Helena's

What's for lunch? After 2 minutes of deliberation on Thursday, my friends and I decided to eat Hawaiian food for this Friday's lunch. It was either Young's Fishmarket or Helena's. Since all of us have never eaten at Helena's, we decided to give it a try. The restaurant is very small, the hole-in-the-wall kine. I love the homey atmosphere even though the restaurant was located in a rather sketchy neighborhood. When we sat down at our table, the first thing the waitress gave us was a plate of haupia. I thought, "This is best day of my life!" I quickly chowed down a piece and waited impatiently for the others to eat theirs ... secretly hoping they don't like haupia so I can eat them all, whoahahahahaha! We ordered kalua pig, beef stew, pipikaula shortribs, laulau, lomi salmon, and chicken long rice. Each of us ordered our choice of starch - I had the day old poi. I was thinking of 1 LB haupia for my starch but that would be a total sugar overload. Oh, the food was ONO! The pipikaula shortribs were juicy and tender. The poi was sweet and smooth. I remember I used to hate poi because it had a weird texture and it tasted sour. After trying it with different foods, I am becoming a big poi fan. Especially this poi, it was so onolicious that I practically dumped the ting down my throat at the end. Food coma followed and the rest of my day was quite unproductive. I would say the food at Helena's is more ono than Ono Hawaiian Food and even Young's Fishmarket, though that's a close one.