Hinone Mizunone

The name of this restaurant, Hinone Mizunone, reminds Umami of the scene in Caddyshack where Bill Murray talks about caddying for the Dalai Lama:   "He hauls off and whacks one - big hitter, the Lama - long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-lagunga."

Entry

Hinone Mizunone . . . Hinone Mizunone.  Is actually a Japanese restaurant built around the former Taco Bell at King and Keeaumoku.  It's a solid little local-style Japanese restaurant, with two choice teishokus starting at $16.75.  Umami had the Chicken Katsu and Maguro Sashimi for $18.75 (the sashimi is an additional $2).  It's a lot of food . . .

Chicken Katsu and Maguro Sashimi Teishoku

Three Small Things (clockwise from top):
Nori, Takuan, Shoyu Pork and Potato (cold) 

"First of all, please enjoy it with the beer"

Chicken Katsu

The Chicken Katsu is tasty enough, the breading is a little on the coarser side, and the dish comes with the sauce already on it.  The sauce is different from the tonkatsu sauce that's on the table, lighter in color and a little sweeter.  A generous amount of salad is included.

Rice

They make a big deal of the rice at Hinone Mizunone.  It's kamadaki gohan, which is to say, cooked in a traditional method (i.e., in a pot).  Each diner gets their own little serving container (the rice bowl proper is on the teishoku tray) of perfectly cooked, not too sticky, not over or undercooked, rice.  Hard to say that it's exceptional rice, but when you don't eat a lot of white rice (and Umami doesn't), it's at least very good.

Maguro Sashimi

The sashimi serving was generous, with six large pieces of fish, served with a chiso leaf, daikon, and konbu. 

Japanese Hamburger Steak with Demi Glace

Umama, not Umami, had the Japanese Hamburger Steak.  The hamburger was fine ground, with a bit of a ketchup flavor that made it taste like meatloaf.  Served with a a demi glace and sunny side up egg, Umama should have just dumped her rice in the bowl and made a loco moco.

Finished!

All told, it was a lot of food, decently prepared, for a very attractive price.  Apropos of nothing, Umami is reminded of the rest of Bill Murray's Caddyshack Dalai Lama quote:

"So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice."

Nice indeed.

Hinone Mizunone
345 S King St
Honolulu, HI 96814
(808) 942-4848