Mikawon is somewhat hidden in the walls of Waikiki. Ray suggested this place which was a surprise since he’s never really suggests Korean. Of course I had to jump on the opportunity.

When we walked in I couldn’t help but it feel a sense of deja vu. Have I been here before? In a dream? A past life? Ah, oh well, lets eat.

We noticed on the way in a picture of a lunch special for $9.00 in the window. It looked like a decent amount of food at a fair price so we decided to give to a shot. Basically, you get BBQ beef, chicken, a dumpling, an egg patty and four sides along with rice. Yeah, I thought it was a nice deal too and as you can see from the picture it was a good amount too.

For my sides I picked tofu, kim chee, seaweed, and glass noodles, all of it came cold. I picked the sides and waited a bit for them to cook the meat in the back. The tofu was solid and tasty, the kim chee was a tad too salty, the seaweed was too seaweedy, if that makes sense, and the glass noodles were really good. The meat was like Yummies good. I liked it but that was the extent of it. There was no love involved.

These noodles were the bomb. It was the only side that we really like and of course it had to be the skimpiest. This is a close up of it and I think we were able to get a bite out of it each. It had a subtle sweet and peppery flavor. Ray was like, how come you didn’t get more of this and less of the other stuff.

The place is covered with drawings and pictures from visitors from all over. Here’s one I found that I wanted to share.

I had to take this one for Ray, since he’s Mexican. I just had to translate it for him since he doesn’t speak or read it.

Anyhow, a few days later I was going through some of my photos and what do I see, a picture of me and my friend Cammie here. We were on vacation in 2005. Haha, I knew I had been here before.

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Mikawon Korean Restaurant
2345 Kuhio Ave
Honolulu, HI 96815

Get Directions(808) 924-3277

Alright, I’ve been holding off on writing this post long enough. If you’ve been a good little fan and reading all my post then you’ll remember when I said Metis, or Rainy Day Cafe is the best internet cafe on this island in one of my previous post on Morning Brew. Metis just recently changed its name to Rainy Day Cafe. I personally thought the name Metis was more fitting. The manager was hired to give the place a nice douche job. Although the cafe was nice before I do notice a few subtle changes that really enliven the place.

As you can see, this cafe is pretty spacious. Unlike a lot of internet cafes around the island, there’s plenty of space. There’s seating at the counter, couches, and at the tables. Like a good internet cafe, they have computers for your using pleasure, not that kinda of pleasure you sick, sick man, for a small fee of course. Now, if you already have a laptop, sweet, because if your a computer whore like me and can easily spend countless hours with your laptop, then you’ll appreciate all the power outlets they provide. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to an internet cafe and been forced to leave only because my computer ran out of power. If your hungry they have a small selection of food and if you want something sweet they have a nice array of pastries and tarts to choose from, all which look very tempting. Also, the restrooms always looks clean and inviting, which is a nice bonus, as we all know coffee is a laxative. Every time I go into the restroom to do my thing, I regret not taking my fully charged laptop with me. I swear I can hear the toilet say, “come in old friend, my how I missed that sweet ass of yours. Come sit on my face.” And I respond, “don’t mind if I do.” I think a bidet would look quite nice in here. Anyhow, internet isn’t free. I know I mentioned many times that all business should give free internet but if your a noncorporate internet coffee shop, then I guess it’s okay. The fee is $3.00 per user but Ray, Shane and I like to all go in and pay for only one user and pass the access code around. There’s been days where we are the only ones in there and still we pay for only one user fee. I know they’re not stupid and have to know but they probably just don’t care or know that we are just loyal customers and would rather spend the money we save on food. Here’s what we bought.

This Bagel Sandwich, $4.95. Yes only $4.95. There’s not a lot of places that have food for under five bucks so even if you don’t have any desire to use a computer and you just want to to grab a quick bite that’s cool too.

This bagel sandwich comes with fresh romain lettuce, cheese, tomato, cucumber and a creamy pesto sauce. Everything works in conjunction really well. The creamy pesto gives it a nice gourmet touch while the cucumbers really balance out the strong natural flavors of the salami.

Next we have the New York Lox Bagel, $6.50. The last lox bagel I had was at Bogarts and apparently if I go back there one of the workers will jizz in my food. She’s a female so I’m assuming in order to do this she would have to squat over my food. Either way, no thanks, besides the one at Rainy Day Cafe is cheaper. Like all Lox Bagels it comes with cream cheese, slices of thinly sliced onions, tomato, smoked salmon and capers. Ray and I ordered this before and we’re ordering it again because it was just that good.

Did I mention that they have pastries. I notice that they pastry selection changes from time to time, which is good because that means we’re always going to get something fresh. On this day they had a huge array of baklava. I’m not Jewish, or Russian and maybe that’s why I’m not really crazy about baklava, but it just looked so pretty that I had to get one.

I got one and it came in this over sized container.

Side view of my baklava.

Top view of my baklava. It was a really small piece and cost my somewhere around a buck fifty. This one had pistachios and like all baklava’s, was soaked in honey. I’m glad I didn’t get two because one is usually all I can eat. I like sweet, but baklava’s are too sweet for my liking. Lets me on.

On a separate occasion I had cake. The chocolate cake was moist and spongy and the cream was the soft whipped kind. I’m sorry but I don’t remember how much this cost me, I’m guessing around $3.50, but I do know that it was worth every penny.

There you have it folks. This place is by far the best internet cafe on the island. Lets face it when it comes to internet cafes, it’s all about the ambiance. This place makes for a nice work space. It’s a little hidden right outside the mall which is probably why it’s not always ridiculously busy.

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Rainy Day Cafe
1601 Kapiolani Blvd # 150
Honolulu, HI 96814

(808) 945-9944

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