Local Food Review

My wife had heard of a new Japanese Seafood Buffet in Honolulu that had opened and wanted to try it out. We had seen their flyers advertising Snow Crab Legs, Teppanyaki, Pork Spare Ribs, Mahi Mahi Steak along with the general fare of low end Sushi and Sushi Rolls.

The Happy Hour Buffet was $18.98 they also had an option where you could pay $33.00 to get a expanded menu. My wife did not want the expanded menu but because it was my birthday she encouraged me to go with the expanded menu. When we were seated we were pretty shocked to find out that drinks where extra, while I expect to pay for Beer I was surprised that you had to pay extra for soda.

Upon walk through of the buffet things did not look to bad, so each of us loaded up our plates and I was able to order two small entries from the secondary menu that I paid extra for. I picked a lobster tail and prime rib. As we sampled the food we all commented that while the food was decent the food was not hot. It was not cold but a little to cool for out likings and being buffet’s are what they are this was concerning. The prime rib was a thin 1/2 inch piece of meat that was well done and had some sort of gravy on it very salty. The lobster tail was fine but it was one of those mini lobster tails 2 bites and it was gone.

The sushi was ok for a buffet nothing to call home to mama about but decent.  I ordered some Oysters Rockefeller style and also Abalone.  The oysters I sent back but the Abalone was good.  The snow crab available to everyone where typical snow crab small in size. None of these places give you scissors so we always bring our own so we all went through our fair share of Snow Crab.

The deserts where good and I would say probably the highlight of the visit. They really had a good desert offering.

The kids complained about the spaghetti that they tried did not taste like normal spaghetti and was surprised by a noddle dish while not bad but I fully expected to be eating pancit bihon but the taste of the noodles had a indian cusine texture to it.

Here is my opinion, if you are coming to Hawaii and want something fast with low expectations, this is the place. If your looking for decent buffet food this is not the place. While I cannot really complain to much, we will not be going back and it was one of those places that have such a golden opportunity to do great but I don’t think the current cooking staff is up to the challenge. It may be they work so hard at putting so much food out that they really do not do anything superb. On a five star scale I give Makittii Japanse Seafood Buffet at 2380 Kuhio Ave Honolulu a “1 Star Rating”

We did a quick walk through of the food offerings. They were a little nervous when I tried to film the food so we really did not get to linger a long time on the entrees.

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My wife and I with our two boys went to Pinky’s Pupu Bar and Grill Restaurant Kailua Hawaii located at 970 North Kalaheo Avenue, Kailua Hawaii, 96734  for lunch yesterday. I have eaten at the establishment once before earlier in the year, and had a good lunch their. While my lunch in the past was good something has happened to this local eatery that the owner should be ashamed of.

Usually at 11:44am the establishment has a fair number of customers being it is only a stone’s throw from the MCBH Kaneohe base and also minutes from the winter home of the President.

When we arrived we observed 5 guest tables of about 30 taken, we seated ourselves as their was no one to seat us. Within 5 minutes the waitress arrived took our drink and lunch orders. 15 minutes later the drinks arrived and 45 minutes after that our lunch was finally served.

Service was slow at all tables, the table across from us had 4 people, 3 meals were delivered and the 4th person waited another 10 minutes.

I had the Kailua Pig Plate lunch $9.95 with a side Ceasar Salad for $1.00 more. Somehow the waitress substituted the rice for the salad and I ended up eating Kailua Pig without rice even after asking for rice to be brought to the table. The ceasar salad dressing they used made the lettuce to appear to be spoiled even though it was ok. I joked that if I got food poisoning we would know what to tell the health inspector. The Kailua Pig we could tell was not made in house it had the same texture of what we purchase at Safeway. It had that dried out microwave look to it.

My wife had Garlic Shrimp $9.95, the “5″ average shrimp she received with 2 scoops of rice looked horrible. We could tell the shrimp had been re-heated and was tough as nails. My wife said well we should have went to Mcdonalds.

My Youngest Son 6 had Mac and Cheese with French Fries $5.95. You could tell the Mac and Cheese had been sitting a while before delivered to table as the Cheese had solidified on top.

My Oldest Son had a burger and fries $9.95 that was actually good in his standards. The fries were the best part of all of our meals.

Overall price of the tab for drinks and meal was just over $40.00. This is one of the worst lunch dining experiences I have ever had in Hawaii. Usually lunch can run you about $7-8.00 a head and you get your meal, fresh, hot and with Aloha.

Pinky’s Pupu Bar and Grill Restraunt needs to fire their chef and get there act together. Based on the service I would predict that this landmark may be in for tough times ahead.

I was lucky enough to have lunch at Hurricane Grill and Wings earlier this week in Jacksonville Florida. Not knowing before hand that they were a chain I did not know what to suspect. For a chain restaurant they sure did a great job looking like they were local. We arrived at the peak of lunch hour. With four of us sitting together. The wait staff got our drinks quickly and took our orders.

As I was watching the staff I noticed everyone was helping one another out. While our waitress had the biggest tables other wait staff made sure that food was making it to the tables and drinks were being re-filled.  I had the Mahi Sandwich which came spicy priced at $9.99 with choice of fries. The sandwich was excellent. The iced tea was $2.29 and included refills.

One of the guys had their wings and said they were great as well. For me it was a perfect lunch with a portion that left you satisfied. I will be going back again. Hurricane Grill & Wings 5907 Roosevelt Blvd. Suite 700 Jacksonville Florida

Earlier this week I was picking up a few items from a local convenience store on BayMeadows Rd and asked the clerk if she had a recommendation for dinner. She said that Sam’s Pizza & Italian Cafe was great. It was next door to the convenience store I decided to give it a try. The restaurant was small and not very modern but do not let that fool you.  The owner was waiting tables very friendly and accommodating.  I asked him what was good and he walked me through the menu.

His biggest recommendation was the pizza. I ordered one slice of Pizza and the Spaghetti and meatballs. Pizza was .99 cents a slice and the Spaghetti and meatballs was $7.00. It came with 4 piece of garlic bread and man oh man was it good. The pizza was very good as well, I could tell they made the dough fresh in house, I really like the sauce they put on the Pizza which was different in texture than the spaghetti sauce. Overall Excellent meal at a excellent price.

This place is now on my list of little hole in the wall restaurants to go to.  Economic times has  hit all of the restaurants on this particular strip but you have to check them out.  Sam’s Pizza and Italian Cafe is located at 9551 Baymeadows Rd #24 Jacksonville Florida across from Bailey’s Powerhouse Gym.

While Shoko and I have been planning on starting this website for over a year, I decided to do my first couple of reviews while I am on travel. Traveling like I do gives me a chance to see how restaurants treat single diners as I often eat alone. This first review is by far not a positive one yet, I want to make it clear from the beginning that this site will be fair to all eating establishments that have good food, service and value.

Being I live in Hawaii it is tradition for my family to eat Dim Sum every Sunday. Today being Sunday I decided to try Bamboo Creek Asian Bistro in Jacksonville Florida at 8532 BayMeadows Road.

Upon arriving at 12:15  pm I was seated promptly and ordered Tea. Upon receiving the Hot Tea $2.00 I waited poured a cup and it was clear as water. Checking the pot there indeed was tea in it so I decided to wait for it to darken up or at least get some flavor. I am not sure what the deal was, but even after my 60 minute stay at the establishment the tea color only improved by a slight degree. So for a chinese restaurant epic fail on there tea.

Second I told the waiter I wanted dim sum and one item of menu. The item off the menu that I ordered never arrived, even with a nice reminder twice to the waiter his excuse they were backed up in the kitchen.

They had one lady with a Dim Sum cart for nearly 40 guest tables. It took her 21 minutes to get to my table. With only 4 items left on the cart, I took a spring roll and ordered three other plates.  The other three plates took 27 minutes to get to my table, and when the arrived two of the items were cold. I ate the food and asked for the check which they were very fast to bring me and cash me out. Total bill was $15.20 and I left no tip. Only 3 times in my life have I never left a tip.

I was not the only unhappy customer. The hostess was apologizing to everyone saying they were so busy. I saw what appeared to be kids clearing the table and the owner was heard several times yelling in the back. Who knows if this is the way they operate everyday but they were not ready for customers and seemed surprised at the number of people showing up to eat.

Personally I will never ever go back to the Bamboo Creek Asian Bistro in Jacksonville Florida.

On our last day at CES 2010 we took the team to dinner at d.vino at the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas. I want to share with you our dining experience.  d.vino does there best to set a romantic atmosphere in keeping the restaurant very dark. Many of us had to use our iPods to light up the menu’s. One of the guys actually had a flashlight and used that much to the dismay of the staff. But if you can’t read the damn menu whats the use.

Not being a wine expert I let someone else order that knew what they were doing. We ordered a 2007 Chappellet Cab priced at $75.00 which has a street price of $43.00 the wine was excellent and for what little I know I would buy a bottle for the misses. Cocktails from the bar were pricey. Jack and Coke was $9.00. Apertizers run $12.00 with entrees running $20.00 to $30.00 at least on our bill. Desert ran around $7.00

Food overall was average, I am not sure what I was expecting, but for a primary restaurant in a hotel you would expect the quality to be quite high. I think we could have found just as good or better Italian restaurants at a lower price off the strip.

Overall the total bill for 7 people was $378.50 with a 20% gratuity which they added after adding the tax! Gratuity was $75.70. Since when do restaurants get off on putting a automatic 20% gratuity. I understand a standard 15% for a group of people. If the food and service is excellent then I will tip more. But the server and food was not worth 20% So after tax + tip the total bill was $484.60

Honestly I don’t think we will be going back. They are gonna have to kick it up. I do not mind paying $500.00 for a meal for 7 people but I do expect to get a much better meal than what d.vino provided.  Our visit was on 1-9-2010.