TEX DRIVE IN

Tex's is a casual, plate lunch place in Honokaa. It's on Pakalana St., just north of Hwy 19. There's also a second location in Pahala, on the south end of Hawaii. They are known for their malasadas, or Portugeuse style donuts. We stopped here after visiting Waipio Falls. After hiking down (and back up) to the valley, we were in serious calorie deficit.


The menu looked good, but since we ate a huge breakfast at Hawaiian Style Cafe, we just ordered malasadas. Mmmm, malasadas!




They make three kinds, plain, bavarian creme and strawberry. We got a dozen mixed.



I had the plain and the strawberry. They were really good. I didn't taste the bavarian creme, but my brother-in-law said "they ruled!"



My take: Service was good, Ambiance was good, Food was very good (only tasted the malasadas). Overall rating - 3.5 sumos.

Tommy's Celebrates 60th Anniversary

I wish I was there. There's nothing like this in Denver.


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tommys16may16,0,6207517.story?coll=la-home-food

HAPPI YU SUSHI

Happi Yu Sushi is located in Kona. It's in the Long's Drug shopping center, on Palani Road, just south of the 19 Highway. It's takeout only. It is open Mon-Thu (9-3), Fri-Sat (9-4) and Sun (10-3). We went here to pick up an early dinner to eat on our way to Mauna Kea. We actually got there after they had closed (around 3:20), but the owner was really nice and took our order. It must have been the hungry look on our faces.



We ordered California Roll ($4/6pcs), Hawaiian Roll ($4/6pcs), Salmon Skin Hand Roll ($4/1pc), Inari ($3/4 pcs), and Spam musubi ($1.50, I think). I left a nice tip since she stayed open for us, and it was after 3:40 by the time she was finished - it was all made to order. My brother-in-law ran over to L&L while we were waiting 'cause he had to have his katsu curry fix. I make it a point to never go to L&L when I'm in Hawaii. It's like having McDonald's, Tommy's, The Hat and Lucky Boy's on the same street and picking McDonald's. By the way, L&L screwed up his order, but that's another story...


I didn't get a picture of the sushi since we pretty much ate it in the car on the way to Mauna Kea. I thought everything was really good, but I was starving. She put a lot of care into the preparation. For example, the spam was placed in the middle (not on top - the lazy way) of the musubi, and sprinkled with furikake. I wish I had stopped here again to get some sushi to take on the plane ride home.

My take: Service was very good (yeah, it's takeout but we did get there 20 minutes after closing), Ambiance n/a, Food was very good. Overall rating - 3.5 sumos.

Fusia - Sushi Lunch Buffet

Friday, April 28 2006 Eric and I decided to check out Fusia, a Japanese restaurant downtown that has a sushi buffet at lunch time. I know, a sushi buffet could be a risky proposition, but for $9.95 we didn't think it would be risking much. Cost us $6.00 to park though because everyone goes downtown for lunch on Friday, even a rainy Friday. Fusia is located at 15th and Blake.


You walk in and the sushi is arranged in neat piles, with the green salad, edamame and wasabi first and all the really good stuff at the end. After ordering tea we started right in. I had it in my mind to try one of each kind off roll but I don’t recommend doing that. Some of the roll ideas were not so inspired, like the gyoza roll. Why would you put gyoza in a roll, and why would I try a piece of it? I supposed to some it is a good idea but save your stomach for the other stuff.

Spicy tuna and Philadelphia rolls

Fusia Chef with Sushi and sushi rolls, to the right you see the seaweed and calamari rolls.

Two nice young chefs were accommodating, let you know what everything was and posed for photos; I told them we were food writers. Ha!

They do a nice job with the sushi – nothing fancy but quite fresh and tasty.

Eric – Round One

Dawn – Round one

My favorite of the rolls was the salmon skin, shown above next to the edamame, and the shrimp tempura roll concoction shown at the top that had shrimp tempura, with hot sauce and mayonnaise, broiled. The shrimp tempura rolls were good too. The striped sea bass sushi was really good. There was one roll, shown above next to the ginger, that wasn’t good at all. It tasted like it was dipped in pancake batter, and too much of it at that.

Tempura, from the menu

Shrimp tempura rolls

The atmosphere was nice, it wasn’t crowded, just the hard-core sushi fan types who knew what they were doing and were getting their $9.95 worth. People were going up 5, 6 times. If I had any complaint it was that they should have some kind of dessert, even just fresh fruit. All that sushi gorging gives one a sweet tooth.

Overall, well worth the money. One roll at some restaurants can set you back $9.95, so it is a good value. I would be interested in checking it out some time at Happy Hour, and having some sake.

Overall Rating: Two and a half sumos