honolulu hawaiian bbq & chinese express, 1201 24th st., bakersfield, ca, 661-323-6888
food: 5/5; price: $.
before i went to hawaii some years back, i read here & there while researching what to do, where to eat, & kept reading, basically, that the food was nothing special & don't get your hopes up. what did this mean? no haute cuisine? nothing high class & high-falutin'? i don't know... when i got to hawaii, since i had no expectation (kind of like when i went to paris, was told the people hate americans, then, braced for the worst, was pleasantly surprised to meet nothing but nice folks) i was in heaven!! : not just to enjoy the beauty of the smaller islands' native culture & geography, but the food...
what i ate while on "the islands" seemed to combine asian (chinese, japanese, filippino), mexican, & american comfort/soul food. nothing spicy, nothing too chewy or fibrous, lots of sweet & savory flavors, simple ingredients, what some people might even call "ghetto food" - rice, chicken, eggs, cabbage, mayonnaise salads, nuts... and spam??? yes, spam is very popular in hawaii and parts of asia. spam is atrocious to really contemplate, way too salty, but guilty-pleasure good - like the "cheesecake chimichanga" my cousin in texas called me recently to confess she'd eaten. anyway, i don't know if hawaiian food has any equivalent of expensive wines and caviars, but i liked it plenty...
even poi!! the best meals i had were macadamia pancakes topped with tropical fruit & served with kona coffee; manapua (hawaiian for steamed buns, or bao); japanese-style bento box lunch; and hawaiian-style plate lunches.
locally, there is another place that advertises serving hawaiian food, but i've been disappointed by it - its menu seems mostly chinese. this new place, at the west foot of the 178 freeway on 24th, downtown, in the newish village town centre shopping centre featuring starbucks, juice it up, flame & skewer, & more, features the most hawaiian-like menu i've seen locally! at least, hawaiian in the way that i experienced while there...
honolulu hawaiian bbq is a large, clean, bright, fast-foodish kind of sit-down restaurant. they have breakfast specials, 7-1030: 3 dim sum-kind of rolls, buns, or breaded pieces containing fruit, fish, meat, etc. for 99 cents. three for 99 cents! you could really go to town sampling this and that! i plan to go tomorrow morning...
meanwhile, i had my favorite plate lunch. what is a plate lunch? basically, a main dish served with two scoops of rice and macaroni salad. "they created them for the surfers," mom said. i didn't check this. the plate lunch seemed a bit messy to handle with chopsticks, or to roll up & eat while jogging out to the surf, but what do i know? i got my favorite plate lunch, which is called "loco moco" (i imagine like locomotion, but that name sure made my two little hispanic kid friends laugh their butts off, since "loco moco" loosely translates as "crazy booger" in spanish slang...). loco moco is the best - a hamburger steak on a small bed of cabbage, topped with two eggs and a delicious brown gravy. this food, as my sister would say, is GRUB!
the price was a little high for this cheapskate, six bucks, but was a very large portion: my mom & i noshed away at it for quite a while, then i brought it home and cooked it up, adding an extra egg, & my spouse & i ate the rest. if the other plate lunches are as large, you could feed two people with one, i think, or just be a glutton & stuff the whole thing down! go to town!
other flavors of plate lunches include satay, pineapple, or curry chicken; kalua pork with cabbage (tea leaf, banana leaf, sea salt); honolulu bbq, seafood mix, pollock & bbq chicken combo, and... GRILLED SPAM MOCO! HHB&CE also serves spam musubi, which is spam wrapped in seaweed, sort of a sushi-like hors d'oeuvre, but island down-home.
HHB&CE also has a big drink menu of fresh juices (including delicious watermelon juice), milk shakes, hawaiian canned drinks (oolong tea, strawberry guava, etc.) & asian-style specialty drinks (slushes, boba, blended teas).
this restaurant served interesting, unusual, & delicious food for reasonable prices and deserves to be supported by local diners. and, as i've said of other places i've reviewed, if you don't want to go exotic, there's always the standard fare - burgers, salad, chinese food. hope you check it out today, & enjoy a happy, tasty, ono-rific meal...
before i went to hawaii some years back, i read here & there while researching what to do, where to eat, & kept reading, basically, that the food was nothing special & don't get your hopes up. what did this mean? no haute cuisine? nothing high class & high-falutin'? i don't know... when i got to hawaii, since i had no expectation (kind of like when i went to paris, was told the people hate americans, then, braced for the worst, was pleasantly surprised to meet nothing but nice folks) i was in heaven!! : not just to enjoy the beauty of the smaller islands' native culture & geography, but the food...
what i ate while on "the islands" seemed to combine asian (chinese, japanese, filippino), mexican, & american comfort/soul food. nothing spicy, nothing too chewy or fibrous, lots of sweet & savory flavors, simple ingredients, what some people might even call "ghetto food" - rice, chicken, eggs, cabbage, mayonnaise salads, nuts... and spam??? yes, spam is very popular in hawaii and parts of asia. spam is atrocious to really contemplate, way too salty, but guilty-pleasure good - like the "cheesecake chimichanga" my cousin in texas called me recently to confess she'd eaten. anyway, i don't know if hawaiian food has any equivalent of expensive wines and caviars, but i liked it plenty...
even poi!! the best meals i had were macadamia pancakes topped with tropical fruit & served with kona coffee; manapua (hawaiian for steamed buns, or bao); japanese-style bento box lunch; and hawaiian-style plate lunches.
locally, there is another place that advertises serving hawaiian food, but i've been disappointed by it - its menu seems mostly chinese. this new place, at the west foot of the 178 freeway on 24th, downtown, in the newish village town centre shopping centre featuring starbucks, juice it up, flame & skewer, & more, features the most hawaiian-like menu i've seen locally! at least, hawaiian in the way that i experienced while there...
honolulu hawaiian bbq is a large, clean, bright, fast-foodish kind of sit-down restaurant. they have breakfast specials, 7-1030: 3 dim sum-kind of rolls, buns, or breaded pieces containing fruit, fish, meat, etc. for 99 cents. three for 99 cents! you could really go to town sampling this and that! i plan to go tomorrow morning...
meanwhile, i had my favorite plate lunch. what is a plate lunch? basically, a main dish served with two scoops of rice and macaroni salad. "they created them for the surfers," mom said. i didn't check this. the plate lunch seemed a bit messy to handle with chopsticks, or to roll up & eat while jogging out to the surf, but what do i know? i got my favorite plate lunch, which is called "loco moco" (i imagine like locomotion, but that name sure made my two little hispanic kid friends laugh their butts off, since "loco moco" loosely translates as "crazy booger" in spanish slang...). loco moco is the best - a hamburger steak on a small bed of cabbage, topped with two eggs and a delicious brown gravy. this food, as my sister would say, is GRUB!
the price was a little high for this cheapskate, six bucks, but was a very large portion: my mom & i noshed away at it for quite a while, then i brought it home and cooked it up, adding an extra egg, & my spouse & i ate the rest. if the other plate lunches are as large, you could feed two people with one, i think, or just be a glutton & stuff the whole thing down! go to town!
other flavors of plate lunches include satay, pineapple, or curry chicken; kalua pork with cabbage (tea leaf, banana leaf, sea salt); honolulu bbq, seafood mix, pollock & bbq chicken combo, and... GRILLED SPAM MOCO! HHB&CE also serves spam musubi, which is spam wrapped in seaweed, sort of a sushi-like hors d'oeuvre, but island down-home.
HHB&CE also has a big drink menu of fresh juices (including delicious watermelon juice), milk shakes, hawaiian canned drinks (oolong tea, strawberry guava, etc.) & asian-style specialty drinks (slushes, boba, blended teas).
this restaurant served interesting, unusual, & delicious food for reasonable prices and deserves to be supported by local diners. and, as i've said of other places i've reviewed, if you don't want to go exotic, there's always the standard fare - burgers, salad, chinese food. hope you check it out today, & enjoy a happy, tasty, ono-rific meal...
posted by glutton | 11:14 AM
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1 comments
