'Crazy good': A Hawaii bowling alley serves comfort food that Guy Fieri loved
I had just come down a mountain hiking the Aiea Loop Trail in central Oahu, tired and very hungry. The first place my Hawaii friends and I decide to go is Aiea Bowl, a bowling alley a short drive away.
But we're not going there to play a game; we're going there to eat.
On the top floor of a 1960s strip mall, The Alley Restaurant at Aiea Bowl doesn't have your average bowling alley food. Known for being ridiculously good, the food is a mix of American and Hawaii cuisine with diverse flavors, such as kalbi short ribs, hamburgers, loco moco and mahi-mahi. The restaurant is famous for its award-winning oxtail soup, a Hawaii comfort food, served steaming with shiitake mushrooms, peanuts and baby bok choy.
Even Guy Fieri agrees. His name is splashed across the menu, as the restaurant was featured in Season 19, Episode 12 of Food Network's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives."
"Dude, you win the best oxtail soup in the world award. This is crazy good," Fieri said in the episode.
The owners, two brothers and bowling enthusiasts Glenn and Gregg Uyeda, bought and renovated the 24-lane bowling alley in 2006 and opened The Alley Restaurant right next to the lanes. Glenn, who is a chef, had dreamed of his own restaurant. He trained at Le Cordon Bleu and worked at New York's Le Bernardin. But instead of opening a separate restaurant, he and his brother chose to renovate the bowling alley's kitchen and make the snack bar the restaurant. They felt the combination of a restaurant and a bowling alley was a wiser business decision.
The oxtail soup is their mom's recipe, along with a sauce. "The sauce is the best thing about the dish," Glenn said on the show. It's made with daikon radish, soy sauce, lemon juice, sesame seed oil, red chili pepper and sesame seeds.
Aside from the oxtail soup, the restaurant also serves an unusual turkey sandwich that receives rave reviews. The turkey is marinated in Pepsi, salad oil, soy sauce and ground pepper overnight and then served on a toasted hoagie roll with mayo and lettuce. "It doesn't taste like soda pop, it's not super sweet, but that is rich flavor all the way through, and it is super tender. I mean super tender. That's like Thanksgiving. I'd eat till I pass out," Fieri said in his review.
When I sit down to order lunch on a late Saturday afternoon, the restaurant is out of the turkey. And despite Fieri's recommendation, I'm not quite in the mood for soup, so I order the Alley Mix Plate instead, which includes two entrees. I chose the No. 1 item on the menu, the Tasty Chicken, and the furikake ahi, covered in nori and sesame seeds and garnished with a creamy sauce.
The place is busy with a steady stream of people arriving to reserve lanes. The bowling alley is lit up in neon blue and pink lights. The walls are covered in vibrant murals of plants. The red chairs and metallic blue bowling balls tie in well with the color scheme. Not every lane is full, but bowlers of all ages are having a fun time. Everything about it feels casual, welcoming, down-to-earth and family-oriented.
Right next to the lanes, the restaurant is packed. Servers are walking around quickly, working hard to keep up with the demand. "Our restaurant runs maybe 10 times the volume of sales to bowling, but it keeps bowling in Hawaii," Glenn said in a 2020 video interview. "Hawaii had 20-something bowling alleys at one time, and now we're down to four. If you were to have a bowling alley by itself, 30,000 square feet, we wouldn't be here - and that's why most of the bowling alleys are not here anymore."
When my food arrives, I take a bite of the ahi, covered in nori and sesame seeds, topped with a creamy sauce. It's perfectly seared, not dry, and the sauce complements the saltiness of it. The Tasty Chicken is dipped in an "Alley Tasty Sauce," made with sweet soy sauce, garlic and chili flakes and deep fried. It's crispy and addictively sweet with tender chunks of chicken. The plate also comes with rice and macaroni salad. I really don't want to stop eating it, but I'm saving room for dessert.
Not only is The Alley a restaurant, but it's also a bakery with a large case filled with all sorts of desserts, such as a cream cheese brownies, tiramisu, cupcakes and pumpkin crunch squares. The three- to six-layered cakes - lemon crunch, carrot, chocolate and strawberry crunch - all have reputations of their own.
At the urging of my friends, I order a slice of the lemon crunch cake, a yellow chiffon three-layer cake with lemon curd and almond toffee. It's their favorite, they say.
The slice is large, easily sharable, and I take the first bite. The cake is spongy, each layer covered in the creamy crunchy filling. It's covered with almond toffee, providing a nutty caramelized flavor and crunch. My eyes close for a moment, reacting to the taste. The toffee is my favorite part of it, complementing the lemon very well.
Just like my entree, the cake is so good that I don't want to stop eating it. Across the menu, the chef's talent for balancing flavors and love for food is evident. Now I can't help but wonder what the rest of the items on the menu taste like. I may turn into a regular here, coming back for more, and I may as well pick up bowling while I'm at it.
