Since my girlfriend is a vegetarian, we both were looking at other places that serve vegetarian plate lunches that aren’t the usual bland tasting plates that I have tasted in the past. Welcome Well Bento. I consider this place a hole in the wall type of takeout restaurant. We’ve been hearing from several people that this place is a gold mine of delicious food, so we decided to check it out.

Well Bento is located in a kind of obscure location. They are located at 2570 S. Beretania Street, Suite 204. To give you a better sense of where this is, it’s in the vicinity of Puck’s Alley. It’s actually in a building that is surrounded by Burger King/Jiffy Lube, and the little shopping center that has Blimpies, Kit-n-Kitchen, etc. Once you see the 2 story building, just walk on up and you can’t miss it.

First impressions of this place was “wow, this place is SMALL”. Not only is it small, but it’s SUPER HOT in there. I don’t think they really invested in anything that would keep the cooks comfortable. They have two fans on high blast rotating, but it doesn’t offer much cooling at all. The kitchen was not only small, but very simple…in ways, it looks kind of dirty, but it could be because the kitchen looked dated. The cooks were definitely sweating, and it kind of concerned me if their sweat would ever reach our food.

Well, before I start turning you folks off, let’s talk about the food. Despite what I described above, the food was fantastic. I ordered the grilled chicken, which was served over a bed of brown rice with tahini sauce (a fantastic gravy), macaroni salad and cole slaw (they don’t use mayonaise), and broccoli, carrots, gobo, and potatoes. I got the chicken grilled Louisiana style, which was kind of peppery and spicy at the same time. The chicken was absolutely tender and delicious, and the Louisiana style definitely fit the bill. Although I’m not a big fan of carrots, all their vegetables including the carrots were very tender and tasty at the same time. The vegetables were also very bright in color, and they also let you know that they only cook fresh ingredients…that means NOTHING out of the can. Crazy. The tahini gravy over brown rice was AWESOME. I could eat that everyday. And to think all this was healthy…it was mind blowing.

My girlfriend got the grilled salmon which came with the same sides. The salmon was perfectly grilled, very tender on the inside, and was seasoned with tamari sauce and olive oil. Man, I would definitely order this the next time.

The prices were very reasonable as well. The chicken was $7.95 and the salmon was $8.50. Very cheap and very good. They also have a large selection of vegan dishes as well. Check em out or visit their website www.wellbento.com.

If you ever drove on Beretania St. and wondered what that little Chinese restaurant on the corner was, let me tell you about it.  The Northern Chinese cuisine restaurant is called Dew Drop Inn, and it’s a great place to dine if you are a big Chinese food fan.

The restaurant is VERY VERY small.  About 8 tables total.  It’s a cute little place, and it gets even cuter when you look at their menu.  They do have a traditional large menu as seen in all Chinese restaurants, but what sets this place apart is a little photo album that has pictures of many of their dishes with their prices.  This gives you a better idea of what you are eating, especially if you don’t frequent Chinese restaurants.  I think it was a great idea!

My mom and I bought their Drunken Chicken, Jia-Jiang Mein, and Shao-Bing pockets with pork filling.  The flavor of the chicken dish was really awesome, and the “drunken” part of the dish does live up to its name with a very alcohol taste.  Some may not like this dish, but it tastes a lot better than it sounds.  The ginger on top of the cold chicken was also a nice touch.  The Jia-Jiang Mein is basically a noodle dish with a ground pork sauce and chopped cucumbers.  They give it to you in a pretty large bowl, so it was worth it.  The dish wasn’t as salty as other restaurants, so I would recommend this dish since it was perfectly seasoned.  Lastly, the Shao-Bing pockets are basically large pieces of flat dough with seasame seeds on top, and cut on the inside to make a pita-looking pocket.  You fill the pocket with their ground pork and tofu, which was more sweet than salty.  I loved the shao-bing pockets, since they were large (size of your palm), and they gave you four hot pieces.  The pork filling was a bit too sweet for me, and was almost like char-shiu.  If you want the best place for shao-bing, go to Kirin on Beretania across Star Market.

If you are feeling Northern Chinese Cuisine, look no further!  They are located on 1088 South Beretania.

As Hawaii based companies are getting more well known, if you ever drank a beer brewed from the Kona Brewing Co., keep it going, since The Brewers Association has named the Big Island brewer #37 for overall beer sales and 24th for craft brewing companies (Source: Star Bulletin). Congratulations!

This is pretty good since giant Anheuser-Busch Inc. was first in overall sales. To put Hawaii on the map again, shows that we do produce decent products that are purchased worldwide. Hawaii is slowly, but surely, creeping up in the market, and hopefully local companies, such as Kona Brewing Co. will continue to do well worldwide.

You can find Kona Brewing Co. products at pretty much all the grocery stores on island, and you can also eat at their restaurant at the Koko Marina Shopping Center next to 24 Hour Fitness.

Again, congratulations!

One night after a long day at the beach, we decided that we should head out for a nice dinner.  Since we had a coupon for $25 off (a gracious gift given by Non-Stop Travel for booking a trip on the Pride of Aloha), it was a good time to use the coupon since we’ve had it for quite some time and it was going to expire soon.

First off the ambience is very nice.  The restaurant it dimly lit, but with accents that have a very indian and southwest asian look to it.  The restaurant was not very packed, but I know that I’ve seen it much more packed before, so I wasn’t too worried about the amount of people.

Let’s start off with the food.  We purchased the set menu for two, which included either one satay, small plate, or salad to share, two big plates for the entrees, and one dessert.  This would cost us $33 per person.  We ended up ordering the salt and pepper calamari with shrimp as our appetizer to share, which came with a vinegar and green chili sauce.  It was very good.  The batter was very light and crispy, so we definitely enjoyed this dish.  The sauce was also very good, and I almost wanted to keep it for what else was to come.  The normal price for this appetizer was $12.  For the entrees, I got the chili plum glazed rack of lamb, which was on top of a sweet onion curry risotto and was served with a side of sesame tempura asparagus (original price $28).  It was very tender (but not as tender as the lamb at Le Bistro…which by far as the best lamb ever), and the chili plum was a good complement to the lamb.  The lamb did not have a gamey taste, but they did include mint just in case.  The curry risotto was a big surprise, and I’m not normally a big fan of risotto, but I think I could eat a huge bowl of that.  My girlfriend got the thai style fish of the day, which was the tender opakapaka.  You could have a choice between thai, vietmanese, or indonesian (original price $23).  She said the thai style was a bit salty, and the forbidden black rice was not that tasty and was too crunchy.  She did enjoy the tangy cucumber salad with a roasted aromatic rice powder that came with it though.  The thai style was basically frying the fish crispy with a basil, shallot, and chili sauce.

For desert we got the sundae with coconut (1 scoop) and banana (2 scoops) gelato, with fudge sauce and coconut shavings.  It was surprising good, especially the coconut gelato.  I wished they had given us 2 scoops of coconut gelato since it was so good, but oh well.  This was originally $7.

So with the set for two, if you purchase things that are kind of pricier, it would save you some money.  In this case, it saved us only $4.

I only have three complaints.  The service was REAAAAAAAAAAAALLY slow for a restaurant that was pretty empty that one night we went.  The waitress just kept on talking to her coworker and just took her time.  That kind of irritated us.  Another thing about the waitress was that when we said that we ordered the dinner for two, she disregarded this or forgot and charged us the entire price.  Maybe because she wasn’t paying attention.  The other complaint was when we presented the $25 coupon.  Instead of taking off the entire $25, she subtracted $12.50 from the bill, taxed it, then subtracted another $12.50.  She said it had to split up, but couldn’t really come up a reason why, and didn’t explain it too well.  This of course meant that we had to pay a little more, because we had to pay tax on a larger total.  It’s more of the principal than the actual cost.

So bottomline, the food was pretty good, the service was kind of bad (perhaps just our waitress?), and the coupon wasn’t calculated correctly.  I might try it again, but probably with a different waitress.

Last weekend we headed off to Diamon Head Market and Grill for breakfast since it’s pretty much in our backyard, and we had a few fantastic lunch sessions.  And since you have to eat outside, it was a good opportunity to bring our dog too.

I ended up getting the roast pork hash with an over-easy egg on brown rice.  My girlfriend got the fried rice (also brown rice) with scrambled eggs and portuguese sausage (the meat for me of course).  Both plates included, I guess what you could call cornbread, but it was sweet and had some subtle coconut topping.

Both plates were really delicious.  It didn’t cost us too much…about $20 total.  The roast pork hash was very delicious, with nice chucks of potato and a great crispy crust.  The over-easy egg was also really good, and the brown rice was surprisingly a perfect compliment to the dish.  Her fried rice was definitely one of the better ones I’ve eaten, and the portion was LARGE.  And being that it was brown rice, I was quite surprised how great it worked out with fried rice.

So what do I not like about this place?  The Market that is connected to the grill is WAAAY to expensive.  I got two drinks, Arizona Iced Tea and a French sparkling lemonade.  That set me back almost $5.  I can see how the food there might be expensive because it looks all fresh, but the drinks?  I know Arizona Iced Tea is 89 cents almost everywhere.  I suggest buying your own drinks and bringing it over to save some money.  But besides that, this is a great place to eat breakfast.

They are located at 3158 Monsarrat, which is pretty close to the Zoo.  Go check it out!

My girlfriend and I headed over to the north shore so that we could get some awesome Kahuku shrimp.  And where else to get the best garlic shrimp that Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck?

For $12, you get a pile of shrimp with two scoops of rice.  They LOAD the garlic and butter all over the shrimp, and are even kind enough to put the sauce over the rice too.  Since we were sharing the plate, I also got a garlic hot dog, which was $3.  Let me tell you, that hot dog was also very very worth it.  It had a nice garlic taste, and it was the size of a Costco hot dog.

Luckily we got there kind of late (around 1:30pm) due to some traffic because they were fixing an electric line.  Why lucky?  That’s cause we didn’t have to wait in line!  Last time we were there, it was soooo packed, we had to wait quite a while.  This time, it only took about 2-3 minutes before we got our food.

Next time, I want to try their spicy shrimp.  It looked good, but there is a disclaimer that said it was very hot, and there were no refunds.  That must be some real spicy shrimp…still not sure if I’m up to the challenge.  If you tried this shrimp, let me know, and if it’s worth it, I’ll be sure to try it.

So how do you get there?  Just take your normal route to the north shore and get off onto Kahuku.  Keep on driving until you see the truck.  That’s it!

So the next time you are heading down to the north shore, make sure you stop by Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck.  You will NOT be disappointed.

The other night we went over to The Fat Greek on Waialae Ave since we heard good reviews on it from our coworkers.  Turns out we really like Greek food, so this was a perfect opportunity to eat there!  And, we live pretty close to the restaurant, so it only took us about 5 minutes to get there.

The first thing I have to gripe about was the parking.  It’s awful…at the beginning.  The restaurant is located between City Mill and Saab on Waialae Ave.  The best way to park is to go down Waialae Ave towards Ewa side.  This way, you can make a right and get right into the parking lot…which can hold about 5 cars maximum.  What we DIDN’T know was that if it’s after 5pm, you can park at the City Mill parking lot and walk across the street.  We didn’t know that, but next time we’ll park there…it’s just more convenient than the crowded and impossibly hard to park area.

The restaurant is actually pretty nice.  It’s reminds me of Kakaako Kitchen at Ward.  Why?  It turns out people don’t actually serve you.  You just purchase the dish at the counter, then when your order is ready, your beeper will vibrate and you just go and pick up the dishes yourself.  They even have a fountain drink machine if you order soda.

I ended up ordering the gyro and my girlfriend got the falafels.  We also ordered babaganoush (sp?) for our appetizer.  The babaganoush was actually very tasty.  The eggplant was grounded up pretty well into a nice paste, and it tasty really good with their pita bread.  And let me tell you, this was probably the best pita bread I’ve ever had.  It was very soft on the inside and not overly cooked on the outside.  And the pita came out fresh and warm.  Can’t beat that!

My gyro was equally as delicious, with cuts of beef and lamb.  Their cucumber sauce in the gyro was reaaaaaaaally tasty too.  Not too overbearing, and just right.  I was able to taste the falafels as well, and they were really good.  What I was kind of disappointed with was the salad that came with the entrees.  It wasn’t really greek.  It was basically salad with onions and dressing.  Gone were the feta cheese and olives.  That’s what makes a Greek salad, and both those things were missing.

We also got dessert which was a raspberry pyramid chocolate cake.  It was very good, looked cool, and wasn’t too rich.  I kind of wished there was more raspberry since there was only a little layer in the center, but nevertheless, it was enjoyable.

Both my gyro and her falafel plates were $7, and the appetizer was $5.  The dessert was $4.50.  All in all, it was a pretty cheap dinner with tasty food.  Would I go back?  Definitely!

I am currently writing this article from Utah, since I’ve been sent on a business trip.  But the night before my flight out, my girlfriend and I decided to get some dinner.  I wanted something light and healthy, so we went over to I Love Country Cafe next to the Ala Moana Center, in the complex with Blockbuster and Taiyo Noodles.

We both ordered their mini plates, which was termed “demi” at their restaurant.  While waiting for our food, we noticed that people were getting PILES of food, which had to be the regular size.  We also noticed that the demi sized takeout plates weren’t too big, but this was good, since I was about to take a flight out and didn’t want to be too full.  I ended up ordering the furikake crusted mahi with brown rice and stir fried vegetables.  My girlfriend got their special which was a grilled crusted ahi with a balsamic tomato glaze, along with the brown rice and vegetables.  We waited for almost 10 minutes, which was the only gripe, but at the same time, the restaurant was packed, so it wasn’t too bad.  But the other times I visited this place, the service always tended to be slightly on the slower end.

By the time we took our food home, we were ready to eat.  We were super surprised to find that the demi was pretty huge in portion.  I guess that explains why the takeout felt kind of on the heavier side.  We both got two pieces of fish, which were pretty large in portion.  At any other plate lunch place, this would easily be a regular sized lunch plate.  Both dishes tasted light, but did not skimp on flavor.  The brown rice was nice and soft, as opposed to some other places which would cook them too long making the rice more on the crunchy side.

What did this cost us?  They were $6.95 each.  Now I know where I’m going when I’m hungry and in the mood for something tasty, healthy, large portioned, and with a reasonable price.