Zaney's Restaurant
Located in the space previously occupied by New Century Chinese Restaurant, and the extremely short lived Welcome Inn Café, Zaney's is a somewhat unique player amongst the Asian food establishments that one would normally find in the area. Situated on the ground floor of the Smith-Beretania Apartment building, Zaney's is far enough away from the heart of the business district to make a visit here a planned event.
Inside, the restaurant spacious and furnished simply with large number of tables and chairs. The menu is located right above the entrance to the kitchen, and each day is marked with the dozen or so items that are on offer for that day.
On one of my many visits here, I ordered the mini garlic chicken with brown rice and tossed salad (US$4.00; regular US$5.75).
To prepare the garlic chicken, pieces of boneless chicken thighs are battered and deep fried until they are golden brown and crunchy. They are then tossed in a garlic-shoyu sauce which is sweet, salty and just a little spicy. Though they were well coated with sauce, the pieces of chicken still had quite a bit of crunch to them.
On other ocassions, I've also ordered the hamburger steak (regular US$5.75; mini US$4.00). The regular plate comes with two scoops rice and one scoop macaroni salad.
To be quite honest, this really isn't like local style hamburger steak at all. In fact, it reminds me more of the salisbury steak that you'd find in the freezer section of you local grocery store -- you know, like those in the Hungry Man type of TV dinners.
On other ocassions, I've had the beef stew and the beef curry, both of which had lots of beef, tender carrots and potatoes, and thick gravy. The only thing that made those dishes less than stellar was the amount of flour/cornstarch used as a thickening agent.
The garlic chicken is the stand out here at Zaney's. In my opinion, it's probably some of the best garlic chicken around. The other dishes here are a bit hit and miss, but aren't really too bad -- especially if you take the portion size and price into consideration. Give it a try, you're bound to find something there to like.
Zaney's Restaurant
1170 Nuuanu Avenue Suite 102
Telephone: 808.523.3380
looks good :) Is the salad alittle small?
Posted by: clare eats | December 21, 2005 at 02:12 AM
Will definitely check this place out when I come home!! Looks ono!
Posted by: Kat | December 21, 2005 at 02:36 AM
I walk by this place all the time, and have often wondered if it was worth anything. Looks promising now, and I'll wait for the finish of your in progress review.
Posted by: alan | December 21, 2005 at 10:53 AM
Yess! Garlic Chicken - one of the many reasons I'm so happy to be home. It seems as if you've been to every little hole in the wall in the downtown area, they'll have to open up more restaurants to keep up with you!
Posted by: Kathy | December 21, 2005 at 02:53 PM
What's the second dish???
Posted by: sARAH | December 24, 2005 at 01:10 PM
Hi Clare,
The garlic chicken is good and yes, they could have given me a little more salad, but the portion size was OK for the price.
Hi Kat,
The food here is pretty good. If anything, stick to the garlic chicken and maybe the adobo or stew. Some of the other dishes that are pretty good are the nishime and the shoyu chicken.
Hi Alan,
Try the garlic chicken then work your way through whatever else looks good. If you like the garlic chicken from Mitsu-Ken, you'll definitely enjoy this.
I've tried about half the regular menu already and it's mostly quite good. They also have prime rib on Fridays for $11.50 (taking the place of Ray's).
Hi Kathy,
I love garlic chicken too and I love to explore the little shops are downtown. Yes, we could definitely use more restaurants (more ethnic food would be nice).
Hi Sarah,
Welcome to the blog!
The second dish is hamburger steak. It was more like salisbury steak to me though.
Posted by: Reid | December 24, 2005 at 05:37 PM
Hi Reid - Like salisbury steak? That doesn't sound like good eats...Though I love local-style garlic chicken, nothing really close to that up here.
Posted by: Kirk | December 24, 2005 at 06:42 PM
Hi Kirk,
Yeah, the hamburger steak is not really too good. *sigh*
But the garlic chicken is better than Mitsu-Ken, in my opinion, and some of the specials like the nishime and konbumaki are pretty good too.
Posted by: Reid | December 25, 2005 at 04:29 PM