*** Maui Maui Hawaiian BBQ is now Sieu Sieu BBQ. You can find an updated post here.
A few months back I noticed that the little Japanese Restaurant in one of the many strip malls on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard was gone. And a few weeks later, a Hawaiian BBQ restaurant called Maui Maui had taken it’s place.
Yikes, another Hawaiian BBQ? Seems like they’re everywhere nowadays, but this is the first one in this area. So on a recent weekend, I decided to check it out.
I like the interior, very bright and clean. The menu is typical Hawaiian BBQ in nature….BBQ Chicken, BBQ Short Ribs, blah, blah, blah…… a typical L&L knockoff menu, I wish I could get some other plate lunch fare….like Beef Stew, and other stuff, but it looks like these Hawaiian BBQ places all want to serve the exact same food.
Maui Maui does offer Combination Plates, mixing items like Lau Lau, Kalua Pork, and Seafood, with BBQ Beef, Chicken, Short Ribs, or Chicken Katsu.
So I decided to try the Lau Lau and BBQ Chicken combination($7.95):
The plate came with the typical 2 scoops rice, 1 scoop macaroni salad, 1 small piece BBQ chicken thigh, and a Lau Lau. The mac salad was not bad…good ratio of mayo to macaroni, perhaps just a bit short on salt.
The chicken was well marinated in a sauce with a higher soy sauce to sugar ratio, almost like what my Mom made, and thus was more on the salty side. The thigh had good flavor, but was on the dry side.
The Lau Lau was interesting, it was served super piping hot, which was a good start, but the luau leaf wrapping was very mild, and didn’t have the nice smoky-rich-green flavor I enjoy. As I tore the Lau Lau open I made one observation that I expected, and one that I did not….
First off, having had my share of Lau Lau on the mainland, I pretty much knew that there wasn’t going to be any salted fish in the Lau Lau, and expected that. But I quickly noticed that there wasn’t even a piece of fatty pork in the Lau Lau, this really made the Lau Lau fall short in flavor, and made it kind of dry. It was probably the healthiest Lau Lau I’ve ever had, in relative terms of course….. But still, even though I thought this was a bit over-priced, it was not bad.
So you know what that means right? Another visit! One this visit, I decided just to grab a "Mini" Chicken Katsu($4.75), all rice(that means another scoop of rice, to replace the mac salad). I got home and opened the styrofoam container up:
Where’s the Katsu sauce? Oh well, I had a bottle in the frig, and it’s usually much better than the really bad, runny, sweet-sour stuff that most of these Hawaiian BBQ places serve. The Katsu was barely okay, dry, and the breading on the soggy side……
Since my first lunch was decent, not really good, but okay, I thought I’d give Maui Maui one more visit, and get…..what else? A Loco Moco, one of my favorites. I suddenly realized that the last Loco Moco I had was on Maui…….. I ordered a "Mini" Loco Moco($4.95). So check out this "loco" and tell me what’s wrong with it?
Yep, it’s pretty obvious…WHERE’S MY GRAVY? Talk about a gravy malfunction…….sigh! After the Katsu Sauce malfunction on my previous visit, I shoulda known to check my food before I left…. Bummer! The mac salad was also pretty bad on this visit…really runny, and the macaroni was mushy. The patty as I expected was preformed, though the egg was okay….I ate 2 bites, and gave the rest to Da’ Boyz.
Man talk about disappointing. Just in case Maui Maui served some kinda really weird Loco Moco(it would still be heresy!), I checked out the take out menu:
It does say "brown gravy" right? And notice the "salted butterfish" under Lau Lau(it’s "Ti" leaves, not "Tea" leaves, BTW)? Hmmmmm….. I thought about taking it back, but I wasn’t going to drive all the way back to Maui Maui, I tried calling but no one picked up…..
Maui Maui Hawaiian BBQ
7420 Clairemont Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92111