p on the new restaurant/food bandwagon. I had heard about Mr. Mandoo at work when some of the ladies were talking about how delicious the food was. I know I look totally Korean and am a big duk fan (yes the word is DUK as in Korean mochi and not the other bad word D**K that some of you are giggling about) but I am not really a mandoo person. (Photo is of Mr. Mad Cow doing his part for international harmony by introducing Mr. Kim Chee Mandoo from Korea to Ms. Chicken McNugget from the Good Ole USA).However, anytime a place comes highly recommended by the distinguished ladies who craft at my workplace, I know that I can count on a great meal at a great price. They are really selective when it comes to kau kau. Really, there is some correlation between the ability to crank out 1000 plastic canvas kleenix holders in one sitting and a discerning palate. However, I had no idea where it was and all of my free time at home has been spent making centerpieces for a dinner I'm going to rather than on the computer so I that I would just wait for a sign from Buddha.
The large lobed one sent me THE message on Thursday, when Mr. Mandoo was featured by Manolo Morales on the KHON Morning News on Thursday. I was expecting a grimy, dark place tucked away behind some K-Bar on Keeaumoku staffed by non-English speaking folks (you know, the ones who give you the eye when you go to pay at Palama Market and speak in English since they think you are Korean and you really don't want to explain that you are really Japanese but look Korean since you are concerned that you will be the target of "comfort women" hatred) but it was a bright, clean cheery place with enthusiastic and even witty young women.
As is my usual state in the morning, I was only kind of paying attention as I tried to put on makeup and keep a huge mangy pit bull's rear end out of my face so all I caught was "Piikoi across from Blockbuster", "8:00 am" and "kal bi mandoo".
I resisted the temptation to go to the place on Thursday, mostly because I had a car full of fish-related pupus for the veterans for Wine Gang. But I knew that Friday, it would be WON (the mandoo are called Won or King because they are so huge). Please note the comparative size of the mandoo (kogi on the left and kim chee on the right to the Chicken McNugget. Ho da big, yeah? Really manapua sized and not the usual mandoo size.
As usual, I did not look up the address and parked on Piikoi, near Ichiriki. I saw the Blockbuster sign and thought the place was in that mini-mall since there was a yellow sign with some round thingy and indistiguishable Asian writing. I started to cross the street and notice that there was a stream of people walking into another store on the Ichiriki side, next to the old no longer there Home Sweet Home furniture store. I saw the demonic looking Mr. Mandoo logo, turned around and headed in the right direction.
Note to future restauranteurs. Do not have your featured creature look like he is sitting on the toilet and is constipated. Really do not do that. It creates a lot of trepidation about consuming your product.
The offerings are very simple. Five types of mandoo, miso soup, some picked veggies and drinks. That's it. Nothing else. No rice. Four of the mandoo are made with ground pork and one is made with shrimp. They all have organic veggies and tofu. There was something on a board about the ratio of veggies and tofu to meat but I don't remember what it was. I think it w
as a high ratio of non dead flesh to dead.
as a high ratio of non dead flesh to dead. All they had left was the Kogi mandoo which is the regular mandoo. It is round and looks exactly like a manapua. It has veggies, tofu and long rice (which is why Oscar the Grouch won't eat one). It was $2.75. I didn't eat one since I wanted to save it for the kids (who also have not eaten it since they busted it open and went "yuck veggies"). I gave one to DT and one to RA at work and they loved it. They said it was really juicy and delicious but not very mandoo-y as expected. Of course, I did not dare tell them it was $2.75 since I would have gotten a long lecture about how one mandoo was 1/5th of my hourly pay (sob sob - non profit wages). So buying six actually cost me over an hour of hard work.
The other mandoo they had left was the kim chee mandoo. I luv luv luv kim chee, always have and always will. Of course, I am at the age wher
e kim chee does not love me. Let's just say I never look like the Mr. Mandoo logo within 10 minutes of eating kim chee. I did eat one of these when I got to work and it was so onolicious! It was a little spicy but not unbearably so. Just the burning warmth a few seconds after biting into the thing but a nice burn, not the painful one that usually comes with Indian food. I felt bad though since the office smelled like kim chee for the rest of the day. I even got kind of punchy as time went by and the odor of the remaining kim chee mandoo wafted out of my desk drawer. My poor friend and co-worker AS had to put up with this all day and she didn't have her usual daily mango delivered by GS to block the smell. This mandoo was $3.50. There were only two left and I got them.
e kim chee does not love me. Let's just say I never look like the Mr. Mandoo logo within 10 minutes of eating kim chee. I did eat one of these when I got to work and it was so onolicious! It was a little spicy but not unbearably so. Just the burning warmth a few seconds after biting into the thing but a nice burn, not the painful one that usually comes with Indian food. I felt bad though since the office smelled like kim chee for the rest of the day. I even got kind of punchy as time went by and the odor of the remaining kim chee mandoo wafted out of my desk drawer. My poor friend and co-worker AS had to put up with this all day and she didn't have her usual daily mango delivered by GS to block the smell. This mandoo was $3.50. There were only two left and I got them. They also sell three other mandoo: a kalbi mandoo which is not made with kalbi at all but is ground pork with kalbi sauce, a spicy pork mandoo (ground pork with spicy sauce and I think mushrooms) and shrimp and vegetable mandoo which had a funky yellow wrapper in the photo. I was told I could wait 20 minutes for a new batch to come out of the steamer but as I had already been waiting in line for 15 minutes, I decided to pass. They did suggest ordering ahead of time if you have a big order (ex: more than 6 mandoo).
They have some sets available. One mandoo with miso soup, two mandoo with miso soup and two mandoo with a drink. I can't remember what the prices were - I think over $8 or so. It cost more if you order a shrimp mandoo or an ice coffee.
I did order an ice coffee and it took two of the staff people to put it together. Skip this totally, It was awful. They dug out some hardened black tar heroin looking rock and plopped it into a cup. A huge chunk fell on the ground during the diggine process. They then added some coffee from a vacumn jug which melted all of the ice that had previously been put in. It was very watery and looked awful. Plus, the cup was only 2/3 full. I was told to go and put cream and sugar in it. It wasn't even real cream but that pump liquid Coffeemate from Costco. By the time I walked over there, the ice was already melted. Since I had to wait so long, they gave this to me free but had I known it would have been so terrible, I would have asked for a free mandoo instead. It was like drinking brown sugar and water. Horrible and pricey.
After my trip to the mandoo grail, I was surprised by the following things:
(1) There was no odor de garlic that usually lurks at Korean places
(1) There was no odor de garlic that usually lurks at Korean places
(2) I was the 5th person in line and almost everything had sold out even though they had only been open for five minutes
(3) My plan to buy 2 dozen mandoo and have money for a cup of ille coffee was not going to happen since they were $2.50-$3.75 each. Instead, I bought 8 mandoo and a cup of crappy iced coffee.
(4) Everything was written in proper English and not the usual ENGRISH you find at most Korean food joints in the Ala Moana adjacent area.
(5) There was no K-Drama music blaring nor a tv with K-Dramas on it in the place.
(6) There was no photo of Bae Yong Joon behind the cash register.
(7) What really shocked and impressed me was the young woman who was he owner. Boy, she is going to go far in this business since she has her hospitality and customer service skills down. The woman behind me had a phone order that had been lost. Apparently, one of the employees wrote the order on a post-it instead of the correct order form. The woman was visibly upset and declined the offer to wait 20 minutes to have them complete her order. Rather than just say, "Here, take your money back B-yatch" as is the usual response in most places around town, the owner profusely apologized and said she would DELIVER the order to the woman's workplace at the time the woman designated! The woman explained that she worked in Kalihi and it would be a drive but the owner said that was okay. The mandoo would get there on time.
(7) What really shocked and impressed me was the young woman who was he owner. Boy, she is going to go far in this business since she has her hospitality and customer service skills down. The woman behind me had a phone order that had been lost. Apparently, one of the employees wrote the order on a post-it instead of the correct order form. The woman was visibly upset and declined the offer to wait 20 minutes to have them complete her order. Rather than just say, "Here, take your money back B-yatch" as is the usual response in most places around town, the owner profusely apologized and said she would DELIVER the order to the woman's workplace at the time the woman designated! The woman explained that she worked in Kalihi and it would be a drive but the owner said that was okay. The mandoo would get there on time.
It is even more amazing that the order wasn't a very big one. Just 12 mandoo so about $40. Yet, the customer was going to be happy.
Well, the owner did ask the lady to give directions to someone on the phone before she got to the counter.
I was not surprised that:
(1) The place was packed with local folks. Real local folks who were not Korean and who had no idea what won mandoo was until Manolo Morales told them. You know every one of us was thinking the same thing, "Looks like manapua".
(2) The heavily hyped "vegetarian" manapua had shrimp in it.
(2) The heavily hyped "vegetarian" manapua had shrimp in it.
(3) There were containers of ground pork mandoo filling mix on the counters in the kitchen. This seems to be the korean equivalent of the gau gee pork filling sitting on a table in a Chinese restaurant. I bet you can count o
n one hand the number of times you have gone to any ethnic restaurant of these genres and not seen an uncooked pork filled platter somewhere in the place just festering.
n one hand the number of times you have gone to any ethnic restaurant of these genres and not seen an uncooked pork filled platter somewhere in the place just festering.(4) My kids prefer fried lumps of sodium and chicken fat to anything remotely healthy or organic.
(5) An office reeking of kim chee will keep the visitors away.
My five favorite Korean places as of today:
1) Ono's BBQ in the Kaimuki Shopping Center. They have the best side dishes and I worship at the temple of the duk man doo guk. Total Korean Seoul food. I dream of this at night and wish I came from the middle land and not the land of the rising sun.
2) The indistinguishable kim chee store on Keeaumoku - near the park and across the street from Pineland. I always wanted to go but there was never parking in the front. I finally went since a spot was open, leaving my precious and grouchy kids in the car. I bought kim chee green onions (not chopped but whole) which was too spicy for me to eat like that - had to chop it into tiny bits and be a wuss, regular kim chee and cucumber kim chee. I bought sushi but it had fishcake in it which I hate so I gave that to Oscar. He said it was good but strange.
(3) Frozen black bean noodles from Palama Market. They used to eat this in every episode of First Wives Club. I think it is Korean ghetto food but I love it. Black beans, noodles and boiled potatoes. Funky but good.
(4) Kim Chee dip from Tamura's Market on Waialae. I am eating this now and have put it on everything. Tuscan garlic/parmesan bruscetta, pizza doritos, banana muffin. It will probably shorten my life with its deadly combination of mayo and cream cheese but who cares? Death for dip.
(5) Good old reliable head cabbage Halm's kim chee.
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