1 Plus 1 Cafe — Restaurant in Hawaii

I dined in at 1 Plus 1 Cafe.  Their practices are quite alarming not just from a business standpoint, but also a public health one.   Easy part of this review, then the serious part of the review follows.

Note -- Rice does NOT come with entrees.  It is purchased separately at $3.

Note re Fees on the Invoice -- There were two separate $.50 surcharges messily handwritten on the receipt, so could not read it.  Might have been for the sides of hot sauce I requested, but I was not notified ahead of time. Price for hot sauce is not on the menu.

As many other Vietnamese Google reviewers point out, this restaurant is NOT Vietnamese and the pho broth is not traditional Vietnamese, neither Northern or Southerrn.  I'm an East Asian, not Vietnamese, but have made pho in the homes of Vietnamese families from scratch (it's a long process, but the herbs and spices are distinct). The workers are Chinese, and the cooking approach is Chinese.  I get island standards, but this is just another indication of low quality, shady practices.

The "tofu and vegetable mix" entree at $13 arrived as 95% cabbage. Where is the "vegetables mix?" Wholesale prices for cabbage are less than $0.75/lb.  Let's say there's half a pound on the plate, even to be generous...that's a 3400% markup providing a dish that is not even or barely accurately described (okay fine, there was 2 slices of carrot and 2 pieces of bokchoy leaf).

That's like paying $34 for an item from the dollar store that cost $1 to manufacture. The typical standard for restaurants to markup from their wholesale to dishes is 300-400%. So an average dish of rice and mix veggies that would cost you $5 to make at home should cost no more than $20. Of course, the fancier the restaurant, the higher the markup since you're paying for the experience more than the food.

What's a greater public health issue is that the cabbage was not thoroughly cleaned, and there was much dirt and a small slug on a piece of cabbage.  I farmed veggies in Hilo, and the worst ones for slugs wasn't the kale, but the cabbage and bok choy, and when peeling them, so many slugs hide in between the leaves of the cabbage, the far inside several leaves.

Be careful about rat lungworm disease exposure at restaurants that don't care about cleaning their veggies before serving. Majority of the debilitating infections come from ingestion of...

Dirtiest restaurant I have ever eaten at. I ordered a beef pho so they brought a plate of vegetables. My lemon clearly had a hair and dirt on it so I asked the waitress for another plate of veggies in case the whole plate fell on the floor or something. No kidding, when they brought me my pho I found a bug in it! So they apologized and took my bowl away and got me a "new" bowl of soup. Then the same girl comes back with a plate of veggies and IT WAS THE SAME EXACT PLATE WITH THE LEMON! HAIR AND DIRT INCLUDED!!!! They could have at least gotten me a new lemon to clear my mind of the filth! My appetite is shot. I'm done with this. Currently sitting in this restaurant with my food untouched.update after paying our bill I found another strand of hair in the...

Stopped by to have lunch during our tour to the volcano national park...

Everything is lackluster...

Bad food: nothing fresh, chicken tasted like mud... 99% of the roll were vermicelli. Bad service: Took them 20 mins to get a cup of hot water, and the cup was not even clean... Bad atmosphere: oh well there wasn't any atmosphere to begin with...

Worse off: they definitely had a deal with local tour company as they kinda forced us to eat here... The tour guide led us straight to this place and kept telling us this is the best around, the price is good, nothing else we can find nearby, bla bla bla... We should have just left and gone to Walmart right next to this place to get...