Honolulu Kitchen — Restaurant in Oʻahu

Update: Please...clean your shop. The dust is thick, grey, and your unusually modern light fixtures have many very visible levels on which they collect dust bunnies. Initially very wary of purchasing manapua in Waipahu, this shop changed my mind. Clean shop in an unexpected strip mall area. Free parking, shared with a bunch of other shops. Rail is being developed right outside their front door, and a rail station being built a few hundred meters away. Traffic is difficult at times, be prepared to be careful turning and exiting. Having said that, I do think it is worth the drive and worth the effort. Calling ahead is a good idea and having backups to your preferred flavors is a good idea. Their online presence is pretty good, so worth a check before ordering.

Bathrooms available. One stall unisex in the back.

Seating is roomier than other reviews led me to believe, with 9 4-top tables & bar area with 4 stools at the front tho standing at the bar would serve 10. No table service but the front counter service is friendly and pretty fast. Very reasonable pricing.

Accepts Samsung pay, credit cards, cash. No Apple pay at this time.

Bitesquad delivery available.

Their online presence is substantial, you can easily check IG or Facebook for their pictures. Definitely IG worthy food, claim to fame as everyone else has said is the fried manapua. I find it too heavy but their flavors are very interesting. Who else is doing pastele or elote? Decorated mini manapua are outstanding.

All manapua are steamed or fried excepting their char siu, hot dog, and custard flavors. Make sure you specify when ordering flavored manapuas if you prefer it fried or steamed. Add an extra 15 minutes for steamed.

All I can add value-wise is to say that the customer service as of this writing on 29 August 2018 is exceptional w/two very sweet and well-spoken millenials at the front filling orders, and to confirm that samples & generous portions are still in effect.

Family friendly and casual. Would love it if this shop was in Kaka'ako or the Ward area, and could easily see this shop living happily next to Whole Foods, especially with these flavors and gracious...

First time having manapua and they were delicious! We've had many Bao over the years and manapua are essentially Hawaiian baos! We ordered a selection of manapua. Note the manapua take about 10 minutes because they are steamed to order. You can also order fried manapua that are a bit quicker. My family of 3 ordered a selection of mini manapuas, since I thought "mini" would be small, but they were larger than I expected and we were stuffed after sharing 10 manapuas. All the steamed manapuas had a great texture: not chewy our tough, soft and supple, perfectly cooked. Char Siu - generous filling, nice Asian/Chinese BBQ flavor. Chicken Gyoza - our favorite. Tastes just like a Gyoza dumpling but with a Bao casing! Spicy Chicken, Spicy Beef, Spicy Seafood -. Lumped these together because they were almost too spicy. Just tasted hot and spicy, didn't get much of the meat taste on these. If you love hot and spicy food, these would be for you. I usually like spicy, but these were too hot! Kailua Pork - Very good. Generous amount of smoky pork filling. Kalbi Pork - Tasted like Dim sum! Really good! Char Siu (baked) - Huge char Siu Bao! Sweeter than we were used too, the bun had a sweet glaze. Char Siu filling was very meaty which was nice since sometimes char Siu can be pretty fatty.

My only regret was that I ordered three spicy manapuas. I wish I had ordered some of the other savory choices.

Overall, high quality, fresh...

Had been there only once before but both times were good. First time we ordered and i didnt know how much smaller the manapuas were compared to libbys or chun wah kam so we only ordered a small amount, approx 6. Now we know better. Each manapua is about the size of a computer mouse. So its easy to mix and match to get a taste of all the savory and dessert flavors that you want to try. I got lilikoi, haupia, and ube and all were fried…. So ono! My ohana got the garlic chicken (steamed…my sons fav), the cream cheese crab, kalua pig, oreo, and char siu. Try it steamed or fried, both are good. Cant forget the rice cake. They also have musubis, bentos, and plate lunch food. They’re open til 6 but the plate lunch section closes at 3ish so plan accordingly. If in doubt, call. Customer service is super nice! Very helpful and explained the options but very busy too so they gotta work fast. In the same room but the other side is a smoothy drink place, in summer time try the watermelon, so refreshing. Will definitely be goin back. Take on a plane or take to the beach kine grindz....