“Big Boy makes you say ohhh boy!!!” Well not really, but that’s their catchy slogan. The first Big Boy started in 1936 by Bob Wian in Glendale California. Today there are over 455 Big Boys Restaurants throughout the United States and Canada. If hamburgers and diners with an unconventional flare humbles you then Bobs Big Boy might be the place to rekindle old memories.

The place is a total diner inside. I like the big overhead lighting and the big windows that let in an ample supply of natural light.

I started out with a small green salad. It came with one slice of tomato and one cucumber slice, the rest was Romain Lettuce. Not to mention, it was the top part of the tomato, so I had to cut around it just to eat it. I substituted the fries that came with my sandwich for this salad.

I ordered the Mushroom Melt, $8.95. It came with portobello mushrooms, peppers and melted swiss cheese all on toasted, sliced bread. Oh, also, it was flavored with a marinara sauce. I was happy with this dish but I think it would of tasted so much better with a different type of bread. This boring white sandwich bread wasn’t doing it for me.

Shane ordered the French Dip, $8.25. It came with lean sliced roast beef on a hoagie bun and served with au jus. All sandwiches came with fries. Shane said it was, “one of the boriest sandwiches he has ever encounterd.” The size of the sandwich was a little disappointing and the taste had no wow factor. It would have made a good snack if made at home but not a meal. I didn’t taste it, but it did look pretty boring.

His sandwich also came with toast. I don’t get it, who wants to eat bread after a sandwich?

Country Fried Steak and Eggs, $9.49. Ray couldn’t have been happier with this dish. I tried it and yes it was awesome. The gravy was perfect and the country fried steak was fried to perfection and the hash browns were golden and crispy. I liked his dish more than mine but refrain from taking too many bites because he liked it so much.

Overall, I hate to say it, but this place was good enough, definitely better than what I expected. As most of you already know, I’m not a fan of diners. To me, they scream cheap, poor quality food for people that don’t know any better or don’t care but this place proved me wrong. Oh, Boy! But just so you know, service sucks.

View Larger Map

Bobs Big Boy
2828 PAA Street
Honolulu, HI 96819
(808) 833-8440

Dim sum here I come. Yeah, I’m sure no one has ever said that before. When it comes to Dim Sum, I consider myself to be pretty darn experienced. Growing up in Pleasanton, California every Sunday our family would drive to San Francisco just to have dim sum. My father would read the Sing Tao Daily the week before in search of what the critics were saying was the newest, flashiest, and most affordable dim sum restaurant in all of San Francisco. Of course they were always in China Town. Thinking about it now I can’t help but miss my family. Golden Place is my first dim sum experience in Hawaii and it brought back fond memories for me.

I say that because like a lot of dim sum places that I went to as a child, from the outside it looks like a standard Chinese restaurant, but you walk in and it’s a little bigger, brighter, and busier than what you’d expect. As soon as we walked in one of the ladies pushing the carts of food stopped everything she was doing and ask, “how many?” We say, “two” and being a small group she points us over to the smallest table at the far corner of the restaurant.

I can’t tell you how aggravating it was to be ignored. Since we were in the corner they would of had to roll out of their usual route to get to us, not hard right. It wasn’t like they couldn’t see us, because the restaurant was a big open rectangular room. They just chose not to see us, probably because we wouldn’t have given them very much business being just two people. The table next to us, of two as well, we’re also getting impatient. Finally after sitting there for about 20 minutes I get up and decide to take it upon myself to get some food. Oh, also, I forgot to mention, that it was our anniversary on this day. August 25th makes it two years since we’ve been together and we’ve been engaged since February. Back to the story, so I go up to an abandoned cart, go through the bamboo trays for something tasty to eat. The lady comes back, I direct her to our table and have her follow me. She’s a total bitch and just stands there instead of showing us what was in the trays, so again I’m like whatever, don’t mind if I do. I get up and start going through all the trays myself showing Ray what was underneath each lid while the lady just stood there next to me. This is what we picked out.

This is sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves flavored with minced meat and sometimes a yolk from an egg. This is one of my favorites at dim sum and very filling.

This is my all time favorite pastry, pineapple bun. I don’t even know why they are called a pineapple bun as there is really no pineapple flavor. Like most pastries they’re best hot. Inside their cavernous walls lies gooey moist egg custard. Here’s some more fun food knowledge for you. I don’t know why, but for some retarded reason they only sell these pineapple buns at dim sum restaurants. Bakeries will sell similar ones, but the inside is usually some kind of dry filling, like coconut or beans and never as good.

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like Pork Hash. It’s the one of the few things every person new to dim sum must try. These were really good.

Here’s some more fun food facts according to yours truly. Pork hashes are always accompanied in the same cart as these shrimp dumplings.

Maybe it’s because they just go so well together. We got two each of the pork hash and shrimp dumplings.

We decided that next time we eat here we’re going to say, “party of five, they’re meeting us here.” That way, we’ll be seated at a much larger table that is along side of their cart route. The bill came out to just over $12.00 for 6 dishes. Not bad for dim sum, but if you didn’t notice, only 3 items each were given per tray but they were a lot bigger than the usual 4 pieces that are given from most dim sum places so we were o.k. with it. There’s also food being sold just as you walk into the restaurant for to go. So if you want to eat but not dine, that would probably be better.

View Larger Map

Golden Palace Seafood.
111 N. King St.
Honolulu, HI
(808) 521-8268

Ray use to boast about this place all the time. He would say, ” Babe, oh my God, when we get to Hawaii I have to take you to this place, they have the best pancakes.” And I was like, “sweet, I can’t wait,” but I was really thinking, “Ohhh, pancakes, big deal.”
We came out here back in April on vacation and that’s when I got to experience it for myself. And I’m here to tell you that, yes, it is a big deal. He told me they had this phenomenal sauce that’s white, creamy and sweet, I thought did you piss off the cook because that’s call “special sauce” and that’s not a good thing. Maybe even coconut syrup, which is good, but it wasn’t and no where near as amazing as this macadamia nut sauce.

The sauce is like, velvet silk and doesn’t tastes as heavy or sweet as regular syrup, that is until you eat pass 2/3 of a full stack. Once you get pass 2/3 you’ll probably crash and burn and then have food coma. I suggest sharing.

We also ordered some french toast with the same sauce on the side. Although the portion size of the sauce looked pathetic, it was plenty.

It came with eggs. One question, are these eggs still considered scrambled? Because scrambled to me is chunks of eggs “scrambled” together. Well scrambled or not, it was good.
Now as for the service, Ray warned me that they had horrible service so I came here mentally prepared. He and Shane use to live on this side of the Island years back and said they were nortorious for having the most ill-mannor servers. They would play favoritism to the locals and basically throw your food at you. However, I’ve been there twice now and although the service wasn’t spectacular, I wouldn’t say it’s horrible. Apparently quite a bit has happened since Ray and Shane use to live there. They’ve been getting rave reviews from places like tripadvisor.com and citysearch.com. Boots & Kimos started moving up in the world, business just kept getting better and better as a result so did service. That’s what I think and I’m sticking to it.

I didn’t take note of any prices, but I’m quite certain that is place is affordable, if not I think I would have remembered. Also, there’s usually always a wait for breakfast. But to get the ball rolling they direct you to wait outside, hand you menus and then take your order, outside. When you are seated, your food is promptly brought to you. You must get their pancakes if you come here, it’s they’re specialty and would be a complete waste if you came all this way and didn’t even give it a try.

View Larger Map

Boots & Kimos
131 Heikili St.
Kailua, HI 96734
(808) 263-7929