All About Honolulu
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Honolulu is a city that is rich in dining and drinking choices. Cuisine from all cultures can be found here in abundance. The competition to capture part of the tourist market (5 million people annually) makes restaurants innovative and very conscious of quality. Whether you are in the mood for seafood, Chinese, Italian, French, Thai, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese or good old American fare, Honolulu will not disappoint you.
Chinatown
As might be expected, Honolulu's Chinatown features some of the best Chinese restaurants in the Pacific Basin. In addition to regional Chinese establishments, you'll find other authentic Asian eateries here. Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean and Indonesian food is available and in most cases, very reasonably priced. There are about ten restaurants in and around the Chinese Cultural Plaza on King Street. Enjoy buffets, dim sum, or inexpensive a la carte meals from all regions of China. One of the best known restaurants in the Plaza is Legend Seafood Restaurant. As the name suggests, seafood of all kinds is in the spotlight here. It's a noisy place reminiscent of modern-day Hong Kong. The dim sum lunch is not to be missed. Many excellent Vietnamese restaurants are in this district; the most famous is probably Pho 97 on Maunakea. It's easy to confuse them, but don't worry too much about it; the menus and prices are comparable. Anyone sampling Vietnamese cuisine for the first time should order a huge, steaming bowl of Pho, the ubiquitous Vietnamese soup.
Downtown Honolulu
The center of this fascinating melting-pot city offers a wide choice of dining establishments. Straddling the border of downtown and Ala Moana is Restaurant Row on Ala Moana Boulevard. Among the restaurants found here is the trendy Sunset Grill. Several blocks away, the Aloha Tower Marketplace at the Port of Honolulu also boasts a number of excellent dining choices. Hong Kong Harbour View Seafood Restaurant offers authentic Cantonese dishes. Chai's Island Bistro is the place to go for upscale Hawaiian dishes and contemporary Pacific Basin cuisine.
Another gourmet hot spot is the Chef Mavro Restaurant. Under the stellar direction of the culinary wizard who was formerly executive chef at La Mer, this restaurant has garnered accolades from the likes of Gourmet Magazine and The New York Times. In the center of Honolulu's old town, you'll find Murphy's Bar and Grill on Merchant Street. As might be expected, the corned beef and cabbage are great and there's plenty of Guinness on tap. Palomino Euro Bistro on Queen Street usually wins prizes for decor and cuisine every year. The Pavilion Cafe at Honolulu Academy of Arts is a wonderful place for lunch. Have a delicious, healthful meal and a glass of wine in a tropical courtyard, surrounded by many wonderful works of art.
On the Pearl Harbor side of Honolulu, you'll find Sam Choy's. This is a great place to have a hearty, stick-to-the-ribs meal prepared in contemporary Hawaiian style. The restaurant is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Ala Moana and Kaakako
There are some great places to dine on the stretch between downtown Honolulu and Waikiki. The two main thoroughfares that span this four-mile distance are Ala Moana and Kapiolani Boulevards. The many-sided Victoria Ward Centers on Ala Moana has some of the best spots in town. In the Ward Warehouse, you'll find cheap seafood at The Chowder House and pricey steaks at Stuart Anderson's. Across the street in the Ward Centre, visit Ryan's Grill, a great saloon with excellent food. This is a favorite watering hole for the downtown business crowd. One of the area's premier seafood restaurants is John Dominus on Ahui Street near Ward Centre.
Nearby the huge Ala Moana Shopping Center, you'll find the I Love Country Café. It is one of the best places in the area to sample inexpensive local cooking, with lots of Philippine and Thai accents. In the Ala Moana Center itself, there are over 30 choices for dining. Bubba Gump Shrimp Company on the second level serves up shrimp dishes of all kinds in a fun atmosphere. Delicious Italian food can be enjoyed in the contemporary setting of Assaggio's, easily distinguishable by the modern-art fountain out front. The Ala Moana Food Court, also known as the Makai Market, has over 20 stalls that serve American, Mexican, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese and local cuisine. Singha Thai Cuisine, across from the Renaissance Ilikai on the Ala Moana/Waikiki border, is one of the best Thai places in Hawai'i. It's a large restaurant with excellent food and authentic Thai dancers performing twice every evening.
East Honolulu (Kahala and Hawai'i Kai)
This upscale stretch of coastline features many dining opportunities. The elegant Kahala Mandarin Oriental Hotel hotel offers numerous dining choices, most notably Pan-Asian gourmet room Hoku's. The Kahala Mall at the end of the H1 freeway has several excellent choices.
Farther down the coast toward the beaches near Coco Head, the community of Hawai'i Kai boasts one of the best restaurants in Hawai'i, Roy's. The cuisine is a mixture of Continental, Japanese and local Hawaiian. It's very pricey, but well worth it.
Manoa Valley
This lovely area is home to the University of Hawaii and is one of Honolulu's nicest suburban neighborhoods. In the center of the Valley, the Ala Manoa Shopping Center is a gathering place for students, professors and residents. The most unusual of the restaurants in the valley is Paesano, a top-notch Italian bistro owned and operated by a family from Laos. The comfortable eatery serves food to rival any Italian dining spot in town. It's located in the Center, on Woodlawn Drive.
These dining establishments represent just a small cross-section of the hundreds of great places in Honolulu and its home island of O'ahu. Wherever you turn in this Pacific metropolis, you'll find opportunities to enjoy wonderful cuisine. Bon Appetit!
Waikiki
Hawaii's premier vacation destination, Waikiki, boasts every imaginable kind of dining establishment. Every large hotel has at least one restaurant and some boast five or six; most are very worthwhile. For great steak, your choices are many. Seafood places are also just about everywhere in Waikiki. At the Lobster & Crab House in the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, a large tank of live Maine lobsters is positioned at the entrance so that you may pick your clawed choice for dinner. La Mer, in the Halekulani Hotel, is a nouveau French seafood restaurant that is one of the top-rated establishments in Hawai'i.
Many residents and visitors consider Matteo's in the Marine Surf Hotel to be one of the finest Italian restaurants in Waikiki and Honolulu. The superb menu is served in an intimate setting. The wine list here is also one of the best in town. Duke's Restaurant & Barefoot Bar is also in a class all by itself, offering great food, live Hawaiian music and a fantastic beachfront location. This is the place to be on a Sunday afternoon after a refreshing dip in the blue Pacific. A Honolulu institution and an absolute "must" for any foodie is the original Chart House Restaurant overlooking the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor. The food, service and sunset are simply wonderful. For Japanese Teppan-yaki, try Tanaka of Tokyo, with three locations in Waikiki. A Japanese fast food favorite, the Ezogiku Noodle Café, also has several locations throughout the city.
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