Pono Market

Price great .food wonderful. 5 star poke .frid chicken ono
Any food is good. 1000% satisfied

Yum!!! Sesame Ahi Poke! So good and fresh! Still dreaming of having more!!! Was a bit confusing at first, but asked someone in line and they happily explained how to order.

Soo delicious! I got the Hawaiian plate lunch with pork laulau, lomi salmon, and poke. Everything was served fresh and hot. There was a line, but service is quick and it moves fast. I also tried the fried chicken and that was amazing. It was crispy, buttery, and had a sweet savory taste to it.
Dessert– chocolate Mac nut cookies– I could eat a million of these in one sitting! They are on the crispy side; the cookie part is similar to a shortbread cookie. My husband wasn’t a fan because they weren’t soft cookies. However, I found them to be buttery and decadent (they make my mouth water just thinking of them ;)
This is must stop for me on Kauai!

One of the best places to get «poke» to go! Not a place you want to dine-​in, absolutely no ambience! Hard to find a parking place, due to Kapaa Crawl. Usually a long line, it’s one popular place these days.

So so soooooooo good!!! Get there early for lunch selections because they do sell out of things like lau lau and Kalua pork soon!!!

Following an awesome day, our second to last on the island, I went to Unilocal to see where to get a poke bowl, and this place absolutely was the place to go! Ahi poke bowl, on a bed of warm seasoned rice topped with ocean poke! Delicious. Contrast of temperature, tastes and textures was worthy of more than the styrofoam bowl I inhaled my lunch from! They also let me sample the two kinds of tako, delish– and were I to go back I would branch put to try a tako bowl!
The opening/​closing times on Unilocal are correct, I confirmed with the sweet gal at the cash register.

Came here for my first meal in Kauai and I enjoyed it a lot. The fried chicken is perfectly fried, nice and crispy and boneless! The pulled pork is perfect. There is a wide variety of drinks to choose from and they even have some sort of blended drink machine that uses milkshakes which, even though I did not try, was very tempting and looked good. The staff is very friendly and will explain to you what everything is if you aren’t familiar with Hawaiian food, which I definitely am not. I would say that there was a little too much rice in the rice bowl for my taste and I ended up not finishing it. The seating is a little weird in my opinion and there really isn’t enough of it. The food makes up for that though and I definitely think it’s a necessary stop to make in Kauai.

The best poke shop in Kapa’a! I went to this shop 3 times in my 7-​day stay in Kaua’i. Wish I went at least once more before I left.
Please make sure you stop by here on the way to/​from the airport in Lihue — it’s not too far off the freeway.

Everything they serve is incredibly yummy. There are several choices of poke, all wonderfully great. You can make yourself sick eating the Kailua pig. Damn it’s just the best. Food is served both as plated meal and ala carte.
It’s family owned and from what we can tell, the kids run it, they are very friendly. This is one of several return trips. On our first visit, we were not sure what to order, and they walked us through the menu. We ordered just enough food for the plane ride home. It’s where the locals go for sure!
We waited five years for this return trip and it didn’t disappoint.
Enjoy!

This place doesn’t look like much from the outside but it was tasty! Super good Hawaiian food! Great poke, they run out fast so get there early! Family run and you can tell they care!

Things run out really fast, it’s better to come for lunch than for a pick up for dinner later.
Their specials are done so we picked up some poke by weight.
Got the spicy lobster poke, and ahi poke with rice. Lobster poke wins, but the spicy is quite potent, so be careful!
I think our experience will be better during lunch hours for sure.

This is for 12/​31/​2015.
The pokes were previously frozen. That was a let down seeing as some places sell fresh poke. I tried several of them (onion, shoyu, sesame and the tako) and though they were OK at best. I’d say it definitely was not the best I’ve had on the island.
I was shocked how quickly their hot food items sold out. The reviewers were right about that! I didn’t get any so I can’t give my feedback on that front.
If it were just for poke, I’d say don’t go out of your way to have it here. Maybe for the hot items as other reviewers stated, but definitely not for the poke.

Yummy plate lunch! Perfect for the beach. I had fried chicken, spicy ahi poke, potato-​Mac salad and of course rice. Friend had Kalua pork and sesame ahi poke. They were out of spam musubi. Definitely worth the stop in Kapaa.

Perfect spot for hawaiian food — must try the pork/​chicken lau lau (meat wrapped inside taro leaves.)
They also have tables located outside the market for you to enjoy your food!

I came here on 2 occasions in the afternoon and the morning. The laulau might be done around 930−11am and they sell out when they sell out. The initial visit was around 130 and no more laulau so I settled for some poke and fried chicken which def hit the spot for me. Lip smacking delicious.

I found myself at Pono Market when I returned to the island and realized that my favorite manjus were no longer being sold at the Menehene Food Mart in Lawai due to getting closed down. Did a Unilocal search on the island for best manjus and Pono Market came up.
It’s a small market facing the highway in a strip of other little stores and it’s easy to miss. I’ve passed by that strip of stores and have never gone into any of them except ono ono shave ice right at the end.
It was the afternoon and they didn’t have much manju left but we still got an assorted flavor pack of manjus. It came with red bean, taro, apple, and coconut. My favorite was the traditional red bean. It was the crispy kind of manju like the one in Lawai but the ones at Pono were smaller. Apple and coconut were more like mini pastries instead of traditional manjus.
Got some spicy ahi poke as well and it was fresh and good. I returned here many times after that first visit when I was on the east side looking for quick food. They have an abundance of different premade refrigerated snacks like spicy ahi roll, cone sushi, vegetable sushi.
Kulolo is sold here too. Kulolo is this sort of dessert pudding solid. It just looks like a purplish/​brown block and I can’t ever imagine seeing it sold on the mainland because it’s so plain looking and different but it’s good. Share it because 1 block of kulolo might be too much. I have 1 or 2 bites of kulolo and then I get over it.
Their musubis are all good. They have spam, fried chicken, bbq chicken musubis and I have enjoyed it everytime. Soft rice, meat, and sauce. Musubi seems simple enough that anyone can make it but believe it not I’ve had some badly made homemade musubi. They’ve perfected their musubi making.
They serve cooked plate lunches but I never had the opportunity to try them.

Before I planned the food portion of our trip to Kauai, I was intent on finding mochi. For people who don’t know what mochi is, it’s like tiny chewy blobs that angels themselves gently hand feed unicorns in heaven to make rainbows and cotton candy clouds. Mochi is bliss. This quest for mochi led me to another market, who indeed did have mochi, but what everyone was raving about was Manju. Manju is like a pie crust/​dough/​flaky or chewy outside, around a flavorful or savory inside. I tried a few at said market (who shall go unnamed), and was unimpressed. That is when I was told by the locals to find Pono Market.
We stopped by on our first visit after breakfast at Ono Family Restaurant for some extra coffee for darling man, who requires at least two and a half gallons of coffee per day for optimal happiness. I noted in my head that they DID have manju, but by the time we were there, they were already sold out. The counter helper was encouraging, and told me to come back as early as possible in hopes of trying it another time, and I decided this was an adventure I was up for. We lugged the coffee out, and went along our way.
On our second breakfast in Kapa’a, we were decidedly early, and darling man headed to coffee while I peeled towards their fresh baked racks. Gloriously, they were heavy-​laden with fresh trays of manju of many flavors. I was overwhelmed with the options, and then discovered they had a combo pack with two of each! Gleefully I grasped one to my chest and giggled to myself at what a find I had in my hot little hands. The counter helper stared at me perplexed and I hemmed and hawed something and awkwardly ordered some poi to try and distract them from myself.
I barely got to the car before I clawed my way into the Manju Combo pack and started biting at the little purses of flavor. In order of least favorite to favorite we had: Apple Cinnamon, Coconut, Koshi An, and Ube. Apple was squishy and a little overcooked but good, coconut was flaked-​tasted like a macaron and very sweet, koshi an was perfectly soft and savory, and the ube was, as darling man put it, «careful.» What he meant, which I agreed on, was that it took the eyes-​closed-​all-​tastebuds-​on, to really taste, appreciate, and savor this light, delicately complex bundle of yum. Best manju I’ve ever had in my entire life.
Poi was as solid as poi can be, coffee was a hit every time, and the people were very nice despite my celabratory flip out over manju success. Good prices for great product, and solid offerings that can stand up to, and conquer any manju competitor in all of Hawaii.

The Pono Market is a small store on Kuhio Highway on the way to the main shopping areas in Kapaa. It was hard to find, since it’s so tiny. I suggest parking on the street and walking over.
Brotha’ Man was kind enough to let us sample just about all of the different poke he had on sale. We ended up ordering a poke bowl ($ 7), with half sesame poke and half spicy poke. We took a seat outside (there aren’t many seats inside or outside) to enjoy the poke. Both were really tasty.
There are other places to get poke on the island for a cheaper price.

01.14.15
Great place for a quick lunch stop. The server was extremely knowledgeable and patient, explaining each of the sections, various lunch box combinations, and giving us samples prior to our final decisions.
They have daily specials, and on this particular Wednesday it was the lau lau and pulled pork, which the boyfriend ended up ordering. Each lunch combo comes with two scoops of rice, and up to three varieties of hot foods or poke. At a max of $ 12.95 a box, it’s a steal for the amount of quality food you get.
Total damage for two: just shy of $ 30

There’s nothing fancy about this tiny market. No fuss. Service was brisk and frankly just a touch unfriendly. Just order your food and eat outside.
I will review the poke bowls first:
1. Sesame Ahi Poke: it’s like 90% fish and 10% rice. So much poke. It was good but like… way too much poke. I was overwhelmed.
2. Spicy Ahi Tuna Poke: this was ok.
3. Lobster Poke: I’m a fan of this one.
Other Food:
1. Pork Lau Lau: my surname is Lau so this is extra hilarious obviously. It was alright.
2. Mac Salad: Yes this was good. Really unhealthy but good.