Lunch in Wahiawa

I go to Wahiawa at least once a week for meetings at one of my current projects at Wheeler Middle School. Usually, I just go back to the office after my meeting because I haven't had time to go to lunch in the area but this past week I took my inspector out to lunch so we decided to go to Dong Yang.

I had never heard of Dong Yang until about 7-8 years ago when I was working in Hilo. One of my inspectors in Hilo mentioned to me that whenever he goes to Honolulu, the first place he visits out of the airport is Dong Yang in Wahiawa. Wow, must be pretty good, I thought. Since then, I've heard several locals mention it as their favorite Korean food so I had to go check it out of curiosity.

Got there at around 11:45am and it was about 3/4 crowded. My inspector ordered the spicy bbq chicken ($7) and I ordered a combo of kalbi and spicy bbq pork ($8). I usually order spicy bbq pork whenever I go to a Korean plate lunch place.The first thing they bring out is a bowl of chicken broth soup and a bowl of kim chee. The broth was okay, I guess. I thought it was an interesting choice to serve chicken broth instead of the usual seaweed soup or miso soup. The kimchee was expectedly bland and flavorless.Then the main dishes came out. I must say...kind of disappointed, considering the word of mouth I heard. The kalbi was decent, but the meat was a little chewy and I thought the marinade was a little on the sweet side. The spicy bbq pork was terrible. The pork was rubbery and the marinade was very bleah. It also seemed like they just pan fried the meat instead of cooking it over a grill. There was no evidence of any searing on it. Also, the macaroni salad had too much mayo (this is actually pretty normal for most Korean plate lunch places), and the watercress and bean sprouts also lacked any real flavor.I sampled a little bit of my inspector's spicy bbq chicken and that was not bad. The spicy marinade was pretty good but the chicken was overcooked and dry.

Overall, I was not impressed at all with Dong Yang and will probably be never going back there on my own again.After lunch, had to stop by Kilani Bakery for their brownies. I've tried their brownies before but this was my first time actually in the bakery. The selection was a little scarcer than I had imagined, but what they had looked good. I bought a bag of brownies (around $5.50) and they were delicious (sorry no pics)! I highly recommend these if you're in the area.