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Adriana's
Adriana and her family make the best Mexican food in South Kona, with a twist from their native El Salvador. Take your pick of nachos, quesadillas, tacos, burritos or tamales (order ahead for pupusa ). Take it to go or eat at cement tables outside.
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Aunty's Place
Gerda 'Aunty' Medeiros makes pizza all day, and traditional hearty German dinners at night, served in a casual diner setting. While the owner doesn't like to compare her 'housewife cooking' to Waimea's Edelweiss restaurant's 'hotel cooking', she shouldn't be so modest. There's karaoke on Friday from until .
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Ba-Le Kona
Everyone gushes about Ba-Le's flavorful Vietnamese fare, like its green-papaya salad topped with shrimp, rice-paper summer rolls and traditional pho noodle soups. Satisfying sandwiches made with freshly baked French bread or croissants, cold rice-noodle salads and rice plates come with your choice of lemongrass chicken, tofu, beef or pork. The dining room is chilly and stark, with the usual florescent-tube lighting, but the food is worth it.
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Bamboo
Bamboo is excellent value, so relax and get your tab started, which will be easy after you've had one of the bar's killer mai tais! Dinner here on a Friday or Saturday night, when down-home Hawaiian music (try to catch John Keawe) and hula are in full swing, may well be one of your best dining experiences on the island.
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Big Island Grill
Big food with no frills sums up the Big Island Grill. There's been little effort to dress up the former fast-food building that houses this local favorite. Judging by the perpetually packed dining room, no one minds. Young staff members hurry around in Aloha shirts serving plates heaped with rice or mashed potatoes, veggies and teriyaki beef or battered fish. The extensive menu should please all.
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Bong Brothers
Your best bet for food in Honaunau is vegetarian deli take-out from Bong Brothers, a small health food and gift store located in an historic 1929 building. The green papaya salad is delicious, as are the smoothies, soups, curries and burritos. Organic produce fills baskets on the front porch, and a rocking chair there is perfect for watching the characters come and go.
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Brown's Beach House
It's hard to say which is the superior aspect of Brown's: the flavorful cuisine highlighting Big Island produce with an emphasis on fresh seafood, or the relaxed tropical atmosphere and beach cove view. The crab-encrusted ' opakapaka (pink snapper) in sake-mirin butter with wasabi mashed potatoes wins acclaim.
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Café 100
This legendary drive-in popularized the loco moco , which is rice topped with hamburger, fried egg and brown gravy, and now available in 20 varieties. Or opt for the classic plate lunch, with sides of rice and potato-mac salad. It's fast food Hawaiian-style.
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Café il Mondo
From the outside you'd think you were losing a bet, but this casual Italian restaurant serves some of the island's best pizza. Toss in oven-baked sandwiches, calzones and pasta specials, and you're definitely a winner.
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Café Pesto
Owing to its innovative Italian dishes with Asian and island flavors, this chic little café is among the Big Island's most notable restaurants. The small bar with its cool lighting, awesome panoramic oil painting and comfy lounge chairs is ideal for a pre-dinner drink. Then decide between the likes of seafood risotto with a savory sweet-chili sauce and pizza with shrimp, shiitake mushrooms, green onions and cilantro créme fraîche.
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Café Pesto
Housed in a beautifully renovated historical building, Café Pesto offers a varied but accomplished menu. It started as a pizza place - and the pies remain a noteworthy specialty - but it now offers delectable risottos, fresh stir-fries, interesting pastas and more, many featuring seafood. With weekend guitarists and a lively mix of locals, a friendlier scene can't be found downtown.
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Canoe House
Let a salad of Waipio Valley fern shoots and white asparagus or filet mignon with Hamakua mushrooms and green tea soba noodles tantalize your senses at the Mauna Lani's signature restaurant. Dine inside or out at this celebrated oceanfront restaurant blending the flavors of East and West.
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Cassandra's Greek Taverna
If you must give in to Ali'i Dr's touristy, open-air, upper-floor restaurants, Cassandra's is the place to do it. The Greek fare is tasty, if a bit overpriced, and a couple of appetizers with a cold beer and a clear view of canoe paddlers in the bay is a great finish to an afternoon. The bar has pool tables and gets rowdy in the later hours.
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Chef Daniel Seafood Cafe
Chef/owner Daniel Thiebaut remade and renamed his Waimea restaurant in 2006, turning it into an eclectic gourmet destination for seafood lovers. There's now a top-notch sushi bar, a fun tapas menu (where favorite appetizers like phyllo-wrapped shrimp now live), inexpensive pastas and risottos and an extravagant selection of lobster and seafood platters. The rambling, remodeled historic building has never looked better.
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Coffee Shack
The Shack has an amazing view from its intimate, open-air deck surrounded by tropical foliage. The place is perched precariously on the makai side of the highway and has very limited parking. The breakfasts, hearty salads, sandwiches and pizzas are consistently OK, while, ironically, the coffee gets bad reviews. Consider sliding in for a beer right before closing. It's between the 108- and 109-mile markers.
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Coffees 'n' Epicurea
A coffee-tasting room is an unlikely place for this patisserie with flaky pastries, delicate éclairs and gorgeous pies. (The baker defected from the Kohala Coast resorts.) A back patio has greenery and some seating, and its gift shop is surprisingly sophisticated, obviously catering to a crowd beyond the tour-bus norm. It's on the makai side at the 106-mile marker.
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Edelweiss
Waitresses in traditional dress serve large platters of roast pork, weiner schnitzel, bratwurst, lamb and steak - with liberal sides of sauerkraut - in Edelweiss' warm (but not romantic) dining room. It's rich, hearty, accomplished German cooking that wins raves.
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Evie's Natural Foods
Evie's Natural Foods stocks health-food staples and some organic produce. Its café (open to ) doesn't get rave reviews (especially for service), but health-conscious types will likely enjoy the basic breakfasts, smoothies, sandwiches, salads and hot dishes.
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Fujimamas
Fujimamas blends hip, eclectic ambience - something Kailua's restaurant scene sorely lacks - with chic presentation, making it a very exciting new addition. The heavily Japanese-influenced menu includes sushi, wok dishes and 'things that make you go ummm'. The handmade Chinese noodles with mushrooms and truffle oil get wide acclaim, as does the grilled pork chop on tempura sweet potato bread with apple chutney and miso sesame sauce.
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Habaneros
Habaneros unites a diverse crowd, their only commonality the search for a decent taqueria. Retirees, the after-beach crowd and Latin American coffee pickers (the latter being the true indicator that this place is 'numbah one') savor burritos, tacos and plates of fajitas elbow to elbow at two long counters. Cash only.
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Hana Hou
Of the two restaurants in town, there's really no question: Hana Hou is the spot. On the makai side of Hwy 11, this friendly diner serves up 'real food for a decent price' with no holds barred on flavor. Its menu sports the usual meat and fish plates, along with extras like stir-fries and chicken parmasan. The chock-full dessert case won't let you leave without.
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Hawaiian Style Cafe
Join locals at the horseshoe-shaped counter that dominates the island's best greasy spoon: filling servings of loco moco , pancakes, laulau , poi fried rice, burgers and more will keep you going all day. As the sign says: 'Come early. When food is pau …there is no more!'
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Hilo Bay Café
Hilo Bay Café offers Hawaiian-infused gourmet cuisine that holds its own with anyone. The crab cakes are as delicious as they are tall, and the seared macadamia nut-crusted scallops are alone worth the trip. The changing menu also includes rib-eye steak, BBQ ribs, mahimahi, poke and more, and the short wine list makes choosing easy: all vintages are priced the same. The only knock is the mall setting.
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Hualalai Grille by Alan Wong
Nicknamed the '19th Hole', the Hualalai Grille reopened under the direction of celebrity chef Alan Wong in early 2004, with signature dishes like the 'New Wave' Opihi Shooter appetizer - a tall glass of local limpets in spicy tomato water, fennel basil and ume shiso (Japanese plum) essences. Plus, you'll find creative fish mains and intriguing Hawaii-style versions of American classics. Reservations are recommended.
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Hula La's Mexican Kitchen
This food stand will satisfy your Mexican craving with an extensive menu of fresh and yummy plates and à la carte items. Warning: the portions aren't huge and the kitchen's idea of 'greens' is a few leaves.
