The day after returning to the Ewa side, the Missus wanted to do more stuff. She also wanted to restock on the Li Hing Mango from the Crack Seed Store. After thinking a bit, I came up with another easy hike walk in an area the Missus wasn't too familiar with. Another place I hadn't been to in decades; Manoa Falls. So, I drove on up H-1, got out on University and drove into the valley. Man, how long since I'd been here? There was a point in time when I used to go to the long defunct Contemporary Cafe to listen to the Guitar Monster do his thing. Another long story that perhaps I'll get to one day.
Anyway, the drive to the parking lot brought back major memories. Here's one for the old timers; remember Paradise Park; all the birds, the duck show, the maze? I know it closed in 1994, it kinda looks haunted now! I also recall scenes from Lost were filmed here as well. Anyway, all those memories came back as I parked the car in the lot that used to be for Paradise Park ($7). And of course, I instantly saw the parking lot "manager" walking over!
I guess my "papers" must have been in order were allowed to pass. And we headed off to the trailhead. But not before seeing this….
Yes, that young lady had a cat on a leash! She was heading off the trail, so I'm guessing the two of them went hiking ?!?!? You never know what you'll see…..
Once past the shipping container entrance; the trail was quite lush, cool, and even though we ran into folks along the way, quite peaceful.
It's a super easy hike to the falls; which was just a trickle on this visit.
I could tell the Missus was a bit underwhelmed by this hike, but I enjoyed it.
After our hike, we headed on over to the crack seed shop. We did make one stop in Manoa with the intent of having what we got there for lunch, but we ended up keeping it in the cooler and having it with dinner. More on that in a future post.
Getting to Kaimuki, parking was hard to come by on this day. I ended up finding a spot in the lot between 11th and 12th avenue and we walked on up to the Crack Seed Store. Mission accomplished, we walked back to the car. Just as we were about to leave I noticed a place I had read about several yards away.
You know, I've been quite sad since my go-to Ono Hawaiian Food closed. I had also been wanting to get some lau lau and I found out the Missus was craving it as well. So, here was our opportunity.
The restaurant is fairly small; like a single hallway. They were somewhat busy, but we had no problem finding a table.
There seemed to be only two women working; one doing the front of house, the other cooking.
We got some lau lau ($16) and an a la carte Tripe Stew ($15).
The Missus enjoyed the poi, it was nice and thick but not too sour. The lomi salmon was interesting; the Missus liked it, but I think it's because it was mostly tomatoes, there was hardly any salmon in this.
As for the lau lau, well there was a good amount of smoky-chlorophyllic-savory luau leaf. The pork was on the dryer side, but not bad. Overall pretty good and much better than what we can get here in San Diego. The Missus enjoyed the haupia.
As for the Tripe Stew.
There was a nice offal-ly funkiness, good acidity, the tripe was a bit on the chewy side, but the savory tones did well.
This was a nice local meal; which is something we were looking forward to.
Oahu Grill
1137 11th Ave.
Honolulu, HI 96816
After lunch we took a stroll down Waialae. It was interesting to see the new businesses and yet it was finding the places that had been there since "small kid" time that brought a smile to my face.
And Jade Building is still the tallest in the area.
There's a part of me that will always be from Kaimuki…….
Thanks for stopping by!
Not sure why a place of this caliber would be serving surimi in one of their dishes. But whatever. We enjoyed the crisp "scorza", but the filling was too sour and salty. We really couldn't make out much. So, I guess having fake crab in this really didn't matter, eh?
The exterior was nice and crisp, but the calamari was super tough, the glaze salty which over-powered the entire dish.
The A-5 Wagyu was fine, if a bit overcooked, quite beefy in flavor. And you know me, if there's foie gras on the menu…… The foie gras was also a bit overcooked, but at least it wasn't what we call "dog food". It was pleasantly livery and sweet. I'm thinking it could have been elevated even higher with a nice glaze.
As we figured, this wasn't an aguachile in conventional terms. It wasn't overly acidic, but quite mellow. Though I will say the seafood, especially the bay scallops were sweet and tender, so were the shrimp. Both of which weren't over-cooked and tough. The sweet and ripe avocado and the briny cucumber added another layer. But what clinched it all was the nicely toasted and salted sour dough, which was the perfect foil for the dish. Yes, it's not a conventional version of the dish, but we enjoyed it. We both wished that the octopus had that nicely toasted sour dough with it as well.
The highlight of the dish for us was the pillowy and warm pita. After that, well, everything was way too sour. Man, that chicken might have been ok, but the puckery-tartness overwhelmed things. Same with the green salad. Yikes, the sharp sourness just took over. Kind of a bummer.
Like before, the bowl was delivered with a huge portion of iceberg lettuce. The soup on the side looked like a bowl of water which had some slices of green onion fall into it. It was very salty and other than a hint of white pepper really lacked flavor.
First off; I quickly determined that the simple squirt of sate sauce over the beef was all that was provided. There was nothing at the bottom of the bowl of the bowl. This meant that it was difficult, nay impossible to coat the noodles and even all the lettuce evenly. The basil was nice and fresh; but still attached to the thick and basically inedible thick stems. Now, I can imagine having this on the side and then one would tear off the leaves as necessary. Heck, even at the top of the bowl like this is ok; but having that all to precious sauce squirted on it. The customer would have to reach in and tear off the leaves and get sauce on your hands?
Because of the lack of sauce; I ended up dumping the whole bowl of "soup" into the bowl to moisten the noodles; which kind of defeats the purpose of getting this with soup on the side? The noodles were decently cooked, nice and al dente, and the beef fairly tender, but the lack of the flavor producing items in the dish was it's downfall. 
Which arrived to my table steaming hot. The soup had a bit more savory tones this time around, but was again, other than being a bit heavy in msg was fairly plain. The noodles were on the crunchier side overall, but not bad. The char siu was lean, tough, and though it had some decent porky tones, lacking in the sweet-salty-savory profile of said pork dish.
From the funky, savory salted crab, to the deeply fermented savory tones, to the pretty hot chilies, this was very spicy and refreshing. Even better than versions we've had here in San Diego! To make things even more fun, this was served with pork rinds!
Which turned out to be true…at least for me. Man, look at all that pork! The pork was nicely seasoned; though, at least for me, I'm all about proportion and balance of flavor and frankly, this was just too much pork, and where's the jamon? And the bread was just not up to the task as it got really mushy plus all of the pork muted the pickles. And was there even mustard on this….I do like a good counter-point to the rich pork. Still, if you want a very porky sandwich, here it is….. It's just not the kind of Cubano I enjoy.
This was much better than what we'd had here during our previous visit. Though still a bit short in the sour sausage department, the rice had a good ratio of crisp to regular rice. Each bite had a nice variation of textures. We could even make out a hint of coconut, though it was still quite mild in terms of spice.
Though it looked over-baked, the exterior wasn't flakey and crisp. The interior was on the doughy-bready-chewy side and the croissant, in my opinion really lacked butteriness. This was mediocre at best and was the same as what I'd had before from their stand. Well, at least they're consistent, right?
But the Missus cut into it and took a bite and made a face. She made me have a taste. The crust was doughy, gummy, and lacking in crispness. It was on the thick side. The filling was too sweet for my taste as well.
It was soft and doughy, lacking in that flaky-crispness that I enjoy. I'm not sure why they call this a "Butter Croissant" as sorely needed more butter flavor. The interior was a bit too "moist" for my taste as well. 
