Entries Tagged 'Reviews' ↓

Enough is enough. For most of the past two years we’ve endured an endless stream of billing mishaps from Hawaiian Telcom. We were not alone. Tens of thousands of phone company customers had billing problems.

Not only could Hawaiian Telcom’s billing system not figure out what to charge us for monthly phone service and long distance, it became a family guessing game each month as to what the final charge would be on the statement. It was never accurate.

Finally, after plenty of bad press, bad customer service, and millions of dollars spent on revamping their billing system, Hawaiian Telcom got the bill right. It was good news that didn’t last very long. Today’s statement from the phone company came with an extra charge of over $90. For what?

Good question. It appears that the phone company had not been charging us enough over the past two years, and now they get to make it up their under charges in one swell foop.

Not so fast. It used to be that we suffered with the phone company’s inept service and countless billing problems with no recourse. Where else could you go for phone service. These days there is such a thing as competition in telecommunications. Oceanic Time-Warner has phone service. Cell phones are ubiquitous and reliable. Maybe the competitors and options are not better than Hawaiian Telcom, but they’re certainly not worse.

So, goodbye, Hawaiian Telcom. You’ve had your day. Improve your service and customer support or continue to lose good paying customers to your competition.

What does it take to clean the top of a table at your favorite restaurant? Not much, right?

Yet, the ability and methodology to clean a table top escaped the crew at Macaroni Grill in Ala Moana Center last week. I’ve cleaned my fair share of table tops through the years. It’s an art I learned from my mother, long an aficionado of things shiny and clean.

It can’t be that hard. Take a clean, dry cloth. Spray the table top with some kind of cleaner (Windex is the choice of my tables, though your mileage may vary). Wipe down the table top with the clean, dry cloth. Is that so hard? Yes.

What many cleaners fail to understand is the need to cover every inch of the table top with the cloth, and to replace the cloth after a few tables have been cleaned.

Instead, those same many cleaners simply grab a wet, grimy cloth, drag it in a haphazard manner here and there across the table’s top, and pronounce their effort done and the table clean.

And it clean it must be. Officially, if not in actuality. Often there are streaks of Not Clean left on the table top areas which were not wiped, and a putridly sour smell left from the wet in the cloth.

So it was at Macaroni Grill last week.

We noticed the smell right after we sat down at our table. A quick look under the paper table ‘cloth’ revealed the source. Unclean table, unclean smell. We asked for another table not near the unclean table.

The dining experience improved markedly. The waitress admitted that Macaroni Grill’s beer wasn’t as cold as she liked, and if I liked cold beer, I wouldn’t like theirs. But she suggested that if I wanted a cold beer and didn’t mind waiting 15 minutes, she’d have the bartender chill a bottle and a glass just for me.

Add five extra points to my Macaroni Grill report card. The calamari appetizer was the best I’ve ever had, anywhere, the grilled salmon was superbly tender and moist, and the asparagus gave me gas (not the fault of Macaroni Grill).

In other words, dinner at Macaroni Grill was good. Very good. It would have been better with a clean table top. Why? Because a wet rag does not a clean table make.

What is there that’s not to like about Zippy’s? For the uninitiated transplants or tourists, Zippy’s is Honolulu’s local place for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

What you won’t find at Zippy’s is high prices, slow service, or anything but local ambiance. What you will find at Zippy’s is variety on the menu; a taste for every face.

Individually, Zippy’s menu items may not rank among the best in Honolulu cuisine. Collectively, Zippy’s menu items form the basis for a tasty meal, quickly served, modestly priced, dine in or take home.

Last night we were giving consideration to dinner. While driving. That’s always a dangerous situation when no single suggestion takes the lead. We can drive around for an hour simply trying to decide where to drive to.

Wendy’s? Nah, out by the airport, too far. Panda Express? Just went there a couple of weeks ago. Chili’s or California Pizza Kitchen? Nope. Too late, gotta wait in line.

While the discussion continued I made an executive decision and drove to Zippy’s between King Street and Young Street in Makiki. Nobody grumbled.

I went for Loco Moco; tasty and heavy on the protein with ground beef and scrambled egg. I asked for gravy on the side with extra butter for the rice.

Butter? Yeah. Haole, is why.

I should have skipped dessert but a Zippy’s bill usually leaves a little extra change and dessert is worthy of consideration. Big mistake. We ordered the Fried Banana something or other, thinking it would be like banana lumpia.

Did I mention that it was a big mistake?

I saw our waitress in the back working diligently on a dessert dish and wondered if it was ours. By the way, everyone at Zippy’s works “diligently.” She placed a large dish on top of a larger dish, loaded it up with some obviously fried something or other, then poured on chocolate fudge until the whole thing leaked, added some vanilla ice cream, then a few sprays of whipped cream, and sprinkled something else on top of that.

“That’s not banana lumpia,” I said to myself, thinking it was someone else’s dessert. I was right. It wasn’t banana lumpia. I was wrong. It was our dessert.

If you order that thing, whatever it’s called, don’t eat Loco Moco first, and make sure to take along a friend or two.

See? Just another meal at Zippy’s.

Value is in the eye of the beholder. So it is with taste. Two of my favorite Honolulu restaurants are within a few minutes walking distance from each other.

Panda Express is Chinese fast food. Mariposa is exotic fine dining. A meal for two is about a $100 difference. My wife and I can dine on less than $10 at Panda Express. The food is quickly served, warm, tasty

My wife and I can dine on a little over $100 at Mariposa in Neiman-Marcus, perhaps a couple of hundred yards from the hustle and bustle of Makai Market, the food court hosting Panda Express. At Mariposa, the food is eventually served, warm, and tasty.

The extra $90 or so at Mariposa gets us seated and served, not an option at Panda Express. The view at Panda Express is usually of other people eating. The view at Mariposa is that of other people eating, but there’s often a musical group for entertainment, a pleasant sunset, or a view of Ala Moana Beach Park.

Service at Mariposa is composed, measured, and considerate of the dining experience. Service at Panda Express is somewhat faster than hurried.

When we’re hungry, Panda Express wins the call. When we desire to slow down the dining experience, and add a touch of leisurely romance (the only kind available at our age), Mariposa gets a nod.

Between the two are a number of dining establishments worthy of what is left of our dollars, including 3660 on the Rise, P.F. Chang’s, and the favorite, California Beach Rockin’ Sushi. Despite the family curse which closes Honolulu restaurants weeks after our visit, CBRS has stood the test of time.

The next time you see us dining at Mariposa, remember what happened to On Jin’s, Hanatei, Bobby McGee’s, American Bistro, Tower Grill, and a dozen other restaurants of yesteryear which served us dinner, and then closed their doors.

My wife and I enjoy eating out and Honolulu’s restaurants respond to our dining initiatives by closing down.

The Tower Grill in Aloha Tower Marketplace closed just a week or so after our last visit. Add it to the list.

Somehow our dining habits have resulted in the closure of many of Honolulu’s most notable restaurants. Remember On Jin? Yep, we loved that place. We had dinner. On Jin closed.

Remember Bobby McGee’s in Waikiki? Or, the American Bistro or Helen’s on Kapahulu? Or Hanatei in Hawaii Kai? Even local plate lunch eateries cannot escape the curse. Remember Masa’s on King Street?

Our family restaurant curse dates back to the late 1980s and a wonderful dinner at Canlis in Waikiki. What? You don’t remember fine dining, Canlis style? It’s been awhile since they closed their doors. A few years ago we stopped for burgers at Burger King on King Street near Dillingham. The building sells cars now.

Since then, no less than a dozen Honolulu dining establishments have closed following one of our dinner visits.

To be fair, we’ve been tempted to assist with the closure of some restaurants which we deem no longer worthy of our dining out efforts.

On three occasions we stopped at Alan Wong’s Pineapple Room in Macy’s, Ala Moana Center, only to decide to leave without being served. The service was slow, the menu boring, and cleanliness appears not next to Godliness at Alan Wong’s in recent years. So we left before ordering dinner, thus saving the Pineapple Room from becoming the latest victim of our family restaurant curse.

When the economy is good, and people are employed and bringing home a regular paycheck, automobile and truck sales increase.

Car dealers and their sales people (no longer ’salesmen’ since some are women) rank slightly higher than congressmen (and congresswomen) on the list of least liked and least respected professions. Finding an honest seller of cars isn’t quite as difficult as finding an honest politician.

With all the sales and pricing gimmicks imposed upon new car buyers these days, the only thing that keeps the peasants from revolting against local dealers is the good economy. When everyone has money, no one reads the fine print.

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Letterman and Leno need to move over. There’s another old guy in town.

Hawaii’s Andy Bumatai is back on TV and the only differences between Andy and other late night television hosts are a real set (and a studio audience, and a late night time slot, and national acclaim). Good? Bad? Or, just Ugly Andy?

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My music is what I like and HawaiiBlogger likes rock ‘n roll. Creedence. Stones. Three Dog Night. Rock the stage, baby. Rock it.

Well, to be honest, I used to like rock ‘n roll. These days I’m having second thoughts.

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Japan is an exporting country. Sony. Toyota. Honda. Panasonic. Sushi and Sumo. To be fair, sumo wrestling is not doing as well as sushi on Japan’s popular export list.

California and Hawaii are popular locations for authentic Japanese sushi. Also popular in the US, and particularly in Hawaii, is a style of sushi which fits into the Pacific fusion cuisine variety, the California roll.

This roll is unlike any typical Japanese sushi, though it’s a maki-zushi (a roll), but is made inside out– with cucumber, avacado, and imitation crab stick. The California roll is often made with a flair and style representative of the sushi chef or the restaurant, hence the wide variety of sushi rolls.

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