Waiola Store (Mokihana)

Storefront and Menu

           After freezing at Hanauma Bay, the sun On our way to Ono Seafood, we made wrong turns on wrong turns and by some virtue had ran into Waiola Store, which specializes in shave ice! Maybe luck was on our side after all...  This was actually the second store to open, and now they have 3 different locations. If you didn't know this, Waiola Store is a Hawaiian institution famous for their shave ice. If you don't know what shave ice its, essentially it is like a finely shaved snow cone with all sorts of sweet syrups. Actually, they are a store that sells a couple of weird goods and Waiola Shave Ice merchandise.  Pretty cool, but I was here for the Shave Ice. You can see them making it, and there was only one person in the store making shave ice. This made it so there was a long wait, but you could see them take the blocks out and take their time. That was a good sign.

            

Rainbow Shave Ice with Azuki Beans and Ice Cream $4

         I purchased a large rainbow bowl with Azuki Beans (red bean like beans) and ice cream. This is supposedly the way locals get it, and have to trust the locals, right? Anyways, the rainbow bowl cost $3 and the toppings each cost 50 cents, so our bowl came to $4. This was ages above snow cones, with the smooth finely shaved ice and everything, Too bad the syrups were just the normal stuff, as this could have been a really good bowl if it had more real fruit flavour. The syrup was overly sweet and used lots of bright colouring agents and artificial flavours. Not good at all, in comparison to Matsumoto on the North Shore. Still, this was a decent dessert for a hot day in Hawaii. The ice cream on the bottom made the bowl really good when you got both the things in your mouth, with the creaminess and flavours making an impact in your mouth. Azuki beans seemed pretty normal, but I don't know beans so I can't say much. They went well with the shave ice though. All in all, this was a good bowl of shave ice, although it didn't blow us away. Should they have used better and less artificial syrups, the fineness of this ice could have been really good. In the end, this syrup really messed up the Shave Ice, so I give it a 2.5/5. Too bad, hopefully this isn't what the original store is like...

Bottom Line: Mediocre Shave Ice

Tip: Get the Ice Cream and Azuki Beans

Overall: 2.5/5