Well, that's kind of the point. Good food is good food. It doesn't have to be fine dining to be good. In fact, I have a feeling that as we continue to add posts ("reviews") to this blog, the majority of the places will be of the "hole in the wall" variety. Such is this inaugural post.
On our honeymoon, we spent several days on the island of Kauai. What we discovered there, food-wise, is that every place on the whole stinkin' island claims to make the best burgers in Hawaii. Who knew that Hawaii was even known for burgers? Anyway, two such places seemed like they might have a legitimate shot at backing up that claim, so we gave them both a try.
Frankly, they were both pretty good, and it's been long enough ago that I can't really recall what was better about one or the other. Jess remembers thinking that we enjoyed Bubba burger a little more, overall. I really think that the burgers were pretty comparable. The one thing that definitely made Bubba superior was the wait time - I do recall waiting nearly an hour at Ono. It was pretty outrageous for "fast" food. Of course, nothing is truly "fast" in Hawaii anyway.
Both burgers were very good, and the onion rings/fries were good as well. Everything appeared to be made fresh, and they did have their own special taste due to the use of teriaki sauce (and in one case, a pineapple ring). However, I wouldn't go so far as to say it was the best burger that I've ever had or anything. Like many other things that we eat in restaurants, we're convinced that we could do as good or better making it ourselves at home.
So, if you find yourself on Kauai, where should you go? I'd still recommend Bubba burger (pictured above) - truthfully, there wasn't a lot of variety of restuarants on Kauai, and if you enjoy a good burger at a charming little open-air diner, it's worth the stop. And Ono? Well, it definitely seemed popular, both with locals and tourists. It was very good, and the selection of burgers was admirable. If you're going to make that stop, though, definitely plan to do it somewhere outside of "normal" lunchtime hours. You don't want to sit there waiting for 45 minutes while you watch everyone else that was ahead of you in line chow down. Speaking from experience, it's not fun. My take was that this place was one of those things that you "check off" - yep, went to Ono burger, don't have to do that again. I don't think that I would.
While I'm on the subject of food on Kauai, there is one other place worth mention. I actually didn't recall the name of it, but I was able to look it up - there is a little bakery in Kapaa that makes great muffins, called Sweet Marie's. Everything is gluten-free (she uses rice flour), and we had them a couple of times - excellent! They are just the right "weight" - very moist and fluffy, but still substantial enough to be enjoyable.
I know this sounds like a very vague description (and kind of random - I thought this post was about burgers!), but if you knew how small Kapaa was, you'd know that you will be able to find this place. Just keep following the road (seriously, there's only one) through town. If you're headed toward the North Coast, it will be on your right. You should definitely stop in - good food, and the place is so tiny, you can actually watch her making whatever delectable treats she might be working on at the time. Tell her we said hi.
I could go on about places in Hawaii, but I think I'll save that for another post. I've already talked about 3 different places in a single post, so I think I've reached the limit for this time.
Ratings:
Bubba Burger gets 3 1/2 hungry emoticons:
Ono Char Burger gets 2 1/2 hungry emoticons due to being overrated:
Note - we just started this blog, so we're "making up for lost time" by posting about some places at which we've eaten in the past. This one was from spring 2008. Hopefully pretty soon we'll "catch up" and our posts will be more current.
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