Star Noodle (Hawaii, US)

We stopped by Star Noodle on a Sunday night around 7pm and were greeted by about 2 dozen people waiting outside the restaurant. I went in and found out that the wait for a table was at least an hour and forty-five minutes. However, their take-out wait was only about 25 minutes. J came up with the idea to get take-out and eat somewhere else, so that's what we did.

Vietnamese Crepe - shrimp, pork, bean spourts, nuoc cham. This was on the Share menu and rightly so. It was a very large portion served on top of a crispy grilled/fried crepe. Even between 3 adults, the sheer size of the dish was a little overwhelming and we were a little sick of pork by the end of it. It was very tasty though.

Hapa Ramen - rich pork broth, roast pork, poached egg, choi sum, kamaboko, bamboo shoots, mayu, spicy aka miso. This was probably the best dish we ordered and deserves its place as first on the list of noodles on their menu. The portion wasn't very large but it was very flavorful.

Garlic Noodles - fresh & fried garlic, dashi, green onion. J had this and she quite liked it. I didn't get much else of a description of though.

Pad Thai - rice noodle, chicken, shrimp, egg, peanuts, garlic chives. I ordered this and quite frankly I was disappointed. The noodles were standard and the flavour was average. There was some lemon flavour to it and a little bit of peanut taste, but overall it wasn't impressive. I have had similar or better pad thai at food courts. Perhaps it was because we did take-out, and unfortunately I may never know as I am not interested in ordering this again.

Overall, foodwise I think take-out took away a lot from the total experience. Unfortunately they only take reservations for parties of 5 or more. Since we had 4, we wouldn't have been able to reserve anyway. If you plan on trying out Star Noodle, go with a large party so you can reserve, or try going really early or really late to avoid long waits.

The restaurant is located a few blocks from the main road through Lahaina in an industrial area. The couple of blocks leading up to the restaurant give no indication that there might be a restaurant nearby. The interior was clean, brightly lit and bustling with people. If we had a more flexible schedule, I would have liked to eat-in rather than taking our food out.

I apologize for not taking any food photos for this review, but we ended up eating on a bench in a dimly lit parking lot, so we had more pressing concerns than taking photos of the food. It was an interesting experience, but one that I would like not to repeat again.

Summary
Food: Good. Eating in is probably much better than taking out.

Service: Average. They weren't very consistent with order-taking, and they just left take-out orders on the counter expecting customers to inquire when it is ready.

Setting: Good. Restaurant interior was clean, well-lit, and there was plenty of parking in their lot and nearby.

Value: Average. This could be rated higher due to the food assessment but based on my experience with their take-out, it was purely average.