Category Archives: Restaurant Reviews

Koa’s Seaside Grill

Koa’s Seaside Grill

Dinner at Koa’s was really insane, in terms of the view.

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We were seated in the corner overlooking that ocean just before sunset. Check out some of these pics I grabbed as the sun was going down throughout our meal:

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The meal itself was pretty good too. We started by sharing a hearts of palm salad. I was somewhat expecting a non-leafy greens salad, and something more along the lines of just hearts of palm, some kind of vinegar dressing with onions and cucumbers and shit. But it was green, as one might expect upon hearing the word “salad.” It was good. It had a nice citrus-based dressing, and all the shit was fresh and bright.

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I had the coconut curry grilled mahi maui. It was a bit is mall, but it tasted really nice, and the fish had a good crisp to the texture. Unfortunately it was a slight bit dry.

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My wife got the winning dish here: kind crab legs and steak.

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The meat was decent – sirloin. I’ve had better. Probably not on par with the aged, prime meats I am used to, but it certainly gained traction with the absolutely delicious king crab legs. Awesome.

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Service here was excellent, and the atmosphere makes all the difference in terms of your dining experience. The host, John offered to take pics of guests near our table since it had the best view in the house. Here my favorite shot that he took of us:

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Cheeseburger in Paradise

Cheeseburger in Paradise

Tourist trap? I don’t care. The food and atmosphere were awesome here. You’re right on the fucking pacific.

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In fact when waves roll in hard sometimes you can get sprayed if you’re at a table on the first floor in the back by the windows. There’s a little tiki bar on the second floor, along with a Jimmy Buffet-esque singer/guitarist playing tunes.

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I ordered the classic cheeseburger as my 4th burger of the trip, which came with pepperjack, lettuce, tomato, onion and special sauce on a salt and pepper bun. Really nice looking burger.

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It was cooked perfectly at medium, super juicy and good cheese coverage. The soft bun added a lot of flavor with the seasoning on top. I devoured this thing!

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Drinks were fun here too. I had a Maui lemonade of some sort, which was gin or rum, lemon, soda, and thyme, if I recall correctly.

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Star Noodle

Star Noodle

Best meal of the trip goes to Star Noodle. This place has been on the radar for a while, and is well-known among haoles as the place to eat near Lahaina.

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Great drinks at the bar, by the way…

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We had a lot of food, so get ready… We started with bacon and egg appetizer, which is very reminiscent of sizzling pork sisig dishes in Filipino cuisine. This shit was so fucking delicious. It had large, quality chunks of thick bacon, onions, tomatoes and a runny egg, served in a hot cast iron skillet.

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We also shared an order of “Lahaina Fried Soup,” which essentially was a dry noodle dish made with super thick chow funn noodles (again, two n’s on the chow fun in Hawaii for some reason).

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The flavors were simple – ground pork and bean sprouts. But we started adding some of the bacon in with the noodles and it was fucking amazing. If I am ever back here, I will order the bacon and egg appetizer and ask them to mix it with the Fried Lahaina Soup.

Next was the Hapa Ramen. Hapa typically refers to a person who is partially asian, so this is meant to be a partially asian or partially Japanese ramen dish?

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Whatever the case, it was excellent. The pork broth was thick and robust, with some black garlic oil mayu on top for punch. It had sweetness from the fish cake slices and bamboo shoots, savoriness from the touch of miso, and fatness from the poached egg. The noodles were cooked just right.

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LuLu’s Lahaina Surf Club & Grill

Lulu’s Lahaina Surf Club & Grill

Since I was bummed about missing out on the “Huli Huli Chicken” in Hana, my wife was googling places that might have it on their menus. She found this joint, and of course I ordered it.

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It was roasted chicken in garlic wine sauce like you might have with steamed clams. I surmised that this couldn’t be right according to pics online.

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The chicken tasted fine, but color of the Huli Huli sauces sold in stores, and the pics of dark-colored chicken online all point to this being NOT the real deal.

My wife tried the ribs here, which were pretty good. They were braised style, fall off the bone. Very tender and juicy.

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The malasadas were legit here, and were filled with a coconut custard cream of sorts. Super soft and flavorful. Malasada’s, incase you need the info again, are Hawaiian doughnuts.

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Overall this place had the feel of a Friday’s or something, but more local to Hawaii. They even had some pool tables and a projection screen n back, so probably much cooler than a place like Fridays.

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L&L Drive Inn

This was a kiosk at the Cannery Mall food court in Maui, Hawaii.

L&L Hawaiian BBQ is a fast food type restaurant that has locations all over the place. There even used to be a location down by NYC’s South Street Seaport, but that has since closed. Anyway, this place has a take on the ramen burger, called the saimin burger, which I tried as burger #3 of the trip.

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It was dry as fuck and hot as fuck, but it was a fun item to try. No cheese, just lettuce and a soy-BBQ type sauce drizzles on. I’d pass on this item unless you really need to try it.

Ba Le

Ba Le – at the Cannery Mall in Maui, Hawaii.

This is fast casual Vietnamese food, which I think needs more of a presence throughout the country. Vietnamese food is generally pretty healthy and fresh, and the staple items like summer rolls, pho and banh mi are so fucking delicious. I already have a concept in mind for a chain that I think would kill… Anyway, we sampled the pho and a classic banh mi. The flavors were spot on, correct to how these items should taste.

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The price for the pho was a little higher than normal, at around $9, but the portion size was big.

Hana Ranch Restaurant

I like to call this meal “Mai Tais, Fries and Flies.” The setting is beautiful. The joint is up on a hill and you can see out over the Pacific from way the fuck up high on the cliff where Hana is situated.

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But the flies are aggressive here. They swarm on your drinks and food. It was nearly unbearable.

I sucked down my mai tai fast to avoid them, and quickly ordered a second drink that I drank just as fast.

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We started with garlic herb fries, nori sesame seed fries and fried calamari. All pretty good, though I wasn’t quite sold on the Japanese style French fries (furikake). The calamari was more tentacle than ring, which I was a little bummed about, but they were at least tasty.

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I had Kalbi short ribs – ribs cut cross-section style, thin, and grilled with Korean BBQ sauce. These were pretty good and tasted just as expected.

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My wife had some sub par, stringy ahi poke (raw tuna with dressing and spices – like a ceviche).

My feeling is that this town is in need of a good bar or another restaurant to foster competition. Something with a bold and brazen use of air conditioning, too. It’s as hot as Dante’s balls after his stroll through Hades up there. Humid as locker room ass crack too. It is beautiful though.

Hasegawa General Store Spam Musubi

We started a day of driving and hiking with the local breakfast of champions from the Hasegawa General Store – spam musubi.

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This was my first time eating spam. Admittedly it was pretty fucking good. It’s served crispy / browned on hot rice with sesame seeds, Japanese seasonings, and wrapped in nori. It tasted like a good sausage mixed with spiced ham to me. I’m sold.

Zippy’s

Zippy’s

My wife and I squeezed in a quick breakfast at Zippy’s before the long and treacherous drive to Hana.

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I had saimin, which is similar to ramen and Chinese soups. It consists of broth, wavy egg noodles, fish cake slices, some pork meat and veggies. The flavor profile was decidedly Chinese but the presentation was Japanese, if that makes sense. I’d say it was a chicken based shio/salt broth, like you’d expect in wanton soup. Pretty good!

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My wife had a breakfast bento box that came with rice, scrambled egg, Portuguese sausage and corned beef hash. Pretty basic. I have to say that the sausage and corned beef here were not as amazing as the sausage at Kula Lodge.

Cow Pig Bun

Cow Pig Bun

What a fucking weird location for a reataurant. I can understand the brewery being there, as this area is an office park or business park. I suppose people hit this joint for lunch while they’re at work nearby.

The place is like something out of Williamsburg Brooklyn. The decor is corrugated metal, reclaimed wood, filament bulb lighting and industrial meat facility chic.

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The food is great. It’s a small menu, essentially a burger joint with fancy apps and lots of different whiskey and bourbon to sample.

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We tried a flight of flavored whiskey – one was just a blend, then coconut, chocolate macadamia nut, and coffee flavored whiskeys followed. Macadamia nut was my favorite. Sweet and strong.

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We also sampled some of their mixology style cocktails. My wife had an awesome tequila and pho broth based drink, called “Cannibalistic,” and I had a pineapple, lime  and Maker’s called “Butcher Town.” Good shit.

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I ordered the bacon jam burger. This was a potent and powerful burger. The blue cheese didn’t overpower the meat, nor did the bacon, but altogether it was super heavy. I liked it, but I could only put down half (I ate the rest a few days later).

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My wife had a poorly worded sandwich that was called banh mi, but was really more like a pulled pork sandwich. It had pork belly, pulled pork and really nice fois gras butter, but none of the pickled veggies, fish sauce or fresh leafy cilantro that you usually associate with the banh mi flavor profile. In short, it was still good, but not banh mi.

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Along with the drinks, I think the best part of this place is the pork rind chicharones that come with each entree instead of French fries. These morsels were real pig skin fried up to warm, golden, crispy goodness. Amazing.