Category: Restaurants (Page 49 of 53)

We went down to LA Friday night to visit my family and drop off our daughter for the week. On the way we stopped at a couple of roadside restaurans. We ate mostly at home (an asado, some milanesas) but we did have one lunch out at Thai West, our favorite Thai restaurant in that area. Reviews for all these places are now online.
Buckhorn Family Restaurant at Santa Nella, located at the TravelCenter center gave us bland food, fries fried in old oil but friendly service.
Pea Soup Andersen’s, this roadside institution in Santa Nella also features bland food but at higher prices
Thai West a neighborhood Thai restaurant in Chatsworth has consistently good food at modest prices

We went Halloween costume shopping at K-mart today and on the way there I noticed Best Burger in the shopping mall across the street. We hadn’t been there before so I mentioned to Mike that we should try it sometime. He figured there was no time like the present so we decided to go there for dinner.
Best Burger occupies a corner in an outdoor mall. It’s a clean, light, but otherwise non-descript restaurant with wooden booths and tables and chairs. Orders are taken at the counter, you are given a number which they call when the food is ready. In addition to burgers (single, double, junior, bacon) they serve hot dogs and a variety of other sandwiches (fish, chicken, linguica, pastrami, etc. – $2-5.25). We found the food to be a bit pricier than at Nation’s and not as good.
Mike ordered a cheeseburger ($3.75) which he proclaimed to be “fine”. It wasn’t as juicy as Nation’s and he wasn’t crazy for the shredded lettuce. The other toppings were pretty scant. It seemed to have a thousand islands type sauce and it reminded me of a Big Mac.
I had the New York Steak sandwich ($5.25) and it wasn’t bad but not great. The steak was tender enough and cooked medium-rare as we ordered, but it wasn’t very flavorful. It came in a supermarket-type sandwich bun, with sad looking shredded iceberg, tomato, thin rings of red onion and pickles. The sandwich was a bit small, but I was quite full by the time I finished it. I’d eat it again, but wouldn’t go out of my way to get it.
We ordered fries ($1.75) which were OK though a little on the soggy side and onion rings ($2.75) which were overdone but otherwise fairly good.
We ordered a grilled cheese sandwich ($2) for Mika which was made with American cheese and tasted accordingly. She didn’t have any. Her vanilla milk shake ($2 for a small) was also disappointing, it tasted very artificial.
In all, we found the food adequate for a quick stop when you’re hungry and in the neighborhood but not worth your while going out of your way to get it.
Best Burger
14393 Washington Ave. #J
San Leandro, CA
510-357-0808

Nalu’s Bar & Grill is the poolside restaurant of the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort, where we stayed during our foray in the Kohala coast. It has a very convenient location, right next to the pool, but it also offers a great view of the beach at sunset. The menu offers a small variety of sandwiches (priced in the low teens) as well as a few salads and appetizers (most under $10). They have a full bar specializing in mixed drinks (about $7) and a children’s menu is also available (most dishes about $5-6). We had lunch there twice and drinks a couple of times.
The quesadilla appetizer served with a side of sweet sour cream and homemade guacamole was quite good, it was served on a bed of mixed greens. I rather enjoyed it, though it was a relatively small portion (what can you expect for about $8). The BBQ pulled pork sandwich was fine, though the shredded pork tasted exactly like that sold by Lloyd’s in tubs at the supermarket. I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if that was their source. Given the price (about $12, I think) we expected more. The fries were OK. I liked their blue cheese hamburger better, it was well made, the blue cheese was nicely melted and it was served in an actual hamburger bun. I’d order it again.
The children’s meals came very appropriately in a plastic bucket with a small shovel – great for children to play at the sand pool or the beach. Mika had the peanut butter & jelly sandwich once, which was very large (great for her, as she could avoid eating the crust) and came with very cute happy face fries (they were yummy too), and the chicken tenders another time, which came with regular fries, and were OK. Unfortunately, as it’s often the case, they didn’t have any real healthy alternatives in the kid’s menus.
In all, we liked Nalu’s, the food was surprisingly good for its captive audience.
Nalu’s Bar & Grill
Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort
69-275 Waikoloa Beach Drive
Waikoloa
Hawaii’s Big Island, Hawaii
11 AM to sunset

The Grand Palace Chinese Restaurant is one of five restaurants at the King’s Shop – having tried two others, it was a logical choice. It wasn’t a particularly good one, however.
The small restaurant is rather nondescript, it does have a small fish tank that kept Mika amused, however. Its very extensive menu includes most of the standard dishes served at Chinese restaurants in the US, and has a particularly large seafood section. Most dishes seemed to average around $10. Portions weren’t very big, which is not an issue when you are staying at a hotel and don’t want leftovers anyway.
We started with an appetizer of fried wontons, these were crisp and not too oily and came with your standard sweet & sour sauce. They were by far the highlight of our dinner.
I ordered the beef with ginger and green onions and wasn’t too pleased with it. The main problem was the consistency of the meat, it was obviously a cheap but of meat that had been pounded and probably MSGd into a tender but too weird consistency. Indeed, it was not unlike the beef you often get with chow mein, but it just didn’t work as the star of the dish. The taste was OK but unremarkable.
We also weren’t thrilled with the BBQ pork chow mein we ordered. Now, chow mein is not an easy dish to get wrong, but here it was too insipid and the ingredient actually managed not to blend well. Another disappointment.
Service was competent, but the food not good enough to make it worth going.
Grand Palace Chinese Restaurant
King’s Shops
250 Waikoloa Beach Drive
Waikoloa
(808) 886-6668
11:00 a.m. – 9:30 p.m.

We stopped at the Big Island Steak House for lunch the third day of our visit to the Kohala Coast. We were staying at the Marriot across the street from the King’s Shops, where the Big Island Steak House is located, and after two days of having lunch there we wanted something different. It was an OK, though not great, choice.
The Big Island Steak House is a pretty informal eatery, with all inside seating, though some tables overlook the lagoon. It’s a pleasant place, though the informality, which is not reflected in the prices, seems to colour both the service and the kitchen. Our appetizers, for example, came way after we’d finished our main course. Still, everyone was very nice (and tolerant with Michaela), so it was easy to forgive.
The menu includes standard diner/steakhouse fare, concentrating on seafood (of course) and burgers and sandwiches for lunch. Most sandwiches/burgers were about $8-12.
Mike and I decided on the appetizer platter, and Mike had a pulled pork sandwich while I had a burger with blue cheese and mushrooms. Mike liked his sandwich, the meat was of much better quality than what we’d had at the Nalu’s pool-side restaurant at the Marriot. My burger was a disappointment, however. I had asked for it medium-rare but it came well-done, which of course meant it was dry. It was served in a Portuguese bun, just like the pork sandwich, and the sweetness of the roll didn’t work at all with either the burger or the blue cheese. Indeed, I can’t imagine what they were thinking in putting that burger in that bun. The burger’s alleged toppings were also quite scant. The accompanying fries were of the large, thick variety, and they were OK.
We were actually pretty full by the time our appetizer plate came, which wasn’t a bad thing as none of its offerings were that great. The baby-back ribs were covered by a very spicy sauce that was too pungent for my taste. The buffalo wings were too thickly floured and were otherwise tasteless, the dipping sauce was OK though too messy. The egg rolls were also a failure, they were filled with very bland veggies. The coconut shrimp, however, was (in Mike’s words) awesome, very tasty. You may be better off just ordering that as an appetizer.
Big Island Steak House
King’s Shops
250 Waikoloa Beach Drive
Waikoloa
(808) 886-8805

I had read repeatedly that Merriman’s restaurant in Waimea was the best restaurant in the Big Island, its chef having received quite a bit of recognition for his contributions to the new Hawaiian regional cuisine. I had decided against going as Waimea was a little bit out of the way for us and we had our 2.5 year-old along. So when I read that Chef Merriman had opened a cheaper, more casual restaurant at the King’s Shops shopping center in Waikoloa, just across from our hotel, we definitely wanted to go. Reviews of Merriman’s Market Cafe weren’t as positive as those of its parent restaurant, so our expectations were subdued, but we still managed to be disappointed. The service and casual trattoria atmosphere were fine, but the food was underwhelming in its quality.
We went to Merriman’s Market Cafe on a Wednesday evening at about 8:20 PM without making reservations. The patio of the restaurant (semi-opened to the King’s Shops) was packed but they had some tables inside and they were able to accomodate us there after a few minutes wait (the wait for an outside table was 40 minutes). The inside of the restaurant is busy and informal, somewhat noisy, with plenty of open windows and fans and abstract prints and boxes of pasta and other Italian products serving as decoration. It’s nice and inviting and not in the least formal – perfect for vacationers.
The brief menu concentrates on pan-Mediterranean offerings, including several fish, a few pastas and some more classical dishes. If the menu had any Hawaiian influences, I knew too little to spot them. Prices for main entrees where in the high-high teens to mid-twenties.
We decided to skip the appetizers as there was nothing compelling listed and go directly to main dishes. This was probably a mistake as the entree portions were rather small, clearly meant to be had as a part of a multi-course meal. Eating them alone left us hungry.
Mike ordered a fish tagine served on a bed of cuscus; their fish that night was mahi-mahi. He wasn’t very pleased with it, the fish had been condimented with so much harissa sauce that its was completely overwhelmed by it. You could taste nothing but the sauce. The kitchen really needs to pay more attention on matching a fish to its seasoning, and letting at least some of the fish flavor come through – unless, of course, this is exactly what they were trying to avoid. The cuscus was just cuscus.
My braised ribs were very tasty, but they had been served lukewarm. Indeed, some parts of the meat were cold and either the fat within it, or the butter with which they might have been infused, had started to congeal. There is no excuse for serving a braised dish cold, it’s slow cooked and it can be kept warm on its liquid for hours on end. Indeed, our entrees were brought to us so quickly after we ordered (within minutes) that I suspect that they had not only been pre-cooked (you expect that with slow-cooking dishes) but pre-plated. Otherwise they would have had not time to cool down so much before being served. That certainly should be a no-no for a restaurant of this or any kind.
I had been looking forward to savoring some of the braising liquid with my ribs, but very little of it came with the dish – another disappointment. The ribs were served with buttered noodles, which had been cooked al-dente (never my favorite) and had also started to congeal and stick together. Without much braising liquid to flavor them, they were a little tasteless.
Soft buns were served before the meal witha scoop of harissa, they were fine but not remarkable. Mike ordered a diet-coke but it was so flat as to make it completely undrinkable, he sent it back and got a bottled Root Beer instead.
Service was competent but rushed, our waiter didn’t enquire about our meal until we were half-way through and he then seemed uninterested in the response. We had to fetch someone else to have Mike’s drink exchanged.
All this said, I can see Merriman’s Market Cafe thriving if for no other reason than there is a distinct lack of competition in Waikoloa. Neither of the two other restaurants we visited at the King’s Shops were very good and hotel food is so overpriced as to make more reasonably priced alternatives imperative. That said, it’s sad that Chef Merriman is sullying his reputation by serving such carelessly prepared food at a restaurant with his name.
Merriman’s Market Cafe
King’s Shops
250 Waikoloa Beach Drive
Waikoloa
(808) 886-1700
Daily 7 AM – 2 PM, 5-9:30 PM

As hard as I try I can’t remember the full name of this restaurant shack located in the Waikoloa Highlands Shopping Center, where we had breakfast our first morning in the Kohala coast. This is particularly disconcerting because it had a two-word name, one of which words was “burger”. Still, there is only one shack serving breakfast & burgers (it’s across the parking lot from the supermarket and next to the smoothy place) so you can’t miss it.
We’d gone to Waikoloa Village to visit the supermarket and get lots of drinks (the effort was probably not worth it, you can get most of what you need, albeit at higher prices, at the King’s Shops) and Mike had promised Mika pancakes for breakfast. She was obsessing about this promise and had become very insistent on the pancakes, so we were happy to finally find one place that served them (apparently the only place open for breakfast on a Monday morning at Waikoloa Village). They were kind of expensive at $6 for 3 (very large, thick) pancakes, and they came with margerine and corn syrup but hey, they were pancakes. I’d be surprised if Mika ate even 1/3 of one, but a promise is a promise. I ate the rate and wasn’t thrilled with them, but I’m not a big fan of pancakes anyway.
Mike had an omelette which he thought was OK.

Tex Drive In is another Big Island institution, recommended in particular for its fresh, hot malasadas, dense Portuguese donuts served plain or with fruit or cream fillings. It also serves a variety of cheap food, including burgers, sandwiches, stews and other Hawaiian specialties.
We visited in on a Monday for lunch, before heading to the famed Waipio Valley. We weren’t very daring in our choices, though probably should have been. I ordered a roast beef sandwich, which consisted of a large soft loaf of bread, with cold commercial-type roast beef slices and tomato and lettuce on the side. There were packets of mayo and mustard. The whole thing was OK, though a roast beef sandwich is mostly dependent on the quality of its roast beef and this wasn’t very good. It was a large sandwich and not a bad value at under $6 with fries.
Mike had a fish burger and was quite happy with it, he said it was a better fish burger than any he’s had here. He’d order it again.
We all shared a malasada for dessert (and bought more for the road) and while it was good, its main merit was that it was warm. Otherwise it didn’t taste very different from a donut, though it was denser and somewhat less sweet. The chocolate creme filling didn’t help it at all. Krispy Kreme may be in trouble, but not from malasadas.
Tex is a convenient stop on your way to or from the Waipio valley and for that reason alone I’d recommend it.
Tex Drive In
45-690 Pakalana St.
Honokaa, HI 96727
Tel: (808) 775-0598
http://www.texdrivein.com/

We had considered staying at Volcano Village, though had finally decided it was more practical to stay in Hilo four foray on the east side of the island. Still, we (in particular Michaela) were quite hungry by the time we were finished exploring Volcano park and wanted some chow right away. I had read that Thai Thai served very good Thai food, so we decided to go there for dinner.
Volcano Village is not a village per se, but a road with a few stores and many B&B’s separated by hundreds of feet. Thai Thai was closed to the beginning of the road, next to the True Value store. The restaurant is quite nice, decorated (of course) with Thai scenes, including a large silk hanging identical to the one we have in our living room, and a large picture of the Thai king. That evening the electricity in the whole village wasn’t working well, so we were almost turned away. The hostess (whom I suspect of being the owner) was apparently concerned that there wasn’t enough light to go to the bathroom and/or that the water supply wasn’t working on the bathroom, I wasn’t too clear. Other parties that came after us were turned away (though offered take out) but she allowed us to have dinner once we told her that we were staying in Hilo (couldn’t really do take out, then). We’re glad we stayed, our dinner there was definitely the best we had in the island and the food matches (but does not surpass) some of our favorite Thai restaurants here. Indeed, if Thai Thai was in this area we would go back without hesitation.
The menu was your basic Thai menu, emphasizing, as you would expect for a restaurant in Hawaii, seafood. The prices were a little, but not too much, in the high side, most in the low to middle teans, but portions were very generous. A chicken satay appetizer was listed at $16, more than twice what we usually pay for it, so we decided to skip it this time. Instead, Mike ordered his usual Pad Thai and I had my usual masaman beef. Both were very good. The beef was tender and the sauce was deep and complex, as Mike said, anything in that sauce would taste good. I’d prefer the potatoes to have been cooked a little more, but that’s a pet peeve of mine with this dish. Mike also liked his Pad Thai though found the noodles strange, rather than being flat they were thin and round, like vermicelli. Though the portion was generous, he finished it all.
Service was quite good and the restaurant was almost full when we got there soon after sunset on a Sunday night, it got full while we were there. We didn’t go to the bathroom so I still don’t know if that was the problem.
Thai Thai Restaurant
19-4084 Volcano Rd
Volcano, HI 96785
808.967.7969

Ken’s House of Pancakes seems to be an institution in Hilo. I found the restaurant mentioned many, many times while researching where to eat in the Big Island, and while not all the reviews had been positive, I figured it was worth giving it a try.
We got there early on a Sunday morning and there was a little bit of a wait for a table. The crowded restaurant seemed quite friendly and popular with locals, specially families. The place had a definite “Old Hawaii diner” feeling to it, with its fans, Hawaiian-attired waiters and the already almost-oppressing heat sipping through. If for no other reason, its non-generic ambiance made it enjoyable.
Its menu featured standard breakfast items with a Hawaiian twist, coconut and macademias could be found in their pancakes, and some dishes came with special tropical-fruit syrups. Mike decided on the coconut pancakes, which included coconut both in the inside and sprinkled on top. They were pretty good, even with their regular syrup and Mike enjoyed them. I had the French toast made with Portuguese bread and it was fine, better with the berry syrup than the corn syrup. Our side of Portuguese sausage was very tasty and I highly recommend it. A chocolate milkshake was made with chocolate syrup and was good, though in the small side.
Service was fine, the food came to the table very quickly. In all, if we were in Hilo again, we’d go back.
Ken’s House of Pancakes
1730 Kamehameha Ave.
Hilo , HI 96720
(808) 538-1877
Open 24 hours.