Sam & Syd’s Cafe

Went back to get some adobo fried rice. I used to love their adobo fried rice. This time, it was terrible. Very dry and flavorless. Very disappointed.

Went back here today 11−21−13 and sadly it’s closed. We ate here last week and no one said they were closing or moving. So sad. It’s now a phở place…

We live in town and this is our go to place for good Filipino food. I’ll admit that there is the occasional «miss» when we order a dish, like its too salty or maybe over-​stewed. But overall the food is consistently good. Much better than Golden Coin down the street anyway.
This place always seems slow when we go, but we prefer it that way. There’s usually only one server, so don’t expect to be constantly waited on hand and foot. It’s always busy during lunch, so call ahead to order, especially on your lunch break.
The portion sizes are good for the prices, we always leave full and even have leftovers to take home. Dinner for 2 usually comes out to $ 35-​$ 40 with tip, we order 3 – 4 dishes.
We come here maybe once or twice a month, but the waitress and owner know me and even recognize my voice when I call to see if they still have a certain dish available. We like to call and check to see if they’ve sold out or ran out of a dish.
We haven’t tried everything on the menu, but we have found our favorites that we do love. Fried pork, guisantes, mongo beans, pinakbet, sari sari, fried silet.

Great Filipino food, another tasty experience here. We ordered a ton of food, including pancit, sari sari, lechon kawali special, halo halo, pork adobo fried rice omelet, and shrimp omelet with tomatoes. Sadly they ran out of crispy pata!
Would definitely recommend the fried rice and the lechon.

I cannot remember when I have had a worse dining experience. Our server was prompt to seat us, that was the only positive to our experience. When ordering the server did not even ask if we wanted something other than water to drink. We i asked for coffee, she had a dazed look and ask «what». I replied I would like coffee with my meal. Then she forgot to serve it to me, after a long wait attempting to get our server’s attention — she seemed to be too occupied with chatting with her co-​workers in the kitchen, in addition to chatting on the phone.
It was well past the lunch rush and there where two tables already eating or just finishing up, as well as another couple that was seated just after us. The poor or lack of service was no the only disappointment. I love Filipino food — my wife is FOB from the Philippines — and it makes up most of our meals at home.
We ordered a selection of items: Kari Kari, a chicken dish and mixed plate of Fried Pork and Pinabet. The Pinabet was mostly bitter melon (not my favorite but my wife loves it). On to the Fried strips of leather that was passed off as pork — need i say more. The chicken was laced heavily with liver, yet the menu makes no mention of it and finally the Kari Kari. It tasted as if they had thinned down a jar of peanut butter and poured it over the chunks of bone containing small bits of meat.
In the end we had to flag down our server and asked to box up the leftovers. Seeing she was too busy with chatting we where given containers and a bag and left to do it ourselves. My wife had to rush off to work so I waited for the check… nearly 20 minutes after my wife’s departure a check was slapped down on the table and if I had not gone up to the register to pay, I might still be sitting at that table, waiting to pay.
There are so many other things, like the little cockroaches crawling up the wall to the dingy, uninviting décor. This will be my first and last time dining at Sam & Syd’s

I usually have to travel to Thelma’s Restaurant in Waipahu for a delicious, sit-​down Filipino meal. For me that’s quite a long drive. So I was happy to discover Sam & Syd’s Café in Kalihi, which is a favorite lunch spot for the folks in my office. It’s clean, spacious and from what I hear, it’s a family owned and operated business. Today we ordered these items: lechon kawali, chicken papaya soup, adobo fried rice omelet and shrimp sari sari. Everything tasted amazing, and the servers are very kind. We went a bit early. It was about 11:30 a.m. The room was half full. Only a few families and a big group of soldiers, U.S. Army I believe, who ordered almost every item on the menu. I don’t know why but it warms my heart to see soldiers enjoying homestyle Filipino food. They weren’t all Filipino either. Pretty good mix of kids. Like the cast of Community on NBC. I give Sam & Syd’s Café a big thumbs up.

Disclaimer — this is my first time eating Filipino food. Sam & Syd’s has the honor of being my baseline for all my future Filipino eats!
Quiet for 11am-​ish. Immediately seated with waters.
Chicken Papaya — love love loved the broth. Was it really papaya in this soup, seemed more like a winter melon/​squash? Nonetheless, I’m an avid lover of all clear broths. It may seem like a plain broth to other people though.
Sari sari — Great mix of veggies! Liked the sauce/​broth.
Lechon — salty. crunchy. salty. liked the tomato/​onion bits. salty. salty. salty. but maybe it was just an off day?
Pancit — noodles were decent. Nothing spectacular.
Overall a great introduction to Filipino food for me! Enjoyed all the dishes.

AVOID! AVOID! AVOID! I ordered the mix plate which had the chicken adobo and pork guisantes and pancit bihon. food was not freshly made which was evident by the dull color in the vegetables in the pancit.
i bit into the chicken and found it to be cold. the flavor in the food is there but freshness in it was gone 5 hours ago. if you like tasty filipino food that lacks the fresh cooked appearance to it, then this is the place for you. otherwise i can direct you to a manapua van down the street that serves better fresh cooked noodles than this place.

This is the place to go for really good homestyle filipino food. Its a ritual to come here atleast once a month. Just the best filipino food on the island. Even better than elenas and thelmas in waipahu.
Order the kare-​kare, which is a peanutbutter oxtail stew with vegetables and served with a shrimp paste that goes well with the peanutbutter.
Also, you must order silit or fried pig intestines. Crispy, tasty, and addicting.
Plenty parking, nice décor, a best filipino food!!!

So I decided to try this restaurant because I was craving for some Filipino food especially lechon kawali.
I ordered Sari-​sari and Lechon Kawali. It was actually pretty good. The sari-​sari was good. It tasted kinda like the sinigang without the sour taste. The lechon kawali was good and the dipping sauce. I also liked the tomatoes and onions dipped in some fish sauce or something. Overall I enjoyed my meal. My friend ordered halo-​halo and it wasn’t he and I both expected. It was lacking a lot of ingredients like sweet beans and bananas, langka… etc. It was just jello and the white kaong and some ice, ube ice cream and milk. So that wasn’t very exciting. But like I said I enjoyed my lechon kawali and sari-​sari. So far this is my 3^rd Filipino (Ilocano) restaurant that I’ve eaten at here in Hawaii and so far it’s the only one I liked.

I love filipino food. especially the bad stuff.
the lechon was perfectly seasoned. dip in patis and vinegar mixture it was awesome! I enjoyed the adobo fried rice, fried pork knuckle, and the mongo bean with the lechon in it as well.
I didn’t really care for the sari sari. it was too bland and overcooked.
all in all, next time i’ll pick and choose what I order.

First time here per a friend’s recommendation. How can a place be out of their better dishes? They were out of fried pork and pork adobo at 4 PM on Saturday. On top of that, we waited 35 minutes to get one of our orders, and there were only 6 other people in the place!
The only way I will come back here is to phone order it ahead of time as the food was decent.

Sam & Syd’s is good place to get Filipino food. Their portions are good and the quality is also very good. I guess my only real gripe is that they are a little overpriced for what you get. There are other places that are just as good if not better and are much cheaper.

Named after the owners twin grandchildren, Sam & Syd’s replaced the old Sari Sari’s. They supposedly have the same cook turning out the same shrimp and pork Sari Sari but when I ate here yesterday it seemed to fall a bit short. The chicken adobo wasn’t slow cooked long enough and the pancit was overpowered with lemon. The pork gisantes was good and how can you mess up halo halo? Fantastic!
Maybe we ordered the wrong dishes? The ladies lunching next to us were regulars, that’s how I heard the restaurant was named after the grandchildren. Everything they ordered looked amazing. They ordered their signature dish Kare Kare, a blend of long beans, eggplant, cabbage and beef oxtail mixed with a sauce of peanut butter, beef broth and anato powder. They also ordered a dish covered with eggs and tomato’s and a pork dish with a vinegar dipping sauce. They kept licking their fingers and I was jealous.
I’d come back and give Sam & Syd’s another try but only if I could kick it with these ladies and their fabulous louis baton, cucci and prava bags.
3.5 stars