Pine Tree Cafe

After a grey morning in the mountains touring the Mountain Thunder Coffee Plantation, sampling fresh Kona coffee, we Yelped our way to this nearby Hawaiian cafe.  It's a really casual joint.  Order, take a number, and pick up your food on a tray.  The menu is quite extensive and it was hard to widdle down our choices.  Like the fat asses we were, we over ordered as per usual.  

Fried Poke furikake rice, pickled cucumbers

Ho Bag, The Cat Whisperer, and I joined our forces to tackle some heavy options.  I'm not sure why people ordered this so much from the Yelp reviews.  Poke is meant to be raw, and then when you fry it, what makes it poke?  It wasn't very fresh tasting. 

Spicy Garlic Chicken

Very delicious.  Hard to go wrong with fried chicken bits slathered in sinful sauce.

Puerto Rican Stew
This was probably my favorite dish out of the lot.  Ironic that it's not really Hawaiian I guess.  There was probably some Puerto Rican abuelita making this in the back.  I think it was a special, so maybe we just got lucky.  It was well balanced and hearty.  Maybe not the best food for the hot ass weather, but it was tasty.

Bento Box Sampler

I think The Mexican Manchild and FxGf/FW ordered this.  I think it was pretty average.

Hawaiian Slam

I think the complaint here was the grease factor.  Flavors were good though.

Loco Moco

This was a requisite dish to share for the table.  I'm not quite sure why loco moco is famous or even popular.  It's hamburger patties on rice, topped with fried eggs, and slathered in brown gravy.  The gravy obviously is what brought any flavor to the dish.  I'm sorta partial to that classic gravy that gets reconstituted from powder.  It's one of those gross things I've eaten as a kid, but I kinda still like the taste.  Go figure.

I think this is as Hawaiian as it gets.  I can't say any dish knocked it out of the park for me.  I think it's mostly because I don't really enjoy heavy greasy food too much.  Hawaiian food like this can definitely be a giant weight in the pit of your stomach.  Notice the lack of real greenery here.  Eating like this will lead you to an early death.  But if not that, it will definitely lead you to be extremely constipated.  OK, this is a food blog so I'll stop here =P.