I’m sure some of you have been to Ono Hawaiian Food so maybe one of you guys could tell me what the hell is really going on here. I mean every time I drive by during peak hours there’s this ridiculous line out the door. My sister came down from Los Angeles not too long ago so when she said she wanted some authentic Hawaiian food I was like, “sweet I know the perfect place, ” so I think. The food has got to be pretty freaking spectacular if people are willing to wait in line out in the rain like it was the morning of black Friday or something.

We got there just before closing and the people that came a few minutes after us were denied entrance enough though the neon sign said open. As you can see from inside the place looks like a small hole in the wall. I felt like I walked right into someones scrapbook. The walls were covered with clutters of pictures, memories, old newspaper clippings, and random scraps that was obviously pieces of someones life but meant diddle lei squat to me.

Service was below average. There’s Hawaiian service with aloha spirit and then there’s island service with an attitude. This was closer to island service. My sister, being a tourist and extremely picky, kept asking questions that are stupid to us but typical for tourist. “What is haupia? What’s laulau? What’s poi? How is it cooked? Do you guys use a lot of oil? Can you steam it?” I just kept telling myself that she’s your sister and a tourist, they don’t know any better but I could tell our waiter’s patience was wearing thin. Finally we decided upon the Combination Plate. Since it was a combo of a few of their signature items and the most expensive item on the menu, $14.75, I was certain that it would be a kick ass meal. The combination plate came with kalua pig and laulau, pipikaula, lomi salmon, haupia and rice.

Looks like a pile of shit.

This is your asshole . . .

This is your asshole on drugs . . . it blows up. Any questions? I think laulau would have been much more effective then that stupid egg commercial they played year after year. Watching them fry it only made me hungry for a loco moco. Now kids don’t judge a book by its cover. Although the laulau here may look like someones asshole on drugs, it tastes real good. So go ahead and toss that salad. I did and I loved it. No really, this was probably the best thing in the combo plate. The meat was really tender with just enough fat for flavor. I think every tourist that comes here should get their hands on some real laulau before they leave so they know what they’re missing out on back in the mainland.

This is the Lomi Salmon. If this dish looks small to you it’s because it is. All the food came in these small sauce dishes. The sad thing is the picture makes it look bigger than it really is. I took a close up so you guys can see what the food actually looks like. Maybe I just didn’t know how to eat it because It seemed like I was just eating salsa. It was bits of salmon and tons of tomatoes.

This is the Kalua Pig. Like the laulau it was tender, moist, and just overall really good. It wasn’t too salty or too greasy.

Along with our meal came some hot sauce. It was brought in the same sauce dishes as everything else so you guys have an idea of how small everything was.

This is the Pipikaula and no I didn’t eat any of it before I took a picture. It only came with two pieces of meat. Pipikaula can mean anything from cold beef jerky to slow smoked ribs. In this case it was cold beef jerky. And that’s exactly what it tasted like, cold jerky or left over scraps of someones food from two weeks ago left in a to go box in the back of a refrigerator for stupid tourists. It was weird to eat beef jerky for dinner, but fuck it. All I’m saying is next time I get invited to a pot luck my ass is bringing a bag of beef jerky. “What, you guys don’t know about beef jerky for dinner, man you guys gotta get out more. Hawaiians do it all the time, it’s tradition.”

And this is sliced onions. I’m not trying to be ignorant but I am clueless. The more I looked at my dinner the more it seemed like left over scraps. Onions for dinner? I don’t get it. Am I suppose to eat it with the laulau? Put hot sauce over it and eat it with the beef jerky? Or maybe, just maybe it’s plan B for a really bad date. “Oh sorry, I would love to kiss you but I just had a dish of raw onions but thanks for dinner and don’t call me I’ll call you.” That has to be it.

And the last of the Combination Plate was the haupia. It was mushy. I’ve had better.

Along with our Combination Plate Selena ordered a side of Kim Chee, $1.80. It was good. I love homemade kim chee.

Selena also ordered a side of Plain Butterfish (Boiled), $5.25. This was the biggest disappointment for my sister. She kept going on and on about how this tasted exactly like moms fish and how mom would go to the grocery store buy a whole fish and make it exactly like this and it cost less than $5.00 and have enough for two days. I have to agree, $5.25 for a few pieces of cheap fish is absurd to me. The fish was good but I will probably never order this again and my mom makes it so much better.

Like I said, I just don’t get it. This place was on my list of places that I had to try just because of the crazy lines that formed out the door. It’s sad but it seems as though every time I go to one of these long ass lines out the door places I end up being hugely disappointed. This place was no different.

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Ono Hawaiian Food
726 Kapahulu Ave
Honolulu, HI
(808) 737-2275

“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.

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

Ray’s been tired of hearing me bitch about not eating enough Vietnamese so today he took me to Pho Pearl so I could get my pho fix. The truth of the matter is, since I’ve moved away from my parents my pho consumption has reached an all time low. I’m ashamed to admit it and my mother says it’s because I have no honor. My mom, she blames everything on honor. I try to explain, “no mom, I have honor, it’s money, I have no money.”

Here’s what it looks like on the inside.

We started off with these Summer Rolls, $4.25. These tasted really fresh, like you knew for certain they were just made and brought right to the table to be consumed. I made a request to have one shrimp roll and one pork roll to switch it up a bit. It wasn’t a problem and ended up being a really good call. Both were equally as scrumptious. Oh, also, the peanut sauce here is up there as one of the best peanut sauces I’ve ever tasted, truly.

I came here for pho so I made it a point not to go over the menu too much. I didn’t want to be deterred. What I love about pho is that it always comes in this ginormous bowl. One bowl is always enough for two. I got the Pho @ Beef Meatball, $6.95. Pho is generally topped with finely chopped white and green onions for optimal flavor.

Also, no pho would ever be able to live up to it’s full potential if it was not accommodated with all the fixings. A dish of limes, in this case lemons, but limes make it so much better. It’s like having a corona with a lime or lemon? Lime just adds better flavor than lemon. Anyhow, like I was saying, a dish of lemons, bean sprouts, slices up raw jalapenos, basil, and mint made a suitable pho partner in crime.

Crispy Fried Egg Noodle with Seafood, $8.50. The flavor of this dish was a winner. I thought it was slightly too salty but I’m weird and sensitive to sodium, but like I said, it was extremely tasty. Ray goes, “the sauce on this is so good I actually want to eat my vegetables.” As for the noodles, they were under-fried. Crispy noodles were a specialty at my family restaurant so I know one key to making a good crispy noodle is the crisp part. The noodles were just fried but not enough, so it tasted a little stale or Styrofoamy. Just a couple more minutes in the deep fryer would have completely transformed this dish.

Anyhow, when we got here, the host/waitress/chef/busser; basically there was one lady there and she was a one woman army, since her husband had just stepped out for a few minutes. She was overly apologetic and would apologize for everything. She apologized for us waiting to be sat, she apologized for her husband being gone, for us waiting for food, for anything she could do to make it better, for her husband being gone again, for how the food turned out, for bringing us the bill. Also, when she did bring us the bill, she was so sorry that she gave us a 10% discount. The point is she apologized for everything that went right. Isn’t it the basic procedure to wait to be sat, order, wait, eat and pay when you go out to eat? The only thing that was out of the norm was her passive attitude. As a matter of fact, we waited less than a minute to be sat, and wait time for the food was about 10 minutes. Normal right? Whatever I wasn’t going to fight the discount. Sure, I’ll take 10% off. I’ll take it as payment of all the unnecessary times I had to say, “it’s o.k,” or “everything’s fine.” All I’m saying is, next time, I go there and I see her husband, I’m expecting the royal celebrity treatment. I want a red carpet, candles, fireworks, the whole shabang.

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Pho Pearl Vietnamese Bistro
804 Kapahulu Ave.
Honolulu, HI 96816