It's hard to believe that this month makes 8 years since Mana Bu's first opened their doors. I totally remember the day that me and Leslie first spotted their sign while we were walking to pick up lunch from somewhere else. I did my, "Heeeey, what is thaaaaat?" and we quickly did a detour. Ever curious, we walked through the doors and checked out all of the offerings. We met Manabu and his sweet wife Fumiyo. There were no other employees back then. We bought a few musubi and a couple sweet potato salads. Needless to say, we were hooked from the start.
You can check out my original post here.
At first, they opened at 11:00 a.m. After awhile they changed it to 9:30 a.m. Now it's 6:30 a.m. The sign says that they open until "Soldout or 1 p.m." They usually never make it until 1 p.m.
This was yesterday at 8:30 a.m. Musubi-heads were out in full force. Some were waiting in line to pay the cashier. Others were waiting for the next batch to come out.
So much for my 8-year anniversary update . . . this was all the musubi that they had left.
And the side dishes? Nothing.
This has been Manabu's philosophy from the start and is still true today . . .
and is the reason why they are always voted Hawaii's Best.
I talked to Manabu a few weeks ago. He is still the same . . . so humble. I asked him if he's been back to Japan since he started 8 years ago. He said that he has not. I told him that he should take a couple of weeks off and go home and relax. He nodded his head in agreement. I wonder if he will.
12 comments:
Love this place. And just as in your post, we sometimes find that they are sold out.
Awww Kawika, I'm so glad that you go there. I once asked Manabu which days were his busiest. He said it varies . . . he never knows, so can't prepare.
My favorite is with ume in the center, wrapped in nori. CANNOT beat that. The bad thing about making musubi, though, is that you're going to eat more rice than you ordinarily would, because the rice grains are compressed, and it's soooo ono!
Soooo ono, Lorna! Being on that low-carb diet recently made me crave rice even more now . . . ACK!!
wow so fast!
My FAVORITE musubi place, and the owner really is sweet. I love the ume one and I also really like their tuna mayo one. I buy several when I travel so I have something good to eat on the plane as well as one or two to munch on when I get to my destination hotel and get hungry.
Another really good musubi source is once a year at Shirokiya in July. They bring in a village that has really good rice (very expensive) and they make musubis for sale. Delicious. Addicting.
Now I am hungry for musubi.
Looks like awesome owners and a nice place. They make masterpieces! Looks like the main price in 2008 was $1.50 each. In your current second pic I see $1.75. If that's all they have raised their prices in 8 years they a really fair good people. You can tell they take great pride in their creations!
I've never even heard of this place, but it sounds really, really wonderful! So far from me though. Sigh..
I gotta write this down though for my daughter when they get here in a few weeks.
Mark, I totally love the owners . . . so hard working and humble people.
Kay, there are instructions on their website on how to order ahead of time. That might be the way to go for you, as the sell out often.
So funny your musubi heads!!! I'm so happy we went walking that day. He needs to change his hours to 6:30 - 8:30 cause after that it's slim pickins!
So amazing how popular they became, yah, Les!!
It's hard to believe it's been 8 years. I remember when you bought all the different musubis.
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