Mr. Ed's Bakery — Restaurant in Hawaii

Our tour guide around the island offered to take us to an 'adorable little quaint 1-street town' that time sort of forgot, but they roll out the welcome wagon for the tour vans. HONOMO, Hawaii. It had a main-street with about 6 or 7 little shops including a coffee shop, a great antique shop (specializing in antique glass bottles of all things), a convenience store and souvenir shop. And then there was Mr. Ed's Bakery. The wonderful smell saturated up and down the whole street. There were amazing pastries and breads and cookies, but the real star of the show for me was the gigantic wall of homemade fruit jams. Walls and walls of unique jams. Everything you can think of, all combinations, literally hundreds of jars. Mr. Ed's son works there and will let you sample all of them. There were sweet, and spicy, and exotic Hawaiian fruit and berry combinations. Did I mention you can happily sample all of them!! I took home a jar of the Ohelo berry jam. (NOTE: DO NOT take these jars through TSA at the airport in your carry-on bag. They are over the TSA size limit and they will absolutely snatch it up out of your backpack!!!) The greatest part was Mr. Ed himself was there, sitting in a chair just chilling. I sat down with him and we chatted for a good 15 minutes. He is the nicest guy! We talked about the weather, and rain, and the berries, and his lumbar spine issues, and farming. I could spend all day sitting there eating pastries and jams and talking about the weather with Mr. Ed. It was beautiful, like Mayberry. I would go back to the east side of the island again just to spend a day in Honomu...

I believe I ate the best hotdog I have ever eaten in my entire life. And I have had a lot of them. Mr. Ed bakes his own bread, and the hot dog bun is two of his home made Hawaiian dinner rolls connected together and sliced in half. Wow. For the dog itself I chose the Hawaiian sausage of course (when in Rome), amazing. Then for the toppings I went simple mustard, but this is where it gets interesting. He makes his own mustards, along with butters, salsas and jams, jars them all, and has samples of each. He let's you put samples on your hotdog! I ended up purchasing a jar of the Lilikoi Mustard because I have never tasted anything like it. Quite simply the best I have ever had, hands down... and by the way, Mr. Ed is a cool dude that will chat you up and tell you about his family and his decision to move to Hawaii from Bakersfield 40 years ago or so. Anyway. If you are in the Big Island and want to check out Akaka Falls, don't miss Mr. ED'S on your way...

Stopped by during an afternoon drive after visiting a chocolate farm in Honoka'a. It was a little bit of a trek since we had dinner reservations back in Waimea, but I had read about Mr Ed's jams in the Lonely Planet Guide Book and wanted to go. The guidebook did not lie; there is a wall of jams and many different flavor combinations, including some fruits that I had never heard of before. We were the only ones in looking at the jams and we had our own personal tasting session. I didn't catch his name, but the person who helped us kept on pulling out new flavors for us to try based on what we liked and we kept on adding to our collection for purchase. We stopped at 14 jars. They offer USPS shipping, which is great. Otherwise, I'm not sure how we would have packed it up in the luggage. Great shop and definitely worth a visit if you're...