Oahu's Triple D - Sam's Kitchen (Waikiki)

It’s so hard to find a Japanese restaurant in the Waikiki area that’s open at 11am for lunch on a Friday.  The ones I found had huge padlocks on it or a big handwritten sign in Japanese.  We stumbled on a stand called Sam’s Kitchen.  What attracted me to go check out the menu was the smell of fried garlic.

Sam's Kitchen - menu on the right

At first, we tried to fit 2 strollers up top which fits but we had no place to sit and eat.  It turns out that behind Sam’s Kitchen are a few more stands that sells drinks, noodles and takoyaki.  Sam told us it’s ok to eat there (for the entire time we were there, no one went to those stands anyway).

The stand with 2 tables and plenty of seating behind Sam's.

The menu

Garlic chicken - $10

Chicken covered in thick garlic-y sauce. Smelled so good. Could use a bit more sauce to cover the rice.

Garlic steak and mushrooms - $14

Same sauce used for the garlic chicken. Hey, if it's good sauce, you can put it on anything!

When I'm in Hawaii, I tend to look for seafood items... Seafood bento $12

Mini buffet on its own. The ikura (roe) goes really well with the veggie rice. I topped each spoonful of rice with a bit of ikura. The salmon was hiding in the salsa. Salmon was a bit fishy tasting. It was good but not the strongest dish on Sam's menu.

Peek-a-poke! The poke was well seasoned and the raw onions were not spicy. Mixed with green onions and seaweed.

Not the ebi mayo that I expected. The sauce was a bit watery and the shrimps were bland. The masago added a nice touch though.

Sam's Plantation Iced Tea - $3

Then it started to pour… badly.  Like a sheet of water.  The table umbrellas were not able to hold on its own and cover us so we were partly drenched.  Sam immediately came out to give us some cotton towels to wipe ourselves down and the guy working in the takoyaki stand gave us garbage bags to wear.  After 10 minutes of wrapping our stuff and ourselves, the rain stopped and we suddenly looked like silly fools wearing garbage bags.  Well, that’s Hawaiian weather. I could not be any happier that Patch insisted on packing the stroller plastic cover.

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