I worked for sometime in a seafood restaurant, so I can open crab legs handily without destroying the meat inside), but legs themselves were over-steamed or boiled, which takes some of the sweetness out of the meat. As previously mentioned, not having drawn butter to dip the meat in detracts from the experience also. An elder Japanese gentleman observed my performance with the crab, and slapped me on the back, declaring "I like the way you put away crab!"
Nothing else on the menu was a real standout or worthy of mention. The "hot" dishes in the chafing dishes were not hot, but a little cool. Some of the dessert cakes were a little dry (one that was actually pretty good, and I had seconds of, was the chocolate macadamia nut cakes - wonderful!) and the pies looked store-bought, not freshly baked.
Our waiter was un-attentive, neglecting to refill drinks, clear plates promptly or deliver clean silverware when needed. Most of the waitstaff looked bored or tired, like they did not want to be there.
One bad thing about the layout of the restaurant is that the buffet is set up at the opposite end of the restaurant from the kitchen, so all through our meal buffet attendants would pass by our table with a shabby cart with fresh trays of food and condiments for the buffet. A little off-putting.
The meal was $26.95 per person, so I don't think we were soaked to bad, but the meal wasn't memorable enough to want to go back, or to take any of our visiting friends there.
Rating: NO ONO.
The Pacific Beach Hotel is located at 2490 Kalakaua Avenue, Honolulu, HI 96815.
The unique feature of the restaurant is its aquarium, which according to the website, sports "nearly 400 fish from more than 70 different species of marine life." The aquarium is over two stories tall, and is visible from most locations in the restaurant.
We called and made a reservation, and were able to get one, only one hour before arriving, which made us wonder how popular this brunch was. We were able to get a parking spot on the street only one block over, and walked to the hotel.
We were ignored by the two young hostesses at the kiosk to the restaurant, who were looking at something on a computer screen. We were greeted and seated by a host a couple minutes later, who looked up our reservation, then escorted us to our table. The host was gracious enough to hold the chair for Kristen, but that seems to be where the good service ended. When we called to make the reservation, we were told that the tables with the aquarium view had been reserved, but that didn't seem to matter as we still had a decent view. This was nice, as a diver entered the tank while we were eating our meal, and fed the fish. Most spectacular was a large ray, about 6 ft across and almost 10 ft long with tail, that fed from the diver's hand and follower her around, begging for more.
The brunch menu is the same for Saturday and Sunday. In most ways, it seems to be a (slightly) upscale version of your local Chinese buffet restaurant; it definitely had a Japanese inspiration for many of the dishes, which made sense, as the majority of the diners while we were there were Japanese tourists.
There was a salad bar with fresh fruit (Kristen said the pineapple was very fresh and delicious); futomaki and sushi rolls (none with fish); hot dishes (tempura shrimp, eggs benedict, cioppino, various chicken and beef dishes); breakfast foods (sausage, bacon, potatoes, waffles - not made to order); omelet station with the standard ingredients; prime rib (which was rare and actually pretty good, although the au jus was watery and strangely flavored); snow crab legs (with a yellow dipping liquid that was not drawn butter!) and seafood chowder; and a dessert station.
Drinks offered with the brunch are limited to water, coffee or "punch," which was basically red Kool-aid of some flavor.
I plowed through a pile of crab legs (I worked for sometime in a seafood restaurant, so I can open crab legs handily without destroying the meat inside), but legs themselves were over-steamed or boiled, which takes some of the sweetness out of the meat. As previously mentioned, not having drawn butter to dip the meat in detracts from the experience also. An elder Japanese gentleman observed my performance with the crab, and slapped me on the back, declaring "I like the way you put away crab!"
Nothing else on the menu was a real standout or worthy of mention. The "hot" dishes in the chafing dishes were not hot, but a little cool. Some of the dessert cakes were a little dry (one that was actually pretty good, and I had seconds of, was the chocolate macadamia nut cakes - wonderful!) and the pies looked store-bought, not freshly baked.
Our waiter was un-attentive, neglecting to refill drinks, clear plates promptly or deliver clean silverware when needed. Most of the waitstaff looked bored or tired, like they did not want to be there.
One bad thing about the layout of the restaurant is that the buffet is set up at the opposite end of the restaurant from the kitchen, so all through our meal buffet attendants would pass by our table with a shabby cart with fresh trays of food and condiments for the buffet. A little off-putting.
The meal was $26.95 per person, so I don't think we were soaked to bad, but the meal wasn't memorable enough to want to go back, or to take any of our visiting friends there.
Rating: NO ONO.
The Pacific Beach Hotel is located at 2490 Kalakaua Avenue, Honolulu, HI 96815.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Hey brah!
This blog will primarily serve as a way for us, a husband and wife stationed on Oahu, Hawaii, to evaluate and share our opinions about places to eat, places to stay, things to see and do on the islands.
Remember, these are only our opinions, so take them for what they are worth.
Remember, these are only our opinions, so take them for what they are worth.
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