Before our last trip "back home", the Missus gave me some "guidelines" and places She wanted to check out. It was kinda strange because some of the places were major tourist spots. But in retrospect, it ended up being fun, because when I lived in Honolulu, we would never go to these places unless we had visitors. But heck, having left the islands a quarter of a century ago, I'm just a tourist these days too right?
One of the places was Dole Plantation. Yeeesh, the last time I was here was with the Missus, back in the late 90's. For me, "Dole" is the cannery in Kalihi, but this ended up being a nice drive to Wahiawa.
For me this was mostly a bunch of shops and stuff.
Coming from the grandson of immigrants who worked for Maui Pine; this seemed more about selling stuff than telling the story of those who worked. After all, my first job was picking pineapple over the summer.
I did enjoy seeing who was "really" in charge.
For those that don't know. You don't mess with the chickens here. There's a real "pecking order" (sorry, couldn't help it) in place. Even the cats know…..
The Missus did enjoy shopping here.
And She ended up buying a really cute bag.
Dole Plantation
64-1550 Kamehameha Hwy.
Wahiawa, HI 96786
In some ways, I really enjoyed driving here. In a previous life I did frozen food delivery. Being the low man on the "totem pole", my route was places like Whitmore Village. Heck, I used to deliver to the Iroquois Point Naval Exchange in Ewa Beach! This is why I always picture "that" Ewa Beach when we're there visiting my In-Laws!
There was a place I had been wanting to check out near the North Shore. After a short discussion, the Missus and I decided to head on up to Waialua to get some poke at Waialua General Store. From what I recall the town was home to a major sugar mill back in the day.
The little shop in a strip mall, before you get to the "North Shore" kind of stuffs is quite low key. They do a lot of Filipino BBQ and such, but I just wanted some poke.
I could not believe the prices! The woman was so friendly! We got a "bowl" with the Hawaiian Style (aka Limu) and the Secret Spicy Poke. We were kind of hungry and were told to just head over to where the owner's husband was grilling things to sit and eat.
We walked over and the gentleman doing the grilling told us to have a seat. There were several "old timers" (like me) there and I had a blast "talking story" with them.
As for the food; the Missus also got Seaweed Salad, can't tell you about that 'cause I don't like it, and pickled mango which was quite good.
As for the poke, the quality of the fish was decent, wish there was more limu in the Hawaiian style, the secret to the "spicy" was kimchi, but this was still better than what I get here in San Diego. The Missus was hoping for a brown rice option, but c'mon, really?
This was quite good!
I was having a great time chatting with the "old timers"; about how things have changed, what it's like living in SoCal and then coming back home. And then it happened. The gentleman grilling pulled off two skewers and told us; "here this is for you"! For real? My first thought was to turn him down, after all you want them to make some money or offer to pay….but you just don't do that here, that would be an insult. It was such a beautiful gesture.
The glaze had a nice sweet-salty-sour balance. Nice porkiness, fairly tender meat, it was quite good. The folks here were so friendly….like very old school style. We loved it. In the end I took a spare Hamilton and went into the shop and put it into the tip jar. The woman told me "eh, no need", but I said "no, I need".
This kind gesture made our day; the food was good, I loved the "small town vibe", if you want true Aloha Spirit here it was, or more precisely "lokomaika'i", to be generous, which is what the folks here were. It just puts you in the right frame of mind.
Waialua General Store
67-272 Goodale Ave.
Waialua, HI 96791
It was a wonderful day.
Dinner was, of course Jiaozi!
And after dinner we strolled on over to the beachfront in Ewa Beach.
It was a beautiful evening…..
And for a moment, all seemed right in the world!
Thanks for stopping by!
Let's take a look at that chicken. It's a huge piece but does it look "crispy" to you? Also, it was fairly tender, but quite dry for confit, making it somewhat bland; the supposed nuoc cham edged to the sweeter side of the scale. The fried garlic was fine; but the garlic rice was super hard and dry. It was like trying to eat barely cooked rice. Now come on, how can you mess up rice?
Again the greens and tomato was outstanding. But take a look at that rice, it's the same as the "confit chicken" and the photo shows more clearly how hard and dry it was. Speaking of dry; you can add the ahi belly as well. It was dry, lacking in that rich, fatty, texture. It was also strangely fishy in flavor; the Missus had one bite and was done.
We checked in and waited until we were walked over to our seats. The restaurant has sushi bar only seating. I counted a total of 15 seats for our dinner.
As you can tell by that photo, hairy crab was going to be in the first dish, which ended up being a wonderful savory chawan mushi.
These were those jumbo sized wings; the batter was really thick and more hard-crunchy than crispy. The seasoning was a good amount of salt and black pepper. The wings were moist, especially the flats, and looked to be of good quality. As whole, just way too much batter for me, but decent wings. It threw the entire proportion off and I really needed that cabbage with dressing and the mul kimchi, which hovered on the sweeter side of things to reset my palate.
The batter for this seemed a bit different; it was thinner, more lacquered, but still on the crunchy end of the spectrum. The menu says "aromatic and slightly spicy", I'd go with barely spicy and teeth rattling sweet and sticky. The wings were, as before moist and tender, but this was too much for me. I ended up needing the cabbage a mul kimchi to recover! Also, I had to request extra napkins, because of that sticky sauce. Perhaps they'll stock some wipes in the future?
My goodness; this consisted of six slices of akami maguro! Fresh, nice texture, no off flavors, refreshing. The young lady asked me if I wanted some wasabi and grated ginger and I answered with an affirmative. This just added another layer of enjoyment. The maguro was seared nicely; the fried onions adding a nice sweet-pungent-crispness; there could have been more ponzu, but this was quite good.
I also loved that the wing tips were attached; I just love gnawing on them, even though the sticky-sweet sauce got all over my hands. The batter was on the crunchy side, almost lacquered, and it held up for the entre meal. The meat was moist, had no off colors or flavors. The sauce was a bit too sweet for my taste though, but still, well worth the price.
The tacos were served on blue corn tortillas, that were very dry, tough, and really didn't add anything to the dish. Likewise the sweet chili sauce provided. 
thru nicely. I believe the the version from Soup du Jour (funny, I thought I did a post on the place, but I guess not?) is better both in texture and flavor.
This is what I unpacked at home. There was also two small containers, one with extra "shoyu", with very little shoyu flavor for that version of poke, I ended up not using it as it would have watered down the flavor even more. And the second, when I first looked at it, I asked myself "what the heck is Mul Kimchi doing here? This ain't a KFC place". Then I opened it and the fragrance hit me. I cracked up; it was haupia! A nice little touch.
The fish was decently, not overly coated, the quality, while not as good as HFS was fine. Not too salty, a decent version of Shoyu Poke.
