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Now eating: Sam's Kitchen

January 19th, 2010
By Melissa

I recently heard about a place called Sam's Kitchen, across DFS Galleria in Waikiki. Local people who work in Waikiki know about it, as do Japanese tourists and transplanted Japanese (like my running friend Maile Burgey). I had been trying to get there for some time, but time and my cold got in the way. I finally got to try it last week, and you can see what I ate on today's Metromix.

Sams Kitchen decorblog

I love eating at nutty little places. And when I say "nutty," I mean it in a very good way. When you find this place, make sure you go to the window that says "Sam's Kitchen," not the adjacent currency exchange window!

Parking 1 blog

But first, the parking. I was originally told to park in the pedi-cab zone on Royal Hawaiian Avenue. For one, pedi-cabs don't even exist anymore, so no one will get mad; and two, cops supposedly don't frequent this area. Well, surprise, surprise! A cop pulled up about 10 minutes after this picture. I ran out to move my car and was SO tempted to take a photo of the unhappy policewoman to record the momentous event, but I didn't think she'd appreciate it.

Sam on the Street blog

Instead, Sam Monaghan (of Sam's Kitchen) told us to hop the curb and park here, around the corner on Lauula Street. It's a private road, so the cops can't ticket you.

The thing about this place--even though he's not always there--is Sam Monaghan himself. The guy is only 32 years old, but is a self-made renaissance man. He was born in the Bahamas but moved around the world with his brother and artist mom. One of the places they lived was Samoa, where he learned the language (although he doesn't admit to being fluent at all) and then finally in Japan, where he grew up. He's fluent in Japanese to the point that he's a television personality and writes for Japan Airlines. Since he's so famous, Japanese tourists who deliberately or accidentally find Sam's Kitchen all want to take a picture with him.

Sam also surfs and I'm told he has some awards but he's so modest, it's hard to drag that stuff out of him. He also sailed with the escort crew of the Hokule'a on their most recent voyage. Again, being modest, he didn't let on that he was bilingual till he got to Japan--his fluency was so helpful (amongst all his skills) that he inadvertently ended up working next to the captain. Also, during his eight years as a media personality, he has worked with many chefs and learned various techniques and recipes, so he was invaluable as a cook aboard the ship. Here is one of the stories from the voyage:

Pretty cool, huh? But when you eat here, you won't get any pretention. Just this cool, friendly, tall guy who has lots of fun stories.

Garlic Shrimp blog
Oh, yeah, the food! We ate there, that's for sure. I think we ate everything but the pesto, which I hear is awesome but they never have it whenever I go there! What's up with that?! Anyway, I'm not going to show you all the food--you have to visit my Metromix gallery to see all that!--but here's a teaser. Garlic shrimp. Mmmmm!

Sam's Kitchen
333 Royal Hawaiian Avenue
Honolulu, HI 96815
808-271-0010

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Now eating: Sam's Kitchen

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