White Guava Cafe — Restaurant in Hawaii

This little restaurant sits right in front of the KTA, and we've driven past it for months without really noticing it. The name itself isn't really descriptive, and from the outside it looks like any other hole in the wall restaurant. Turns out, it's not.

Entering it felt kind of like walking into one of the old pizza hut's, it has booths around the walls, a bench by the door, what looks like a salad bar in the middle of the floor (not in use while we were there that I could tell), and a handful of small tables around the floor as well.

The kitchen was giving of delectable smells. We were quickly greeted and seated. The tables had a variety of amino acid/soy sauces, a few other condiments, chopsticks and straws in a little cozy, so we figured the menu was going to be a bit Asian themed now.

The menu offers a variety of foods actually. The is an excellent selection of salads and several vegetarian options, a dozen different kinds of chicken, and roughly the same number of burgers.

The server introduced himself and described the menu options a bit. As it turned out there was WAY more information to absorb than I expected. There is a bit of a hippy vibe to this place, with it's hydroponic vegetables and other locally sourced produce, but let me tell you this... Whatever, wherever they are getting those food... It is the right place!

The chicken dishes are served in small pieces that appear to have been tenderized as they are quite thin. They are fried in the Asian style and dressed with various sauces. I ordered the buffalo chicken and my wife the lilikoi chicken. I had white rice and purple sweet potato salad on the side. My wife had fries and a salad with lilikoi dressing.

Before the entrees were brought out we were presented with a small plate of graham crackers and a tiny container of what looked like butter. Somewhere in the massive quantity of information presented on entering, we had missed this entirely, but decided to go with the flow and try this odd bread option just for kicks... Turns out the butter was actually lilikoi cream cheese! AND it was amazing!

I have tried many of the local restaurants, and most of them try to incorporate the rather unique selection of local produce in some fashion, but I've never seen such unique and interesting incorporation anywhere else. The lilikoi chicken was phenomenal, I was super jealous. The people sweet potato salad was like nothing I've had before delicious... Even this drab less than crunchy graham crackers at the beginning of the meal were elevated to the status of a full scale treat by the lilikoi cream cheese!

The vegetables were the best I've had on the island too. Lettuce didn't necessarily do so well here for some reason, but that salad was as crisp and delicious as I've ever seen. I chalk this up to the hydroponics, I've heard it produces some excellent results but I've never had the pleasure of trying them myself.

All in all the only thing we didn't like were the fries. They were thick cut, and not crisp. They were also sprinkled with like salt flakes or something of that nature, but it was large and didn't stick. Overall they were just warm soft lumps of potato, and not terribly appealing. Let's be honest, of the only bad thing I have to say is that the fries were meh, this place is coming out aces.

I say give it a go. It's about 15 dollars a plate plus maybe 5 for soft drinks. That's pretty fair pricing for any food on the island, and this is not just and food. Someone back there knows how to cook. Highly recommend, 5/5, I will be going back soon to try the Portuguese pork burger....

My wife and I decided to eat out and chose White Guava Cafe as we hadn't eaten there before (we usually cook at home). THE SERVICE: The restaurant had three tables seated and sat us pretty quick. The waitress that sat us and took our order was kind and personable. For some reason she stopped being our waitress. The other waitress that took over for her had no personality whatsoever. I'm not being critical, it's the truth. She did walk by and asked if everything was ok and if we wanted anything else...in a very monotone voice...five times! We were polite each time and said we were fine and didn't need anything but why ask so many times? I really wanted to tell her how I felt about the food, but again, we were polite each time she asked. When we asked for the check, she went over to another table, a table that our first waitress was handling and went back to the kitchen area and brought them out water. She finally brought us our check. THE FOOD: The dinner rolls; mine was nice and soft, my wife's was stale. I guess she got the last old roll and I got the newly opened package roll. I had the fried chicken thigh adobo with white rice and french fries. The chicken was good but the fries were limp and squishy; it seemed like they were old and had been heated up in the microwave...absolutely horrible. I was served the butt end of a tomato with the button cut out (ok, I do this at home but never would have expected it in a restaurant). The tomato was served on top of a pile of raw onion. My wife had the fried tofu with lilikoi sauce, salad, and brown rice. The tofu pieces were too big. There was no sauce on the brown rice so she asked for additional lilikoi sauce; they charged us $2 for a tablespoon of sauce; my wife needed more sauce for her rice but at $2 a tablespoon...forget it. The salad was nothing more than chopped lettuce with a quarter of a tomato sliced in half (2 eighths of a tomato) and a very small portion of shredded cabbage on top. I deducted the $2 we were charged for the additional lilikoi sauce from the tip. I still think I over tipped (11%) for what we got. The meal was not worth $42! I repeat, THE MEAL WAS NOT WORTH $42! BOTTOM LINE: We will not be going back to this establishment and we will not recommend this restaurant to anyone: ever. The personable waitress came up to us as we were getting up from the table and remarked on how much of the food I ate (my wife's plate was still full of salad and rice), she seemed truly surprised that I "really mopped it up." I didn't clean my plate either. Makes...

This restaurant is in an old Pizza Hut location across from KTA grocery store it's been there for a little less than a year (I think). We've driven by many times and never stopped in to eat, finally did so and was not disappointed. There was three in our party we all three ordered something different and sampled each other's food everything that we got tasted great We were given crackers, cheese and pastrami while we waited for our meal. My husband had the boneless Korean chicken, brown rice and tossed salad my daughter had fried chicken adobo, white rice and purple sweet potato salad, I had lilikoi chicken, tossed salad and purple sweet potato salad. My husband and I both had the house lilikoi dressing for our tossed salad, everything was delicious and very large portion size. My daughter asked if they bottle and sell their Lilikoi salad dressing. She bought a bottle for $5. We made a reservation for 12:30 lunch time when we got there the place was full. Had to wait a few minutes for our table to be cleared , once we looked over our menu and decided what we wanted to get and put in our order I think our wait time was around an hour from the time that we got there. It was well worth the wait. Each of our plates cost $15, so much food on our plates we carried out leftovers to have another meal later. Next time my husband and I go we will order one plate of food and share it. They also have a smaller plate for $13, I may try that and see how much food is on that plate. They also have meatless meals you can order if you are a person who does...