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The Weekly Eater Nadine Kam |
Good morning Kaneohe,
and Wahiawa, and Aiea,
and ...IF you want to be popular, put breakfast on the table. Like little quackers imprinted by the sight and sound of Mama Duck, human beings, upon waking up, are elated to find food placed before them. No foraging, hooray!
In the primitive parts of our brain, we're driven by the need to break our overnight fast, so the basics will do: cereal, eggs or croissants. We could eat just about the same thing every day without complaint. Could you say the same for lunch or dinner?
Probably not. Most people welcome the option to be confounded by choices, carefully weighing the merits of pizza vs. salads vs. burgers vs. sushi vs. Chinese food vs. Mexican, and so on. We expect a certain amount of excitement at the table, and to eat the same thing every day would be like death.
Breakfast foods are pure sustenance, asking little of us other than to gnaw and swallow. In our barely awake state, we can't be bothered with aesthetics, guessing how many herbs have been snipped into a dish, or the measure by which our sauce was reduced.
For these reasons, breakfast has long been ignored. There's just no glory in it. Chef reputations are built on Moroccan-spiced squab with chermoula, or duck confit terrines with Meyer lemon chutney. Not hash.
Learn from the ducks, man. What are the first foods children learn to love? Mom's pancakes and hash, even if it came from a can or freezer package; and if you grew up local, brown sugar-crisped Spam, eggs and rice. Offer that much, and feel the love.
At Koa Pancake House in Aiea, employee Clarice Pacatang stands behind a dish of pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream, with a side of bacon.
FOR KOA Pancake House, the love is making its way across the island. Since 1988, when it was opened by Il Man Chung, Koa has reigned in Kaneohe. It took a lucky 13 years to see a second Koa Pancake House spring up, in Wahiawa in 2003. The leap to its newest branch, in Aiea, was a quick two years. A Waipahu branch is on the way, and can Kaimuki be far behind? They should be so lucky to have a place where two people of normal appetite can fill up for less than $7.
It's totally possible because omelets and egg-and-meat combos all come with your choice of three pancakes, rice, home-fried potatoes or toast. If you want bacon and scrambled eggs ($4.75) and your honey wants plain pancakes (it's $1 more for banana, blueberry, chocolate chip or pecan pancakes), you're set, at $5.75 total. Add a side of wheat toast ($1.05) for yourself if you must, and voila! Breakfast for $6.80. Even with gas prices as high as they are now, you may do better leaving your nest than whipping up those pancakes and eggs yourself.
Unlike the comfy, sitdown Kaneohe location, however, the Wahiawa and Aiea stores were intended to be quickie, takeout sites. This can be a source of stress on an otherwise relaxed weekend morning, as dozens crowd the counter to place their orders for omelets and sausages. Throw in side orders, and it can get very confusing, indeed. I threw out dozens of orders and sides, making changes along the way, and miraculously, the staff got it all right! So if you can make it past the counter and to one of the dozens of tables seating two to four, you're home free. Waiters call your number and deliver your trays of food on no-frills paper plates.
I found a spinach, mushroom and cheese omelet ($6) somewhat flat and runny, but any complaint vanishes in light of large swaths of bacon ($2.80 side) that are baked, then grilled so they're more ham than greasy curls of fat, and Portuguese sausage ($2.80) that arrives not as tiny dried-up rounds but in large, juicy slices cut by hand on a diagonal.
Pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream ($4.75 for a short stack of three, $5.75 for five) are a no-no for those who are Atkins-ing, but part-time dieters might try the lesser evil of banana crepes ($4.50), which still leaves you with sugar woes, but less flour to fuss about.
Koa Pancake House-Aiea also offers lunch plates, burgers and sandwiches from 11 a.m., but to tell you the truth, I didn't venture that far. On weekend mornings, only breakfast will do, and staffers say that sentiment is pretty universal.
One of the lunch offerings of vinha dalhos ($6) or Portuguese vinegar-and-garlic marinated pork is offered for breakfast, and is destined to join the ranks of Spam, Portuguese sausage, Scottish bangers and bacon in the breakfast meat hall-of-fame.
Koa Pancake House's no-can-lose formula for good and inexpensive breakfast grinds, makes me wonder why I'm still paying $20 for breakfast in Kailua. In fact, forget I mentioned Kaimuki earlier and put Kailua first on the list for the next pancake house.
Aiea Shopping Center, 99-115 Aiea Heights Drive, 2nd floor / 488-8805 Koa Pancake House, Aiea
Hours: 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily
Food 
Service Ambience Value Cost: About $10 to $15 for two
See some past restaurant reviews in the Columnists section.
Nadine Kam's restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Bulletin. Star ratings are based on comparisons of similar restaurants:
To recommend a restaurant, write: The Weekly Eater, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802. Or send e-mail to nkam@starbulletin.com
excellent; very good, exceeds expectations; average; below average.
