Aiea Bowl/The Alley Restaurant

Remember Lemon Crunch Cake at the old Alexander Young Hotel downtown? I don't. That was before my time. But Grammy does. Fondly. And mind you, she's not one to eat sweets, nor anything with dairy. So when she was raving about this cake that can be found at Diamond Head Market & Grill and Aiea Bowl, my curiosity was piqued. I drove to the country (hey, 96701 is kinda far from 96816, you know!) and went to Aiea Bowl to get her cake.



It was not a cheap cake. An eight-inch, three-layer Lemon Drop Crunch Cake will run you about $28. But she enjoyed it, so it was totally worth it. We enjoyed it too.



It's covered with heavy whipped cream and crunchy toffee. The lemon flavor was pleasant and not overwhelming... Maybe a bit underwhelming for my taste, though. Grammy had a slice of the Diamond Head Market cake recently and said it was also good, but only had a sprinkling of the toffee crunch instead of being covered in it like Aiea Bowl's.

While I was waiting for the cake, I saw a delicious plate pass by:

(Sorry for the quality of the photo. I forgot my camera at home, so I had to use my cell phone.) It was the Tasty Chicken/Teri Beef combo plate with two scoops brown rice and tossed salad (instead of mac).

We ended up at the Alley later that week for dinner. It's somewhat stylish with the glass panels and artsy pendant lighting. But, you never forget you're at a bowling alley with the sounds of bowling balls hitting the lanes and pins flying. Nice, casual atmosphere.

When I came on Monday at lunch, it was packed. When we came for dinner on Friday before six, there were a few empty tables. By the time we left, the place was packed.

Here's what we had...

Missing the Mahi Royale from the now-gone Flamingo Restaurant on Kapiolani Blvd, Grammy tried the Mahi sandwich. It comes with its own dressing, so you might want to try it before smothering it with tartar sauce like Grammy did. Evidently, the two sauces did not go well together. The potato-mac salad was okay, but unremarkable. I didn't notice the pepper, but Grammy, who hates pepper, said there was a lot.


Hubby had the Oxtail Soup.

The Alley has coyly dubbed 2009 Year of the Oxtail Soup. And is it! The picture is lousy, but the soup was amazing! It was done Chinese-style with the red date, peanuts, ginger, five-spice and lots of meaty oxtails. In my opinion, this is the best oxtail soup I have ever had. (In case you're wondering, I have not had the pleasure of trying Kam Bowl's oxtail soup.)

My son wanted the ramen, but the waitress said they haven't had it for quite a while now because the noodles are stuck at the dock. Hmmm... So he settled for the fried noodles.

The noodles were fried in butter. I have nothing against butter, in fact I frequently indulge in it, but in fried noodles?! Oh well, my kid didn't want to share with me anyway, so I didn't have to think about it much. By the way, they put real Spam inside. Funny how my son got so mad at me for eating his Spam, but didn't make a peep about me eating the cabbage...

I had the Tasty Chicken/Teri-Beef Combo plate (pictured above). The Tasty Chicken reminded me of Korean Style or Mistuken's Garlic Chicken where they deep fry pieces of chicken and toss it in a sweet, garlicky, shoyu-based sauce. The Teri-Beef was tasty and tender. It was pre-cut.

The desserts looked so ono. I think this was a Pumpkin Crunch Cake.

Asahi Grill family dining

We frequently go out to dinner with my mom. She prefers a casual, down-home atmosphere to anything fancy and pretentious. BYOB is a plus for her. So the first time I went to Asahi Grill, I knew she'd like it.

Asahi Grill is on Ward Avenue where there used to be a Burger King once upon a time. It's next to the Kanai Tofu Factory.



They have a some of Kapiolani Coffee Shop's recipes -- most notably, the award-winning Oxtail Soup (small $9.75, regular $11.95).

This one is the small, but it was pretty big. The flavor was good. Be forewarned, it was liberally sprinkled with chinese parsley. We like chinese parsley, so it wasn't a problem for us, though. We only wish they would've used meatier oxtails.

Kids seem to like the Fried rice (small $4.75, regular $6.25) with egg (costs extra), another Kapiolani recipe.

To me, the Fried Rice is just okay. There's lots of chopped mystery meat in there (in other words, I couldn't figure out what the meat was) and no real vegetables (like peas or carrots) to speak of. Maybe that's why the kids like it?

My mom liked the Chop Steak ($7.75). She said it had a teriyaki (shoyu with sugar) sauce on it. The day I had it, it was super salty. Almost inedible, it was so salty. I think they must have put salt instead of sugar :( and the onions were so raw I had onion breath for a day or two.


  

The Hamburger Steak ($8.25) is an 8 oz homemade hamburger patty with grilled onions, topped with gravy, served plate-lunch style (2 scoops rice and mac salad).  We thought it was only so-so. Kind of bland, tasted better with salt.

I like their Teishoku. I've had the Salmon ($11.75) before, but this time I had the Chicken Teriyaki ($9.50).

There are three chicken thighs, miso soup with noodles, pickles, tofu, salad, rice and mac salad.

I always thought Donburi was a bowl of rice with stuff on top with a runny egg over all, so I never order it. Hubby ordered the Spicy Ahi Don. No runny egg here! It was the sweet rolled up egg they put on sushi. In fact, the whole dish was like a huge handroll sushi without the seaweed wrapper: sushi rice, avocado, cucumber, sweet egg, ahi, tobiko and spicy mayo dressing.

There are always quite a few tables with kids at Asahi Grill. They also serve breakfast all day.

Asahi Grill

515 Ward Avenue

Honolulu, HI

Ph 808.593.2800

Hours: Sunday - Thursday 6:30 am - 10:00 pm, Friday-Saturday 6:30 am - 11:00 pm