Sara’s Cafe – Honolulu, HI

Hello readers! Ah, I was out this past week. We had a three day weekend and here I thought I was going to be super on it and get things done. Well Monday came along and I got really sick. Like, really really sick. It started with a headache (might have been the vog) and led to me (sorry for sharing) vomiting all day. And I didn’t eat anything so I don’t know how it was possible to throw up so much, must have been all the acid in my stomach coming out. It was TERRIBLE. I even had to call in sick on Tuesday to rest up. Glad I did. In fact, I probably could have taken more time off but I have a lot of stuff at work to do. I think I’m still getting over the after effects of Monday.

I hope everyone is doing well! School started again as well and I really do want to be proactive and do things early. I haven’t achieved that yet, but I’ll just make sure I remain timely with my assignments. I also plan to take a trip this Spring so I really really need to plan that out. I’m getting pretty excited about it too!

Anyhow, I’ll try to get some posts up this weekend and get some up for next week too! I had to push this post up because Sara’s Cafe is a brand spanking new restaurant so I wanted to share my experience with everyone. This restaurant replaces Jun Cafe. If you ever head towards Don Quijote on Beretania, I think you’ve seen Jun Cafe’s sign. In fact, the Jun Cafe sign is still up but the restaurant is now Sara’s Cafe. This is a very cute and small restaurant run by ONE woman. It’s very similar to the Angry Korean Lady but also the complete opposite. Sara is a sweetheart and works FAST and she serves you…and you don’t have to fear being yelled at. Hahaha so would I recommend this restaurant over Ah Lang? Um, yes.

When I came to this restaurant, there was a man in front of the garage who told me to park in this 30 minute guest spot. I only spotted two spots! Super tight. This guy parked next to me in a porsche and he was all freaked out that I would hit his car. No worries bra. Nah, I would probably worry if I had one expensive car too. Anyway, I’m not sure how the parking works for this place. When I was leaving, the guy was gone so maybe you can park anywhere in the structure? We were the first customers in the restaurant so we received fast and attentive service. Really small restaurant, big screen TV with a Karaoke set located in the front. When no one is singing, the TV is playing random music videos. While the videos were super random and from different decades, the music was quite enjoyable. Ahhh…enough babbling! Get to the food Jenny! Okay, I will.

150123-01

150123-02Korean Chives Pancake – $7.99

Okay, so there isn’t as much chives as Ah Lang. It’s still good! I wouldn’t say it’s great though because I felt like it could have been fried a bit crispier. I also felt that maybe the oil was not hot enough yet so the pancake tasted a bit greasy. Overall, I wouldn’t order this again.

150123-03

150123-04

150123-05Korean Style Hamburger Steak – $11.99

I was looking forward to this very much! I really like meatballs and these are prepared exactly like meatballs. Meatballs are great because they are so luscious and delicious. Well usually. These were good! I would definitely order them again.

150123-08

150123-09Steamed Egg – $5.99

I’m a sucker for eggs steamed like this. It’s a homestyle Chinese dish as well so I was glad to see a Korean version. Some may try to compare it to Chawan Mushi but other than it being steamed and containing eggs, they are not at all similar. Chawan mushi is silky while this egg dish is not. This is prepared very similar to the way I’m used to, only there is sesame oil. What Korean dish is complete without sesame oil? It was a pretty good price for this dish so I would order it again!

150123-10Spicy Soft Tofu Stew (Soondubu) – $9.99

Ahhh..this soup was so good. There were three of us so all the food was shared family style. If I was by myself, I’d eat that soup all by myself. She cracks an egg right at the end of cooking so it was perfectly poached with the most perfect yolk. Sara is also very generous with the seafood in this soup! Delicious.

150123-06

150123-07Here’s the banchan! It came with our food, very delicious. I’m not sure how she determines how to give banchan. Her menu is made up of plate lunches, ala carte items and then soup sets. So depending on what you order, you will get rice or banchan. If you don’t order these sets, she does offer her banchan and rice for ala carte ordering.

So I showed you exactly what we ordered and based on that, she did serve us this platter of banchan and a rice bowl for each of us. I didn’t want to ask how it would work, figured I would let her decide how to serve. Sara is very sweet, I felt very comfortable in this restaurant. I likened it to eating some good home cooked Korean food. Nothing fancy which is what made the experience nice. I gotta tell you, Sarah was FAST. She served up our dishes in no time. Really great food, I’d love to give this place a try again…soon!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.