Honolulu must eat foods/restaurants

I’m born and raised on the island of Oahu. I return only to have one objective – eat all my local favorite foods and any new foods that I must try. I learned towards the end of my trip my best review was asking family who love food for the best insight on what to try.

Ireh:

I’m back home and I’m craving my last korean meal. I loved Ireh located on Keeamoku. My favorite dish to get is kongugsu (cold bean soup with noodles) so refreshing in the summer. So healthy too! Made fresh so it takes some time to get your order.

My other noodle dish that is spicy but so good and worth it – chewy noodles:

So yummy! Just perfectly seasoned and made fresh!

I definitely make sure I invite a crowd so I can have a little of everything. Just thinking about these food makes me want to book a ticket back.

The meat juhn was great too! I do know how to make this at home but its time consuming. . .but this did taste better than mine and I know this place doesn’t use MSG.

My table also ordered dokbokgi with cheese. Sounded unusual but my cousin gave it two thumbs up! I think the cheese helps tone down the heat.

We also got the fried rice:

Everything is awesome here! Try the dessert. Korean style shave ice.

On Dong:

My other restaurant I love to go to is On Dong. Korean/Chinese restaurant.
Great place to feed a crowd. Black bean noodles is the popular dish. Gotta try the sweet and sour pork. Sorry I didn’t get any pics. I must have been in a rush to eat.

Koko Head Cafe:

Moving on to some local eats…
My cousin stated he has been meaning to try Koko head cafe so went for brunch on a weekday. We arrived at a perfect time. No wait. I think on a really busy time u could have a line out the door. We ordered a bunch of foods for the two of us (I think my cousin took most of the pics):

One was the cornflake crunch French toast. Yummy but on the second visit we realized it was a scoop of vanilla gelato and not butter on the French toast!!!!

Dumplings! Dumplings! Gotta get them. They make it fresh and have different ones maybe on a weekly basis or changes every couple days.

We also got a salad that had watermelon and lychee in it and it was great. I must have been too excited to eat that I forgot pics of it. Our first visit was nothing short of amazing that we returned with two more ppl the next time. Our siblings…of course on that visit we ordered our favorites and then new dishes:

The skillet dishes were loco moco and korean bimbimbap dish (mixed rice). We loved the loco moco more than bimbimbap. Loved how the rice got crunchy on the bottom because the skillet was hot! The crunchy kimchee was a great idea to add more texture at the top of the dish. Very creative and yummy. We are in search of the right skillet to recreate this dish at home.

Your Kitchen:

After this hearty brunch we went down the street for some shave ice. It’s not the typical shave ice place tourist go to. More for the locals. This place is really small and run by a Japanese couple. They make all the shave ice syrup from fresh fruits so they only have a handful of flavors: haupia(coconut), strawberry, green tea, lychee, mango, etc. They even make their own ice cream: vanilla, haupia, and green tea. My cousins both loved it and has added to their list of favorites! The flavors of the syrup is so Ono. Just the right mix of the fruit taste and sweetness.

Aiea bowl:

This place was featured on triple d show. I just wanted to try the place. It was ok. I thought the food was salty. Good flavor but definitely too salty.

Desserts are great but majority are from diamond head bakery.

Lemon crunch cake is a favorite in my family.

Pumpkin crunch was ok but this is coming from someone overloaded with food. I’m sure I would have a better review if I ate it when I craved dessert. It had some nuts in the crust which I’m not too crazy about. But looking up the recipe it sounds like the pumpkin dump cake recipe my friend shared with me long ago. I’ll have to make it for Thanksgiving this year.