-
January 2024 by Al M.
I come here often for the Korean foods and bon chan. Kind of pricey but worth it. I constantly rotate between the fried chicken, fried calamari, & the Korean pancake (veggie tempura). But my last visit I chose the chicken w different bon chan. I got the Namasu (vinegary and sweet and I think there is a slight spicy to it) it tastes like pickled seaweed w bits of onion and carrots, the dried Dai Kong (radish) Kim Chee style and the taegu (codfish -I think- w a sweet spice).
-
December 2023 by wave form
Fried chicken that feels like your mom made it for you, unlike the typical chain restaurant chicken.The taste was a little different from what Japanese people think of karaage bento, and we found it a little too salty, but the rice and fried chicken were a perfect combination. The crispy skin and juicy chicken go well with the rice. The chicken lunch I ate while looking at the Hawaiian sky was delicious.
-
October 2023 by Beverly Annette Gonzalez
BEST FRIED CHICKEN IVE EVER HAD❤️
-
October 2023 by Deandra V.
Perfect stop to/from the beach! Mini mart with hot food. Known for their fried chicken. But premade bentos and musubis also available for purchase. Cold drinks and slush puppies also available. Some mini mart things like prepackaged banchan also available.
-
August 2023 by Lloyd C.
I stumbled across this store by accident. My wife was at the bakery, and I was outside and wanted to get a cold drink. I walked inside and was welcomed by the sight of all these musubis, bentos, and fried chicken in a display case.Service was friendly, but there was a language barrier when I was curious about certain food items.I picked up a spam musubi because I just can't resist it whenever I see it. This was good, but nothing to spectacular.Crispy Chicken Thighs: The skin was crunchy, crispy, and seasoned well, but I felt the chicken itself was dry. I ate the 3-4 pieces, but all were the same.Overall: 3.5 stars.
-
August 2023 by Wade H.
We happened to notice that there was a mini mart next to the Paalaa Kai bakery where we get the snow puffies!It is literally a mini-mart but packed to the brim with people buying all kinds of things. We figured we had to stand in line to buy food so we did. There were at least 15 people ahead of us. Some had cold beef, some had snacks, etc. When they got up to the front, they picked up musubi, fried chicken and a lot of other things.We bought some delicious fried chicken and Korean musubi that was the bomb. The spam musubi was reasonably priced and tasty. The calamari was good too. They accept credit cards. They have other food as well and they are constantly refilling food. Hopefully they have what you want when you get up to the counter.Don't let the secret out but this place to stop on the way to the beach. They are closed Mondays and Tuesdays so don't head out there in those days. Good food at reasonable prices and right next to Paalakai Bakery!
-
July 2023 by Jen C.
This will be an unpopular review as this is many people's favorite Waialua chicken. I really wanted to like this place since I like to support local and was looking forward to trying the fried chicken that everyone raves about. I've lived on Oahu my entire life and have been to the bakery but never the mini mart side. Today, I was in the area so I decided to pick up some food at the mini mart. It was a Sunday at noon and the place was packed, no parking in the lot and across the street but I got lucky that someone was pulling out right when I got in the lot. I decided to get two bentos with fried chicken, half a hot dog, spam and rice. The bentos were warm as I picked it up from the shelf so I assumed they were freshly packed. I drove to a park nearby and had my bento about 20 min later.It was awful.My mom ended up throwing hers away.The rice was HARD and dehydrated like when you leave rice in the fridge for 3 days hard. It was inedible and not chewable. How can a local business mess up rice? This rice tasted like it was in the fridge for days...not servable and I'd I didn't drive away I would have seriously have brought it back because this kind of thing should never be sold. The chicken skin was soggy, didn't expect this since I assumed it was a freshly packed bento since it was warm when I picked it up. The chicken was so severely over cooked it was like eating chicken jerky. It was also flavorless as if they didn't salt the chicken.The slice of spam was paper thin. That should have been a sign to me to NOT buy the chicken bento. A friend bought the chicken in a box which is the better deal, at least that chicken was crispy and salted.My review however is based on what I purchased was the two chicken bentos. Do NOT buy the bentos. I now think it may have been reheated leftover from the day before but I went at noon so I assumed it was fresh. I can't even think of how you can cook rice that hard and dehydrated if made the same day.The bentos went in the trash. Worse local bento I've ever had.
-
July 2023 by Sean Y.
Some of the best spam musubis you'll find! A classic local store serving some of the best beach food ever! A must stop for fried chicken, calamari, and a couple musubis and you're good to go! Sweet tooth? Walk next door and get some pastries if their famous snow puffies! As always, let's support local!
-
June 2023 by Ross M.
This place is known for its fried chicken. If you like crunchy skin it's got it. The chicken, though, is just a tad bit on the dry side. This being said, you don't have to worry about it being undercooked. I love the saltiness & crunchy skin combination.Service is quick, as people know what they're getting.If you're ever out Wailua side and want to try their chicken, this is a must go to place.
-
May 2023 by Dennis Y.
Friend and I decide to cruise up to Waialua since we hadn't gone to Paalaa Kai Mini-Mart and the adjoining bakery in a long while. I thought we had gone there last time in 2020 during the pandemic. Told him I wrote a review on the bakery the last time we went, so I would check. Found out --- get this, the last time we went there was EXACTLY the same month and date (May 11th of 2019)! How strange is that!? Realized that I didn't do a review of the mini-mart in the past since I only did the review on the bakery, hence the need to review as this would just be the third time to have gone here. Got here about 9:15am on a slightly rainy Thursday morning and saw several available stalls in the lot. Great, tourists hadn't woken up yet so not crowded and the morning work crowd went to work!Wanted to get a 5 piece fried chicken (if they had), but at the hot foods compartment, saw it came with 2pc (with rice), 3pc (chicken only, $6.50) and the 6pc (chicken only, $13), so decided to get the 6 piece. The one and only 6 pc chicken was in a plate lunch container and looked to be scraps and skin, and I was thinking nah, that one was just for display - but nope, it was the one the cashier gave me. Also bought the chop chae (Korean glass noodles) which was $6.50 and one each hot dog musubi and SPAM musubi at $2.25 each, Anyway, the total of $24.49 was rang up, with the friendly cashier... sounded like he was on 'auto pilot' as whenever a customer put their orders on the counter, the first thing he'd say was 'do you need a bag for these?' which would cost them 15 cents. I broke his cycle (lol) when I showed him my plastic bag he could put the foods and we made a joke about that! Upon calculating the breakdown when I came home, it looked like the cashier discounted me something (like perhaps charging me less?) for that skimpy looking 6 piece of scrap chicken pieces, skin, etc that looked nothing like other pics on Yelp. Upon getting both musubis and the chop chae noodles out from the display case, NONE of those 3 items felt warm, or even lukewarm to the touch. Hmm. Were these cooked overnight in advance and were all of these stacked bento containers and musubis also not warm?Well, the hot dog musubi (since it was a red colored hot dog split in half, it had to be the local Redondo's brand---which I love and ONLY hot dog I purchase for some time) had some of its sauce seep into the nori wrapped rice that reached all the way to the bottom and made the entire musubi taste delicious --- just as good as 7-11 Hawaii's rendition. The Spam musubi was unfortunately not on the same tier taste wise as the hot dog musubi, even though it had sauce underneath it that partly seeped into the rice. The chop chae looked delicious, but didn't taste delicious as expected. It didn't have that old style okazu-ya flavor (like that of Marian's Catering's version) and was not as moist as Marian's. However, for the price ... I would buy this again --- but it has to be warm at the least...The fried chicken was the biggest letdown in flavor and presentation -- to me, just not box it at all. Yes, it was not overly salty which is common in local style fried chicken. It did have the crunch when biting down on the skin, buy hey --- not everyone eats chicken skin. Some small thigh bones with a small bite of meat were included as the scraps. The meat was slightly moist, I 'wouldn't' say slightly dry since it went down easily when swallowed. Again, it may have been the last of any fried chicken cooked for the day, and so it looked it.The 3 star rating was just for today's eats here --- as ALL the food items were not warm, or even lukewarm - they could do better somehow or at least microwave the musubis and bentos before putting it out in the heated display cases ... Sorry, I got turned off by today's foods at Paalaa Kai Mini-Mart - so much that next time I come here, I may only go to the bakery side...
-
May 2023 by greg a
Delicious to go bentos and fried chicken.
-
April 2023 by Kelly WM
Best place to come to grab food before the beach. They have musubis, fried chicken, little bento, noodles, and tons of drinks.
-
April 2023 by Kelly W
Best place to come to grab food before the beach. They have musubis, fried chicken, little bento, noodles, and tons of drinks.
-
March 2023 by Jamie K
Always love coming to this mini-mart. Fried chicken and kimbap rolls are delicious! Also like the veggie pancakes, japchae, and fried calamari. The clerk guy has always been nice and friendly, but efficient!
-
February 2023 by Vincent L.
Sort of like a local version of 7-Eleven Hawai'i: a full convenience store here, plus a hot food display. Only that the hot food is house-made and offers lots of choices (see attached photo), including tempura, musubi, kimbap, fried chicken, and bento boxes galore. It all looks a bit fresher and more natural than the salty processed stuff you get at 7-Eleven. So it's a worthwhile stop if you're making your way to the north or windward shores, in addition to being a convenient community resource.
