With the company of a crappy, soccer-mom van and a friend who just moved out to Honolulu, we were out for a gorgeous day at the beach and better direction in finding good eats. We decided to head away from Waikiki Beach, and traverse the world-famous North Shore. We hopped in the car, rolled down the windows and immediately turned the radio to KCCN 100.3 FM for local Hawaiian music. We drove by the Dole Pineapple Plantations but skipped that once we saw the many tour buses there.
Our first stop in the North Shore was Romy’s, a small shack situated on a shrimp farm. We had to pullover because the scent of the garlic/chili was overwhelming. Romy’s is known for their garlic/chili shrimp with soy sauce over rice. At $12 for about 10 pieces of shrimp, it was quite pricey. I don’t know if it beats the Chinese fried shrimp with green onions and salt though. (Jeew Yeem Ha) I had the fried shrimp, which was basically shrimp wrapped in egg roll skin and submerged in oil. Now that was tasty. Overall, everyone was content with the meal.
We then headed to Shark’s Cove, hoping to snorkel, but the water was way too rocky. We then stopped over at the beautiful, Waimea Bay and hungout. After that, we headed to the small town of Haleiwa for some traditional Hawaiian shaved ice at Matsumoto’s. Matsumoto’s has been around since 1951 and has been punching out their famous shaved ice to fanny-packed tourists like me.
For $2, you can get the large shaved ice cone with any assortment of syrup, vanilla ice cream and beans. The vanilla ice cream serves as the condensed milk in the Taiwanese version. I don’t like sweets at all, but Matsumoto’s proved to be quite a delectable treat. I only wished they served it at the beaches. Where can I get this in the LA area? I’ve heard Gardena and Torrance has it.
For dinner, we were sans automobile. My lovebird friends decided to deprive the three of us and took the car to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel for exquisite dining at the beautiful Hoku’s. I actually don’t know if it’s beautiful, since our friends deprived us of transportation haha. Just kidding L&I. Congratulations to them. After the dinner, L proposed to I after waiting 11 years! We then headed to Tiki’s Bar & Grill on Kalakaua Avenue for a few drinks. This tourist trap serves a nice healthy plate of Kahlua Pork Nachos. Awesome. I couldn’t sleep because I was so full.
So while they were eating delicious food, we trekked down to Ezogiku for, you guessed it, more ramen. Now this place was awesome. It was setup like a diner with the servers in the middle. The menu was simple to read and had a good variety of ramen. They were best known for their Miso Ramen, a huge bowl of chasiu pork, bean spouts and miso-flavored broth for $7.89. Ezogiku also has some killer combos for the hippos like me. For $9.89, you can get a bowl of ramen, 4 pieces of gyoza and fried rice. Awesome. We ended up eating here TWICE. Sorry, Ramenya & Kinchan’s, this place whoops your @$$.
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