Hawaii Food Tours

Absolutely LOVED the Hole in the wall food tour! Our guides Krystal, Joy, and Bill were incredibly knowledgeable and made the tour so much fun! We chose to do this tour on our honeymoon and would recommend it to anyone wanting to see a different side to Oahu other than the Waikiki area. Loved the fact that they came and picked us up from were we were staying as well as dropped us off. Also, the coco puffs at Liliha Bakery are to die for! Probably my favorite thing we ate on the tour!

I had high expectations after having done an excellent food tour in NYC, and while this tour had a slightly different approach, I was still satisfied. The van was a little late, stuck in Waikiki’s awful traffic, but they called to give me a heads up, which was much appreciated.
The first stop, Royal Kitchen – known for its manapuas, was a bit of a downer as they were already sold out of the top FOUR fillings recommended to us by the guides. That’s more on the restaurant than the tour, but I still found it disappointing.
The ten folks in our group (a friendly bunch of retirees lumped with us two honeymooners) waited nearly an hour between bites as our guide Bill took us on a Chinatown walking tour, which was very informative and gave us a taste of life away from the touristy parts of town. He then huddled us around a fruit stand in the heat where he brought out a series of samples all at once, which his guides had fetched from various joints in the area. I’d have rather eaten each item in the restaurant or shop from which it came, which would’ve spread out the eating more evenly. Most everything we had was tasty, however.
The last tour stop was Leonard’s, famous for its malasadas. We were told some mac nut pastries got mixed in with the wrong order, an unacceptable error on the part of either the tour or the bakery as my wife is allergic, but the situation was resolved without further issue.
The tour loses a star because of the critiques previously listed, but our tour guide Bill deserves five stars. He was warm, funny, knowledgeable and engaging. Our other guide Krystal was friendly but absent most of the time as she was sent to fetch the samples during our time in Chinatown so I can’t give her a complete grade.
This is a good way to get a diverse taste of what Honolulu really has to offer. It’s worth checking out if you’re going to be in town for at least a few days and don’t mind spending five prime sunbathing hours away from the pool or beach.

The Hole in the Wall Food Tour is a must if you’re visiting Hawaii. Our guides, Robin and Ari, were great — friendly and helpful as well as having an in-​depth knowledge of the local foodie culture and history. Great tour. Highly recommended. It was the best day on the Famous Hole-​in-​the-​Wall Tour™. Or as we think of it — a day of FOOD and FUN. We had Baked Manapua to start — then we went to Liliha Bakery for Coco Puffs. Loved the rice noodle factory, the Korean BBQ, ma tai su, Spam Musubi and super fresh ahi poke. AND we were not done! Wonderful way to spend the day in Honolulu. Even the lychee-​vodka-​pineapple smoothie was delightful.

Highly recommend this amazing food tour. Great, informed and totally friendly guides who know food and how to tell a story. We had an ex-​executive chef from Nobu as a guide, so you know you are getting expert advice and info. So much food and fun. Small group sizes which was great, and just so well organised. Do this tour for a really different take on the food of Honolulu — a nice break from the fast food American style stuff on offer in wakiki. If you love authentic street food and wandering through Chinatowns, this is for you!

The hole in the wall food tour has a surprising amount of hype around it. Although the guides are very knowledgeable about the foods and history of Hawaii, my group was not very pleased with the food selection. The positives were the tours of a couple bakeries which were excellent (Leonard’s and Liliha) but you spend a lot of your day in Chinatown which offers you cheap and boring foods.
Instead of doing this tour I would recommend just spending your own time trying out a few of the local favorites, you will also save yourselves a lot of money doing it this way.

What a great way to explore the Asian food scene in Honolulu by taking a half day food tour with the Hawaii Food Tour company. Robin and Arianna are passionate about the story behind food not just how it was prepared. I highly recommend this trip to anyone who loves to eat!

Great food, great guides and some Hawaiian history thrown in for good measure. This is the most unique tour I’ve been on in a long time and I highly recommend it. Walking through Chinatown was fantastic and we even had some time to explore on your own. I learned more than I thought I would!
TIP: eat breakfast because you don’t really get to eat a lot until after noon. But once noon hits its nonstop good eats till the end!

Another must do on your visit to Oahu!!! Robin, Ari, and Dave were excellent food guides. They even answered questions/​offered suggestions on food, tours, and other places to see/​things to do while in Oahu and Maui. I have tons of food allergies and they were extremely cautions not to give me anything that contained shrimp or nuts. I explained that this was my problem and for them not to worry, but that did not stop them for making sure I did not eat anything that would cause an allergic reaction. Met some really nice people on the tour. Enjoyed Chinatown since we don’t have one where we are from.

My partner in crime arranged this food tour for us and I was pleasantly surprised. First of all, Robin and Ari were the best food tour guides anyone could ask for. They really went out of their way to answer our questions and to make this tour as enjoyable as possible. They even gave us recommendations of restaurants.
If you are very familiar with Chinese food, then this tour is not for you. But since our Chinese food scene in San Antonio is a bit primitive, I was really looking forward to this.
The tour takes you to the local’s favorite spots and to Chinatown, which always fascinates me, because of all the markets.
One has to remember all the different cultures that help make up Hawaii and have contributed to the food scene.
One thing to remember before booking this tour is that it is from 930am through 230pm, and be prepared to do some walking and don’t eat breakfast because you will eat a lot and be pleasantly stuffed by the end of the tour. They also supply you with bottles of cold water.

Picked up by Hawaiian Food Tours at 9am for their Hole in the Wall Food Tour. This half day trip takes you to some of the local eateries that tourists rarely see, many of them in and around Honolulu’s Chinatown.
Our first stop of the day was the Royal Kitchen in the Chinatown Cultural Plaza where we tried a local breafast favourite — baked Manapua. This Hawaiian take on the traditional Chinese steamed bun comes in a variety of flavours (both savoury and sweet) including chicken, sausage, sweet potato and black sugar. I opted for the smoked kalua pork which was very tasty.
Our next stop was Liliha Bakery were we tried their signature dish — Coco Puffs. These reminded me of profitoroles with a rich, creamy centre topped with Chantilly icing. Yum. No wonder they sell 5,000 of these little morsels a day.
We left the bus in a parking lot and took a two hour walk around Chinatown where we visited the Ying Leong Look Funn Factory that has been producing rice noodles here for more than 50 years. Very interesting to see how they’re made. Even better to eat them (which we of course we did), combined with some Korean BBQ chicken from a place in the nearby Maunakea Marketplace. Delicious!
After this we cleansed our palates with some fresh dragon fruit and rambutans before trying a couple of varieties of dumplings from the Sing Cheong Yuen Bakery — both very tasty but the «Chinese Pot Pie» was my favourite.
After this we tried spam sushi (yes, you read that correctly — they make sushi with spam here) and ahi poke which is basically tuna sashimi. Nice — even the spam! Fresh pineapple next sprinkled with li hing powder — a local favourite made from preserved plum powder.
After all that food it was time for a drink; a lychee and pineapple smoothy that our guide Robin sweetened with some infused vodka.
Our final stop for the day was Leonard’s Bakery where we tried the Malasadas — Portuguese Doughnuts. Like the manapua we had for breakfast, these come in a variety of flavours — I tried the cinnamon flavour, but by this time I was so full I couldn’t finish it.
The Hole in the Wall Food Tour is a must if you’re visiting Hawaii. Our guides, Robin and Ari, where great — friendly and helpful as well as having an in depth knowledge of the local foodie culture and history. Great tour. Highly recommended.

I was excited by the reviews of this tour that I found online and was expecting some really awesome food, but overall I was disappointed with the quality and types of food the tour provided. I really enjoyed listening to our tour guides Robin and Maile speak knowledgeably about Hawaii (being that it was my first time there), but the tour itself only took us to Chinatown and a few bakeries outside of Chinatown.
Compared to a $ 75 food tour I experienced in Seattle, the Hawaii one was really lacking. Some pastries, dim sum, fruit from the market, noodles, and some Chinatown meats — the tour should have realistically cost ~$ 65-​$ 75 in my opinion. It was awesome that transportation was provided and the tour guides were super attentive/​friendly, gave us cold bottled waters, and wet naps to wipe our hands but the total cost of the food we each consumed was probably near $ 15-​$ 20/​person total (if that).
I think it’s a good experience for someone who has never had Hawaiian food or Asian food for that matter, but for a true foodie, that $ 110 would be better spent on a nice meal at a good restaurant in Hawaii. I still tipped the hosts because they did a great job, but would not do this tour again when I visit Hawaii again. Plus we spent most of the tour sitting near a dumpster in Chinatown eating our food. I would’ve expected better seating at the very least.

Review for hole in the wall food tour: Robin and Krystal were wonderful tour guides! I don’t want to give away all of the places they take you so I won’t talk about the restaurants, but just know by the end I was stuffed with so much delicious food :) Even though I had been to two of the places on the tour it was great to hear all of the background behind the food, which made the repeat experience that much better!
At the end of the tour they gave us AMAZING recommendations for restaurants, which we tried and loved! Also they send you an email after the tour with a recap and recipes. I’m definitely making some of the food for my friends and family!

Stephanie M’s October 2013 review is dead-​on accurate to my experience with the «Hole-​In-​The-​Wall» food tour.
PROS:
+ Miale (pronounced Miley) and Robin were fun, knowledgable and friendly tour guides
+ also the fact that Miale was 38 weeks pregnant AND still working is nothing short of being a superwoman
+ fun to go with a group of friends … or with a good group you familiarize yourself with during the 5 hour tour
+ thoughtful planning from the tour guides — like providing bottled waters, foldable chairs, baby wipes and a hack-​style trash bin
+ took us to some famous Oahu shops like Leonard’s Bakery (2800+ reviews) and Liliha Bakery (1300+ reviews)
+ you do get full by the end of the tour
+ provides an email immediately after the tour of all of the stuff we ate (good to reference back)
CONS:
— like other reviews, it’s pretty much a Chinatown food tour, therefore «foreign» foods weren’t foreign to me
— not for foodies … more for inexperienced food noobs. A lot of the foods weren’t exotic or new to me. Char siu pork and longan/​lychee are common staples in Asian households.
— toured a lei flower shop and totally thought we’d get a free lei, but we just kept walking :(
— $ 108/​person seems a bit steep. We’re nibbling on 10+ items … not having a 10-​course meal (maybe we’re paying for the gas??)
I think the biggest misconception was walking in thinking they would showcase rare Hawaiian delicacies, but when you spend 90% of the tour hanging out in Chinatown, it’s misleading and a little disappointing. Granted that I got to venture outside of Waikiki, but this is a tour best suited for non-​Asian foodies.
OK to experience, but once was more than enough for me.

We took this tour on our first full day on Oahu and so glad we booked it at this point… Greg and Miale we’re absolutely awesome hosts and guides, giving us plenty of suggestions for places to eat, see and do!
So about the tour… do not eat breakfast before the tour! We sampled so many unique foods and at places that we would have never found on our own… don’t worry, they provide you the list with addresses so you can continue to enjoy the food the remainder of the trip. I especially enjoyed the coco puffs from Liliha Bakery (how I wish they would ship those!)
I only have 2 pieces of advice: 1. Book this tour… seriously book it now. 2. Do it early in your trip so you don’t waste your time and calories on all those touristy places… these people know their food and won’t steer you wrong!
Maile even has some mad map drawing skills… check it out!!!

We did this tour back in April and it was wonderful. Greg and Sahara were very informative and true foodies. The food was delicious. I think there were only one or two things that I didn’t like. I would suggest doing this tour during the beginning of your trip. We had to book closer to the end because we waited too long and they get booked fast. Therefore, some of the locations we had already tried for ourselves.

A fantastic food tour I highly recommend this tour to any foodie out there. We had Greg and Sahara they were so informative and knowledgable.
Well done Hawaii food tours we loved it!

I wish I had read others’ review carefully. This tour was pretty much a Chinese food tour instead of Hawaiian food tour. It is pretty much focused on food available in China town. Also it will take you all day to do that (9 – 2:30). Be really careful what you really want. If you want to know Chinese food, go for it.

Argh, I’m so torn about how to review the «Hole in the Wall» food tour. We got this as a birthday present, and while the concept is fantastic, it was far from being my favourite thing to do in Hawaii, especially to the tune of $ 108/​person.
On one hand, our tour guides Greg and Rachael deserve a full 5-​stars. They were friendly, upbeat, and knowledgeable, and were very enthusiastic and helpful in answering questions and getting the group excited. In fact, my favourite parts of the tour were when they shared fun facts and anecdotes about the different buildings and landmarks in Honolulu, including pointing out places where they filmed Lost and Hawaii Five-​O after finding out we were huge fans (don’t judge).
On the other hand… well, if your favourite parts of a food tour were the non-​food parts, then that’s saying something, right? I think the biggest issue that we had is because 95% of the food tour was spent in Chinatown sampling Chinese foods. If you’re Asian or grew up in a city with a sizable Asian population like Vancouver, LA, San Fran, or NYC, you will not be impressed by BBQ and roasted pork, rice noodles, or dim sum buns, especially when chances are that they’ll be no better than what you can get at home. Furthermore, even for those not well-​versed in Chinese food, the tour focused way too much on just one subset of Hawaiian cuisine. Where was the kalua pork, the lau lau, the shave ice, the garlic shrimp, and the plate lunches? Where were the Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and Portuguese dishes — cultures that also played a significant part in developing Hawaii’s food scene?
The only straight up Hawaiian dishes that we got on this tour were malasadas from Leonards (delicious!), cocoa puffs from Liliha bakery (also delicious!), and manapua buns (Hawaiian interpretation of Chinese bbq pork buns) from Royal Kitchen. We also got small pieces of spam musubis, ahi poke, pineapple with li hing powder, and caramelized banana while we were in Chinatown, but I’m not sure where those came from and have had much better versions elsewhere in Honolulu than the ones we got on the tour. As one previous reviewer mentioned, the non-​Chinese part of the tour was also very dessert heavy, making it difficult for diabetics or non-​dessert lovers to enjoy.
Another downer: it goes from 9:00−2:30 (roughly), so if you’re short on time in Oahu, be aware that taking this tour is a pretty big time commitment.
Like I said, this is a great concept and hats off again to Rachael and Greg for being so awesome. It’s not easy to keep a crowd going, and their enthusiasm and having ample cold bottles of water handy really helped move the day along… not to mention that I will be forever grateful to Rachel for recommending the chilli at Zippys. I recognize that a tour like this can’t cater to everybody, but with a little tweaking, it certainly could be a heckuva lot better.

Matt and Keira — those are the only two people you need to meet in Hawaii!
We just came back from Hawaii and we have to thank those two for making it worth while. We signed up for the Hawaii Food Tour «Hole in the Wall» and we enjoyed every moment of it. They picked us up at our hotel, along with 8 other people and we were on our way!!!
The main theme of this tour was obviously Hole in the Wall places. They took us basically to the best places Hawaii has to offer! They not only took us to these wonderful places, they explained to us the history behind some of these dishes, the history behind the places we visited, and what the food was and how it is made.
Keira also keeps a card for each couple and write down any suggestions Matt gives us. She basically saved us from writing notes!
They also emailed us all the places we went to and all the things we ate. They emailed us some recipes they make and their suggestions on some of the best restaurants to eat.
Loved all the foods they gave us! Loved the conversations we had with Matt and Keira! Loved the people that went on the tour with us!
GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT!!!

I wish I had read Lan L.‘s review before going on this tour, but let me start off with the good points for the Hole-​in-​the-​Wall tour. Our guides, Bill and Sahara, were great! Very informative and fun. They gave us great tips on which restaurants to eat at while you’re here. After the tour, they also sent us an email with all the information for the things we ate that day as well as recipes. Another good thing about the tour was that it was great getting away from the tourist area of Waikiki and getting to eat so much food. I was definitely stuffed.
Now for my criticism of the tour. Most of the tour took place in Chinatown. Definitely shouldn’t call it a Hawaiian tour if most of the food you’re eating is Asian food. As for me, I’ve been growing up on Asian food all my life and I’ve tried all the Asian food they gave us to try. Lychee and Longan are not exotic fruits to me. Also char siu and Chinese roasted pork is common. Not to mention I’ve had better than the place they brought us to as the best char siu and Chinese roast pork in Hawaii. Definitely better Asian food other places than what they gave us on the food tour.
Overall, I don’t think I would recommend this tour to any person that has ate a lot of Asian food in their life.