Maui Mike's - Hakusan, Tokyo

Tokyo, despite its reputation of having more starred restaurants than Paris according to the Michelin guidebook series, tends to lack a few foods which are commonplace in the United States. Things like turkey, bacon that crisps when cooked, hummus, good cheese, whole grain bread, sour cream, pastrami, corned beef (not canned), Philly cheeseteaks, etc. This is not a complete list, and depending on where one might be, they might have access to these rare foods if they're willing to pay the price. I remember when I made corned beef (yes canned) hash and the recipe called for sour cream; I found it but I think it was 300 yen (~$3.00) for what might have been 1/2 a cup. Save yourself the trouble and just use plain yogurt if a recipe calls for sour cream and you're in Japan.

Another food which belongs on the list of things as rare as a Yeti riding a unicorn while holding a basket full of four leaf clovers if your'e in Tokyo would be roasted or grilled chicken. I realize how spoiled I was back in Hawaii where just about every supermarket would have rows of roasted whole chickens by the deli counter. As if that wasn't enough, it was commonplace to have grills set up in the parking lots of those supermarkets where huli-huli chicken would be on sale as well. One would think that in a place where ovens, much less ovens large enough to roast a chicken, are rare that there would be a market for pre-cooked chickens. But if there's no market for chicken, then who am I to condemn thousands of innocent chickens to die every day just for my selfish desire?

Getting to the point of this post, I was in the Hongo area running an errand and had not eaten anything since early in the morning. I knew of several good places near Hongo-Sanchome, Todaimae and Yushima stations but, I was in the mood to go somewhere I have never been before. Having seen this article which kind of skimmed over some of the more authentic non-pancake based Hawaiian restaurants in Tokyo, I decided to take the 1.5 km (less than 1 mile) walk to Hakusan to check out Maui Mike's and get some "fire roasted chicken", That was a decision which I questioned the entire time as I walked up and down the many foothills of Bunkyo ward with the rain steadily falling on me and the puddles soaking into my allegedly water-resistant Nike Lunarglide +5 Shield running shoes.

Although I have never gone to the original location of Maui Mike's located in Wahiawa on the North Shore of Oahu in Hawaii, I have eaten my fair share of roasted and grilled chickens in my life. It seems as if they have a pretty decent reputation on Yelp, which is probably something I should have checked BEFORE I decided to check them out. Most other Hawaiian-themed restaurants that I have seen in Tokyo are in places with more foot traffic like Shibuya (L&L BBQ, Kua Aina, Aloha Table), Harajuku (Eggs 'n Things, Cinnamon's, Cafe Kaila, Teddy's Bigger Burger), or even Akasaka (Ogo Ono Loa Hawaii) so I was puzzled as to how it was decided that Hakusan was to be the location of Maui Mike's second location. Is this to mean that Hakusan is Tokyo's Wahiawa? Even though Wahiawa is far from Honolulu, there are several other popular attractions on the North Shore (Sunset Beach, Matsumoto Shave Ice, Ted's Bakery, Dole Plantation, all those Kahuku shrimp trucks/shacks, etc.) that make it worth the drive. In all fairness to Hakusan, it had that nostalgic "real Japan" feeling as many of the shita-machi (下町, "low city", more traditional working-class neighborhoods) do even though Bunkyo ward is not a particularly cheap place to live.

It was unsurprisingly empty due to the chilly rain, which had been falling since the night before and there was not a single customer on the first floor. I later found out when I went to wash my hands that the second floor is much nicer with a coffee shop-like atmosphere. After some deliberation and exchanging several awkward glances with the very enthusiastic and friendly (or he was just restless because there were no customers?) manager, I ordered half a chicken with onion rings and an oolong tea. The chicken comes with one of 7 different dipping sauces, two if you order half a chicken, so I picked the yuzu pepper and chili.

This is what it looks like if you order half a chicken with onion rings and chili and yuzu pepper dipping sauce. The chicken was roasted well and the meat was almost "fall off the bone" tender. I know that some people in Japan like to use forks and knives to eat things like burgers and even pizza (!), but I am not that sophisticated. I just grabbed the thigh and started tearing that chicken apart with my hands. If you are the kind of person who also eats chicken like this, then this is not an ideal place for a first date. At first the sauce worked well with the chicken, but I found it to increasingly taste saltier and saltier as I continued to eat. A lot of restaurants tend to localize their menus to better suit the foreign markets they expand into, but perhaps Maui Mike's has not done that yet? Perhaps I have been in Japan so long that extremely salty food (salt stimulates appetite and thirst) which is more common in the US no longer agrees with me? Next time I go I'll try a different combination of sauces, even though I didn't really think that the chicken needed any. The onion rings were a bit of a disappointment, so I'll try the fries next time.

Bento.com's short review mentioned "a surprisingly big cocktail menu in addition to budget wines and Hawaiian beers" but I do not recall seeing a drink menu. In a country where one can get a drink practically anywhere, a restaurant not having alcohol seemed strange. It would have probably been better if there had been a Kona Brewing Company Firerock Pale Ale or Longboard lager to go with the chicken. At the very least, they had a nice mix of authentic-sounding Hawaiian music playing during the entire time I was there. If chicken sales aren't bringing in enough profits, expanding the menu to include more cafe-like offerings might help bring in more customers, especially since it's right near a train station.

Knowing nothing of how the original Maui Mike's roasted chicken tastes like and based only on the flavor of the chicken in the Tokyo location, I would have few reservations about recommending this place to anyone looking to get their chicken fix. Is it worth walking 1.5 km in the rain with a leaky umbrella and wet shoes just to eat there? Probably not, especially when there are a lot of cheaper chicken options to be had in Tokyo. If you NEED to have some rotisserie chicken, then as far as I know, this is the place.

One thing that has definitely changed from the Wahiawa location is the price. Everything seems to be around twice as much as one would pay at the Hawaii location but, fresh all-natural free range chickens must be more expensive to raise in Japan? KFC isn't that cheap in Japan and no one really knows where those chickens come from.

Maui Mike's is located 1 minute from Exit A3 of Hakusan station on the Toei Mita line. If you take the elevator, simply turn left and walk straight ahead and it will be on the left. If you take the stairs or escalator, make a right handed U-turn after going down the stairs and go straight ahead. Hon-Komagome station on the Tokyo Metro Nanboku line is also close enough to make walking from there an option. Take Exit 1, turn right onto Hongo Dori, turn right at the intersection, walk until the next intersection, take a left at the supermarket, walk straight, turn right before Hakusan station, take the first right, walk straight and it will be on the left.

Maui Mike's
Hakusan 5-32-13
Everyday: 11am-10pm
03-3830-0139

US website
Japanese website (where nothing seems to be working as of 2014.04.03)

Banh Mi Sandwich - Takadanobaba, Tokyo

Sometimes when one has been away from their home country for an extended period of time, missing the little things start to pile up. Being from Hawaii, there are the obvious ones: being able to get to the beach in 20-30 minutes depending on traffic, Portuguese sausage at McDonald's, poke on sale in EVERY supermarket, Zippy's chili, powdery shaved ice, not having to wait in line for two hours for decent Western breakfast food. Maybe those were not so obvious, but they are a few of the things I wish I could get more often. Sorry.

One of the things that may not be so obvious is the banh mi, a Vietnamese sandwich which was one of the few amazing things to come out of the French colonizing Vietnam in the 19th-20th century. It's a toasted baguette filled with pickled carrots and daikon julienne, coriander and various meats and vegetables. One of my earliest experiences with the banh mi had to be from when I would be sick at home and my father would bring them home from Ba-le (a chain of Vietnamese sandwich shop/bakeries throughout Hawaii) during his lunch breaks when we used to live in the middle of Honolulu. This was not necessarily something I fell in love with immediately because, let's be honest, a sandwich with pickled carrots and daikon in it sounds a bit unusual. Having had quite a few of them with liver paste in them did not help either, but it is an acquired taste.

Sometimes when you least expect it, the memories associated with certain foods pop back into one's mind and there is nothing else that can be done except to make an effort to satisfy them. Which lead me to the discovery of Banh Mi Sandwich in the Tokyo neighborhood of Takadanobaba.

There is no shortage of Vietnamese restaurants in Tokyo, but they usually have stuff like pho, curry, or spring rolls. It isn't a bad thing, but if you HAVE TO have a banh mi, it's kind of looking for a breakfast place with crispy bacon or Scottish Bangers and only finding endless streets of "Hawaiian pancakes" smothered in whipped cream and fruit.

Banh Mi is a tiny shop with two benches out in front for maybe 5-6 customers to sit on while eating their sandwiches. What it may lack in atmosphere, it more than makes up for in taste and freshness.

Ordering is done by using a ticket vending machine located to the right of the counter. The menu with pictures and the names of the sandwiches in English helps for those who can't read Japanese, but I think the buttons on the machine were only in Japanese. In that case that one is unable to read Japanese, please try your best to match up the Japanese next to the sandwich you want and the characters on the buttons. Since all the sandwiches are 500 yen for a regular and 300 yen for a small (seriously, if you think you need to order a small, go with a friend and share!), you can probably explain which sandwich you meant to order if you get the wrong ticket?

I have never ordered the small, so I cannot comment on how big or small it is. Perhaps it's my American nature to get the biggest size (within reason), since it wouldn't make sense to me to pay 3/5ths the price for a sandwich which might be 1/2 as large.

Here is a picture of the menu outside the store, which should be easier to read than the one by the ticket vending machine. I recommend the "Vietnam ham & liver paste", but as I mentioned before, it's a bit of an acquired taste. There's also a shrimp and avocado as well as a vegetable and cheese option. Maybe if you ask them to take out the cheese, it could count as vegan? I've never been (nor probably never will be) a vegan so I cannot be 100% sure. Sorry.

This is what the "Vietnam ham and liver paste" looks like, if you unwrapped it and took a picture of it with your phone while trying to balance it on your lap. The bread was super flaky and sprayed crumbs everywhere with each bite, but that is EXACTLY what I was hoping for! Combined with the crunchy pickled daikon and carrots, creamy liver paste and ham, and sprig of cilantro, it was as if all my problems vanished. Was that too much?

Banh Mi: the cure for the common sandwich!

Part of me felt sorry that there were so many people nearby who were probably at a Lawson or Family Mart, right at the very same moment, buying a ham and cheese sandwich on white bread (why did I need to specify what kind of bread it is? ALL the convenience store sandwiches use white bread!). I even felt sorry for people who were fortunate enough to be at Natural Lawson and could be getting a fancy healthy sandwich on wheat bread. Yes, even the people having their sandwiches custom made by a Sandwich Artist at Subway, I felt bad for them as well.

Since it had been so long since I had a banh mi, I immediately stood up, sending bread crumbs flying everywhere, and went back in to order another sandwich. I got a roast pork, maybe to continue with the pork theme? I don't remember what my thought process was aside from "eat another sandwich!".

I really wish I could explain more about how the roast pork sandwich tasted, but I'll be honest; it was a few months ago, so I forgot. I'll edit this post after I go back, sometime next week or so. Sorry.

Update: So I went back last week after two unsuccessful attempts in the previous weeks. The first failure was because it was holiday and they closed at 5pm (I got there around 6pm) and the second was because I showed up around 5pm and they had already sold out of all the sandwiches. I rode my bike there and was starving, only to find two university students (that had obviously never been there before and were quite indecisive) in front of me. After waiting what seemed like a short eternity, I marched straight to the machine and ordered a full-sized Vietnamese Ham and Liver Paste and devoured it in short order. That was when I learned that one should not lean back or even try to sit straight up when eating the sandwich because the liquid from the vegetables has a tendency to drip out of the paper that it's wrapped in.

As it had been several months since I last had a banh mi, I decided to get some for dinner and breakfast the next day. I heard one of the workers say that they only had 7 sandwiches left, so I ducked back into the store and ordered a roast beef and a roast chicken. Sandwiches safely acquired, I jumped back on my bike and rode home. Meanwhile, the two university students that had arrived before me were still eating the one small size sandwich that they were sharing.

It's kind of difficult to tell how much roast beef there was in the sandwich based on this picture, but believe me (some random person writing about stuff on the Internet), there was lots of peppery deliciousness underneath all that daikon and carrots. Unfortunately, the roast chicken that I saved for the next morning did not handle being refrigerated and then microwaved several hours later particularly well. The bread was still chewy but no longer flaky and crunchy. The daikon and carrots were soft and limp, drained of their former crispness. The lesson to take away from my error in judgement is to avoid microwaving food that only maintains maximum flavor for a few minutes after it is made. Have you ever tried to microwave McDonald's french fries before? It was pretty much like that.

Banh Mi is located about a 5-minute walk from Takadanobaba Station Exit 1 (Tokyo Metro) or JR/Seibu Waseda exit. Once you leave the station, take your first right, go right, take two lefts, and it should be on your right. Perhaps, I will try to get tech and add a Google Maps thing later?

Banh Mi Sandwich
Takadanobaba 4-9-18
Tuesday-Friday: 11am-7pm
Saturday: 11am-6pm
Holidays: 11am-5pm
Closed: Sunday & Monday