For years, Aloha Mondays didn’t even have a sign outside its unassuming kitchen in the heart of Hilo, on the corner of Lono Street and Kīlauea Avenue. And they still don’t have a set menu, but that’s on purpose. Known for its catering and food delivery services, Aloha Mondays also serves lunch and dinner, which are based entirely on […]
You’ll hear the same story from restaurants around the state: They want to work with as much local produce as possible, knowing that food grown right here in Hawai‘i is as fresh as it gets. However, there are always some concessions. This comes from Costco. That we have to bring in off-island. Those are too expensive
Vote now in our 2021 Readers’ Choice Awards! Tell us which beaches, hiking trails, lūʻau, hotels, food trucks and surf spots are your favorites! The results will be printed in our March/April 2021 issue! People may argue about who’s got the best loco moco. But one thing is rarely disputed: the origin of the
On Hawai‘i Island, wooden totems greet you at the entrance to Don’s Mai Tai Bar, the largest open-air oceanfront watering hole in Kona. These tall, carved columns look out over the ocean, just a few feet away from the circular main bar made of wood and stone. Above your head is a thatched grass roof and
Whenever I fly into Kailua-Kona on Hawaiʻi Island—and I’ve got a few hours to spare—I make the 66-mile trek to Punaluʻu Bake Shop, a charming bakery and restaurant in Nāʻālehu, near South Point. When it first opened in the mid-’80s at Punalu’u Black Sands Beach Restaurant, it became known for its signature sweet bread loaves.
Using chef’s plating tweezers, Brian Hirata leans over a row of black plates that look like discs of basalt, meticulously adds tiny leaves from the Rumex acetosella plant, commonly known as sheep’s sorrel, to the top of a black tuile cookie made from ti ash. He harvested the sheep’s sorrel himself, off the side of
Nestled in an old Hawaiian garden estate surrounded by rainforest, nearly at the end of the town of Volcano on Hawaii Island, Café Ono is home to the best vegetarian lasagna we’ve ever had. It may be one of the best places to stop for lunch before exploring Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, but the excellent
It’s obvious when Mark Noguchi walks into Palace Saimin in Kalihi on Oʻahu that he’s been coming here for decades. Practically his whole life. “I’m a creature of habit,” explains the gregarious chef, who greets everyone in the kitchen with a hug and kiss on the cheek. “If you had to kill me, I would
When a foodie friend of mine found out I was traveling to Hilo for the day earlier this month, she had one suggestion: Visit Popover, a new bakery about five minutes from Hilo International Airport. I admit, I had to Google it. The bakery had opened two weeks earlier—and already had about 1,000 followers on
The first time I ever tried Shaka Tea, a line of iced teas brewed with mamaki, a Hawaiian plant endemic to the Islands, was back in 2016. I was in the Oahu home of owners Bella Hughes and Harrison Rice, a young couple with two very young kids who had, two years earlier, taken out a
Not all that long ago, in a city far, far away (from Honolulu), there were many people who swore Hilo had the best okazuya in Hawaii. So what if most of those people lived in Hilo? It was true. The breed of take-out lunch shop known as okazuya—a Hawaii-born amalgam of the Japanese words “okazu”
“You didn’t pre-order?” As she says this, the woman behind the counter at Two Ladies Kitchen stares at me in disbelief. A line of customers winds behind me and out of the small downtown Hilo mochi shop and onto the sidewalk alongside bustling Kīlauea Avenue. “You have to pre-order. They sell out,” she scolds, gently.
