Hawaiian Drive-Inn #28 / Happy Buffet Part II

San Francisco, CA

I visited Hawaiian Drive-Inn #28 at 22nd Ave and Noriega (SW corner) after the gym last Friday night. My friends L and J had told me about this Hawaiian BBQ joint opening up a few months ago, but I hadn't had a chance to visit. Warning: parking in the area at 8pm at night is a somewhat surprising PITA. I wondered if this "#28" was also related/same franchisee as the one in South San Francisco. Anyhoo, I've been rather wary about the Hawaiian lunch plates fad that's popping up in the Bay Area. Little cafes and boba places are starting to offer these plate lunches - and I'm concerned that some of these are inferior and will give the plate lunch a bad rep. I love plate lunches and the neat history behind them - fusion, without the pretension or preciousness.

It's been awhile since I've spam musubified myself and I was starvin' like Marvin' so I popped into this small storefront. This Hawaiian Drive Inn (yes, 2 "n"s) occupies the former space of a cha chaan teng (HK coffee house) which my cousin said sucked ass. Before that, it was some sort of teriyaki place as I recall. I ordered a spam musubi ($1.69) and a "bento" special ($6.50) on the specials board. After waiting a solid 10 minutes, I received my order.


The photo does not do justice to the paltry amount of rice in this musubi. The slice of grilled Spam (I think it was the real stuff) was a normal thickness, but the rice was about 2.5 Spam thicknesses. =( I usually need a tad more rice in a musubi to counter the saltiness of regular Spam. The teeny smear of super salty teriyaki (teri-yucky) sauce did not help the cause. A sweeter sauce would have been a better bet in this snack. I was left so disappointed - when again in need of musubification, I will not return.



Now, the bento was an interesting dish. I hadn't expected a piece or two of various meats they offer at Hawaiian Drive-Inn. I received a slice of Spam, fried mahi-mahi, BBQ beef, two large pieces of BBQ chicken, shredded cabbage, one scoop of macaroni salad, and two scoops of not-sticky-enough rice. Shoot, I think this bento is cheaper than some of their other combinations. The Spam could've been fried/grilled a tad longer for my taste. The overcooked chewy beef was slathered in more of that awful salty teriyaki sauce. The mahi-mahi was moist on the inside but the batter crust was a tad soggy - can't fault them since it had to survive the car ride home in an unventilated box with all the other piping hot meat. The chicken was also perfectly cooked and thankfully not coated in that evil sauce. I really wish the rice was the shorter grained stickier type. The macaroni salad was flat - I'm a mayo hater and this did nothing to sway me. I always forget to ask for an extra scoop of rice instead of craparoni salad. I had plenty left over for another meal - that someone at home ate (thank goodness).

Overall: MEH, not worth the calories.

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Milpitas, CA

Last Saturday afternoon, we stopped off at Happy Buffet at my dad's request. Dad must've really liked this buffet when we went there for my mom's birthday since he had been dropping random hints about going back for the last few weeks. My dad never openly says he likes something - we know he likes something when he randomly mentions it in conversation. This time, we were heading back from outlet mall in Gilroy and my mom and I were plotting to stop off for Vietnamese food in San Jose. We thought my dad was napping in the car when all of a sudden, we mentioned food, and he immediately responded, "Buffet?" =P

We arrived in Milpitas around 1:30pm and put our name on the waiting list. The restaurant was busy with birthday parties, baby showers, and regular folks but we were seated within 15 minutes in the back near the soft-serve ice cream machine (easy access, heh heh). Anyway, I grabbed some of my favorite dishes (lotus leaf wrapped chicken and rice, grilled chicken, more chicken, offal, pig ears) and discovered two more dishes.


My mom had told me how good these Fuzhou fish balls are so I decided to grab a few while there were a few to be grabbed. I avoided this dish on my previous visit since I thought they were tang yuan (glutinous rice flour balls, savory or sweet, with or without filling). I detest tang yuan...I generally dislike all things made with glutinous rice flour (mochi, rice cakes/ovalettes/dduk/nian gao) since I hate chewing something with that type of elasticity. I feel as if I'm chewing for years, that I can taste the flour (which I also hate), or something not properly masticated will lodge in my throat. Not good feelings, nosireebobski. Fuzhou fish balls are bouncy/toothsome fish balls filled with some meat. (I bit into one for viewing pleasure...hehehe). These were served in a very light broth which I liked very much. Some might find the broth rather bland, but I like me a nicely executed broth.

The second new dish I really liked was a stir-fried periwinkle dish.


Mmm...shelled critters...with some beef tripe. Mmm...tripe...These were easily the best periwinkles I've ever had. They were tender-crisp without the rubberiness or hardness I've found in other preps. They were perfectly cooked...I inhaled about 15 of them. At least they were small! =P

Anyhoo, for $9.99, I was pretty happy with the food. I was disappointed that I didn't get any grilled fish but the steamed sole they had was fantastic! Sweet, perfectly steamed flesh with light soy and scallions = yum. Oh, and rice pudding + chocolate pudding + swirled chocolate and vanilla soft serve = DEElish. I was so stuffed, I wasn't hungry at dinnertime. That's okay, I was stuffed with goodies (weirdies to most folk).