Spirit of Aloha | Articles | Adventures in Dining | April 2000

Adventures in Dining
By John Heckathorn

Only on Kaua'i

Lihu'e's Hamura Saimin Stand serves up the sort of satisfying chopstick-able banquet in a bowl that people from the Islands yearn for when they are away

When in San Francisco, it seems a shame not to eat some sourdough bread. In Philadelphia, you'll want a cheesesteak. In Cincinnati, chili. On Kaua'i, the must-have is saimin from Hamura Saimin Stand.

OK, this part requires some diplomacy. Some of you reading this have been eating saimin since childhood. You know it's good for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Good when you're hungry. Good even when you're not really starving but ought to eat something.

Would those readers skip ahead a little, or just be a little patient while I talk for a few seconds to those readers who are going, Saimin? Is that a food?

Yes. Pronounced sigh MIN, it's one of those only-in-Hawai'i foods, Chinese soup noodles with a Japanese name. Saimin looks a lot like those Japanese fast-food noodles called ramen. Unlike ramen, saimin noodles contain egg and they aren't deep-fried. At their best, they are crinkly in appearance, served fresh, slightly al dente, in broth, with garnishes. In the Islands, saimin is cheap, fast, relatively healthy comfort food.

OK, back to Hamura's, on Kaua'i, where the saimin is as good as it gets.

Hamura's is located not in any glorious scenic area of Kaua'i, but on a narrow back street in the commercial district of Kaua'i's main city, Lihu'e.

As my friend drove me there (in her pickup truck, this is Kaua'i), she said, "This part of Lihu'e doesn't seem to have changed much since the '50s." Near such old-line businesses as M. Tanaka Hardware and Kalena Fish Market sits Hamura Saimin, in a structure that's less than a building, but more than a shack, with louvered windows and swinging screen doors.

Inside, Hamura's is old. The single walls are painted an aggressive sunny yellow and there are counters, some orange, some beige, at which you sit on backless wooden stools. There's room for 35, a considerable expansion from 1951, when Aiko and Susumu "Charles" Hamura opened this venerable eatery. Then it sat six.

But it was in the early '50s that Aiko Hamura came up with the noodle recipe and then the broth recipe that have made Hamura's a saimin Mecca. The noodles are a rich yellow and the broth light yet full of undefined rich flavors. (The rumor is that the broth's secret ingredient is not Japanese dashi, but shrimp.)

The menu's on the wall. "No checks," it says. "Please do not stick gum under counter." Outside of those two injunctions, it seems simple enough. There's saimin and fried saimin, and you can't have fried saimin except at lunch and we were there for dinner. So you wouldn't think I'd be in a quandary, but given all the sizes and extra ingredients, I was at a momentary loss what to order. "Are you hungry?" asked the waitress.

"Yes," I said.

"Have the special," she said. "It's got everything in it, so it's your best deal."

Everything was green onions, wonbok, hardboiled egg, roast pork (not the more traditional red-dyed char siu). There were plenty of delicious wontons filled with a savory pork mixture. And no saimin would be complete without 1) white fish cake with a decorative red spiral and 2) a pink luncheon meat that was Spamlike without my guess actually being Spam.

Soul food. The sort of satisfying chopstick-able banquet in a bowl that people from the Islands yearn for when they are away. The sort of thing that people from other places have to learn to love. And there's no place better to learn than Hamura's, where whole families, the littlest just able to see over the counter, sit on the stools in their best shorts and T-shirts, having a quick and economical supper.

There are two more things you can order at Hamura's, and you should have both. Barbecue meat sticks, either chicken or beef, in a light, slightly sweet shoyu-based sauce. This makes a nice solid nibble next to the soupy saimin.

And for dessert, there's a tart, light, wonderful liliko'i pie with just the right amount of whipped cream on top. (Liliko'i is passion fruit, one of those tastes of the tropics that linger on the imagination for decades.)

The bill for two at Hamura's was $11.15. The experience was priceless.

Hamura Saimin Stand, 2956 Kress St., Lihu'e, Kaua'i, 808-245-3271. Open Monday-Thursday 10 a.m.-11 p.m., Friday-Saturday 10 a.m.-1 a.m., Sunday 10 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Street parking, cash only, no reservations.

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