Ninnikuya
3196 W ai’alae Avenue
Honolulu, HI 96816
Phone: 808.735.0784
In the long, Twitter-assisted search for a place for me and my lovely lady friend to celebrate my birthday, we finally decided on Ninnikuya, a Japanese garlic house. Garlic is their specialty, and it’s clear from the second you get within smelling distance. You may want to bring your own mints or gum, and realize that it’s possible you’ll have garlic coming out of your pores for days!
It’s always a challenge for me and my lady friend to find a place to eat together; I’m an omnivore and she’s a lacto-ovo vegetarian. So perusing a menu beforehand and reading reviews online is always essential to our choices. Neither of us had visited this restaurant before even though it’s walking distance from her place of employment and in my usual weekend stomping grounds. From the outside, the restaurant is not impressive; it clearly was once a residence, and the parking is problematic (we parked on the street and walked a block on a near perfect weather night). You may wish to request outdoor seating as the inside of the restaurant can get a bit smoky (and with the sensitivity my lady friend has to the smell of cooking meat, I thought it best to head to the outdoors).
One of the best things about Ninnikuya (besides garlic!) is the wide selection of wines they have, which satisfied both of us. I’m not much of a wine enthusiast, but my lady friend is, and she found some international selections much to her liking.
My personal choice this night was, besides the mushroom appetizer (which is almost a meal in and of itself with chili pepper flakes in the butter and garlic sauce and a wide variety of very large mushrooms) their chicken, coming with garlic (what else?) mashed potatoes and zucchini. My lady friend had the mushroom pasta with (yes, you guessed it) garlic. Both were fantastic, and we were so stuffed at the end of the night there was no room for dessert.
In conclusion, I’d like to say that despite having gone here just once, I think it’ll become one of my more favorite sit down restaurants. If only the parking was better…
