Hawaii Day 9 Visited 5/26/2013 2.5 Forks

Downbeat Diner 42 N Hotel St., Honolulu, HI 96817

I realized that I totally forgot to write up this review almost 2 weeks after I visited...I guess that should be indicative of my meal there.  To be totally fair, my review is less about the actual restaurant but about my one dish.  On our last day in Hawaii, Deanna and I left our hotel early and decided to try a hipster diner in Chinatown.  Usually I am a huge fan of most city's Chinatown section because of the cheap food and just fun crazy atmosphere.  I guess since almost all of the island is full of Chinese people, Chinatown is not that big of a deal here since Honolulu's Chinatown was kind of depressing not super interesting.  In fact there were lots of homeless people and it was only a couple blocks wide.  But in the middle of all of it, is this hipster vegan friendly diner called The Downbeat Diner.  It's got this very rock and roll feeling (maybe because there is a local rock club across the street) and of all the restaurants we've been to, this one had almost no Asian locals there despite it's location.  The menu here has lots of salads, sandwiches (with lots of vegan/fake meat options), burgers, and bar appetizers such as fries, mozzarella sticks, and jalapeno poppers.  For breakfast, they have an array of egg dishes and a variety of their local breakfast favorite "loco mocos".  I figured on my last day in Hawaii I should finally try a loco moco even though it didn't sound too appealing.   I got the original version which was a beef patty, over brown rice with 2 fried eggs covered in gravy ($8).  There were other versions that came grilled chicken or chili or the mega version which had 2 of everything (2 patties, 2 scoops of rice, 4 fried eggs, etc).  Deanna got the pesto chicken sandwich with vegan chicken with fries ($8).

I guess the best way to describe the dish is that it's like steak and eggs meets biscuits and gravy.  Even though I ate the whole thing, I really didn't want to.  The patty was like a hamburger but it was cooked medium-well which I normally don't like.  It was super salty and the gravy on top was just too much to deal with.  The brown rice was fine but just didn't go well with the overall concept of meat and eggs to me.  I guess this is really a local acquired taste.  I did try Deanna's pesto sandwich and it was pretty good, even the vegan chicken part.  I probably would have liked my meal better if I had stuck with a basic egg/pancake or burger but I wanted to try something new.  This definitely looks like it would be a fun place late night but I didn't have time for it.