Earlier this week, Derek mentioned this newish place on King Street, Mana Bu’s. They do musubi/onigiri. And that’s it. Actually they do offer some salads and desert items, but the main deal is musubi. Not the mashed together refridgerated bricks of white rice, but carefully crafted triangles of good rice and grains combined with various ingredients. I popped in to check it out and try a sampling. Here’s a tip, go early. I got there at 12:30, and already most of the varieties were sold out. It seems their signature is the 10 grain musubi. Manabu-san’s got it figured out just right to somehow keep all those grains sticking together into a cohesive musubi. It’s quite interesting with the texture and slight nuttyness that the grain medley lends to the musubi, not to mention boosting the healthy factor. They also almost analretentively list the origins of almost all the ingredients. And he manages to price it at $1.50! I’m sure if some yup cali shop were to sell this, they’d upcharge it and sell it with boutique factor. I bought a 10 grain hijiki and 10 grain baked spicy poke. Both tasty. Flavors are more on the subtle side, reflecting a more Japanese palate rather than a heavy local leaning. The hijiki is on the sweet side, would go great with something salty, maybe some fried chicken/karage. Which brings me to one thing, there are no okazu here, so you’ll be doing either a lightish meal, or you’ll need to go elsewhere to find stuff to fill out your picnic. Maybe go down the street a bit to Gulick Deli.
3 out of 5 fairly healthy monkeys (I like to use a 5 monkey scale, yes I know, spank the naughty monkeys for not being consistent)
Mana Bu’s is located on King Street, just Diamond Head of the King-Punahou intersection in the little strip of shops with Baskin Robbins. Take out only, no seating for eating in shop.
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