After our usual morning swim, we cruised the streets of Kailua for some serious grub. I’m not picky, my rule of thumb is as long as I’ve never been before, I’m down for the cause, the hunger cause that is. None of us really had much of an opinion, so after no debate we ended up at New Chinese Garden Restaurant.

I wouldn’t expect anything less than red and golden colors at a Chinese restaurant.

Ray likes noodles so when I saw Shanghai Noodles, a noodle dish that I wasn’t familiar with I had no choice but to find out. First I asked the waitress what the Shanghai noodles were like. There was an obvious language barrier there so she held out her pen and said, “big, big.” Alright, I’m assuming that Shanghai noodles are round and as thick as her pen. Sweet, sounds good, we’ll take one of those. It cost $5.75 and came with cabbage, fungus, and really small pieces of pork. We didn’t realize it came with meat until halfway through the plate since the pork pieces were so small. We weren’t expecting any meat so I guess some is better than none. The noodles were a little mushy and it just tasted like everything was slapped together, microwaved, and brought out for our consumption and their profit.

I picked Combination Seafood with Mixed Vegetables on a Sizzling Platter, $8.50. Again, this dish was yet another disappointment. It didn’t taste old, but rather like it was made with no effort or care whatsoever. I mean, really, does this look like a sizzling platter to anyone? No sizzle at all. It was extremely dry for a Chinese dish, no gravy to be found, not even when we cleared the plate was there gravy.

Of course Chinese food just wouldn’t be the same without steamed white rice, .90 cents. These days Ray and I manage to share one bowl.

Overall I was not impressed with this place. Needless to say, I’m not coming back. Now, I don’t want to give off the impression that I had a horrible experience here. I was just disappointed. There’s far too many better places I have been and still yet to go.

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New Chinese Garden Restaurant
426 Uluniu Street
Kailua, HI
(808) 261-9345

Internet and cafe, they’re just so perfect together, it had to be destiny. I think all cafe shops should offer free internet. Shane, Ray and I are all internet whores. There’s this cafe we go to called Metis and so far it’s the best internet cafe on the island. We’re totally open to trying other cafes, as long as there’s internet available. One day Ray and I grabbed our laptops and went out in search of new internet cafe. Where did we end up? Morning Brew in Kailua.

Ray ordered his usual cafe mokka, for $3.30. I couldn’t decide so of course I follow my infamous words of wisdom, “when in doubt order sugar,” and that’s exactly what I did. I ordered some brownie carmel thing. It was beautiful and would have made a decadent treat if Ray had shared with me. One thing about me is that not only do I love to eat and try other peoples food, but I also love to share my food. Hey sharing is caring and I fucking “Kea.” So when people don’t eat or even try my food, I get offended and butt hurt, like, “who the fuck do you think you are, think your better than me, better than my brownie, too good for your own good. Can’t even take a bite. Fuck you and your shitty cafe mocha. That thing probably has more calories and fat than my brownie anyway. Donkey dick,” At least that’s what I telepathically said to him, I think the message got lost somewhere in translation. My point is the brownie was too much, just over the top. After eating it all I felt like a fresh bag of shit.

Also there’s a full menu with prices that your wallet will be happy with, like a hummus bagel $3.25, organic large curry chicken salad $6.75 and Nachos $5.85.

Internet, cafe, and sugary goodness, together at last.

Mac for life baby. If only I had bought some stock in it a decade ago.

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Morning Brew
600Kailua Road
Kailua, HI 96734

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.

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