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Vegan
American
Take-out
Vietnamese
A family-owned restaurant that serves a variety of dishes from pasta, burgers and sandwiches to Vietnamese entrees and noodle soups, rice dishes with mock meats. Opened fall-2010. Reported fully vegan August 2021. Open Mon-Tue 10:30am-2:30pm, Mon-Sun 5:00pm-9:00pm, Thu-Sun 10:30am-2:30pm. Hours may vary; call ahead.
144 Reviews
First Review by beve_luna
Star Thrower
Points +81
Good food if you can get past the menu - Edit
Good food, friendly staff. BUT This restaurant has the least friendly menu I have ever looked at. The photos are blurry and are not labeled so you have no idea what you are looking at. The font is hard to read becuase of color choice. The way it navigates it is really hard to figure out what to order. Seriously, I have never seen a menu this bad.
Read morePros: tasty food, 100% veg
Cons: Menu layout
Guest
faisca
Points +350
Nice Selection Of Dishes - Edit
Appears to be a fusion of Vietnamese/Asian and Italian foods, primarily. Definitely a transitional foods restaurant. Majority of menu items are based on meat substitutes. Very meaty. Portion sizes seem fair in my opinion. The minestrone soup is delightful. The Banh Mi (Vietnamese sandwich) is very good. The "fries" on the side are shredded, fried, seasoned tofu instead of potatoes. Delicious and unique, but again, very meaty. The chocolate cake dessert is surprisingly good. So many interesting choices on the menu, you're certain to not get bored quickly.
Read moreUpdated from previous review on Saturday February 05, 2011
[UPDATE] After eating here countless times, I think it's worth mentioning the service can sometimes be insufficient. The staff is friendly enough, just inexperienced and not trained in proper service. Just because you can carry a plate from the kitchen to the table does not mean you're qualified for table service. I've had numerous occasions where our orders were either forgotten, or mistaken. I suspect ESL as the culprit. If they're not certain about the order, just ask! Far less embarrassing then messing it up.
In a more recent example, the waiter told my date she was wrong and that she had in fact ordered the dish he was serving. While I know this to be incorrect ( I helped her choose the dish), at the very least the customer is almost always correct. To further illustrate, moments earlier the same waiter brought a spring roll appetizer to our table. After explaining to him we didn't order it, he proceeded to check with another table. Apparently they didn't order it as well. Back to the kitchen it went.
Now I don't mean to single him out, as there have been similar instances with other servers. Most involve absenteeism when you require their services (ie - water, check, etc). But accusing my date of being wrong, even if it's possible she might've been, gets you demoted to 3 cows. In his defense, he was remarkably fast to replace her fork when she dropped it. And so earned his tip for the night.
Pros: Meaty, Parking, but limited
Cons: Meaty, Service can be very spotty at times
Guest
Herbiv4
Points +2097
in love - Edit
Plenty of choices an absolutely everything vegan! I had to reconfirm this a couple of times because there are some items that could fool your everyday omnivore.
Read morePros: variety, nice prices, parking in back
Guest
jetgal
Points +108
Good, not great - Edit
First, the menu has a ton of selections, its a bit overwhelming. I think it would be better if they shortened the menu and made the selections tastier. The soup that came with my entree tasted the same as the noodle dish I ordered- salty, too much soy, nothing amazing. I splurged and ordered desert. I usually love anything with chocolate, but the cake was gross. It tasted old, like it had been in the freezer for a long time and I don't even know what they used for frosting. Simple can be good if you use the ingredients wisely. Unfortunately, Simple Joy missed the mark with me. The staff is super friendly though. Its a shame the food isn't great.
Read morePros: Friendly Staff
Cons: boring food, gross desert
Guest
Mesohungry
Points +23
Me hoppy!! - Edit
This was a good first expereince to a vegan resturant. I will be back as they have a lot of things i'd like to try. There portions are smaller then average resturant servings but, I still walked out full and happy. Prices are very reasonable. Easy to find parking and seating. My non vegan hubby enjoyed it even though he grumbled thru thr door. Left quite happy:) I ordered putanesca it was okay Im not into mock meats but theres were juicey and I enjoyed chewing away on it. alot of seasoning and A LOT of capers. I havent had heartburn since I became vegan a year ago. I got heartburn today. Bf ordered mushroom pasta was sooooooo delucious.
Read morePros: Yummy choices, Lots of seating, Lots of parking at noon
Cons: Sticky bathroom., Coed bathroom, Tap water.
Guest
Suzy
Points +18
Wonderful, wonderful! - Edit
Absolutely every bite was delicious, and all at a very affordable price. We are just visiting, so we won't be able to visit often, but I think my sister and her buddies will be new fans! I had the Vegan Feast, my sister the Pumpkin Soup and Vegetarian Sensation, and my husband the Pesto Pasta - and we all shared bites. Hope to go at least one more time while we are here!
Read morePros: wonderful food, simple ambiance, good value
Cons: service a bit spotty, bathrooms outside
Guest
bandita
Points +123
Good variety of mock meats - Edit
I'm so relieved that this turned out to be a good place. I normally don't take guests to vegetarian places I haven't tried before but I've only been here in HI for about a week, and I was tired of all the restaurants I've been taken too with the limited vegetarian options that turn out so bland and boring. So this time, I invited and treated my family and friends to this place. They looked really disappointed when they saw this place was vegan. But they were all a good sport and ordered a meal. And we all loved it! And one was very amazed at how the mock meats tasted so real. He never knew such existed and believed that vegans basically just eat bird food. This was a great opportunity to break that myth and at the same time, bring up the truth on the barbaric treatment to livestock animals. This is a great place to bring guests who normally love meat.
Read morePros: Great variety of mock meats, Easy parking, Reasonably priced
Cons: Portions a little small, Small dessert selection
Guest
VeganDietGuy
Points +189
worth at least 2 visits - Edit
We were in town for the Honolulu Marathon and decided to try Pure Joy as Loving Hut was closed. Was surprised that parking (4 spots) were full and restaurant was nearly full on Sunday afternoon. We had heard they were affiliated informally with Loving Hut, but the waiter did not know anything about it. In fact, he could not even tell us whether their pasta was whole wheat or not, did not even know such a thing existed! We had the Eggplant Parmigiana with fettuccini and the "Clay Pot Sensation". The pasta was cooked al dente, slightly hard the way I like it. However, I thought the food, especially the clay pot tofu was a bit on the expensive side for the small portion. I would however like to go back and try their vietnamese sandwich and the curry noodle soup an earlier reviewer mentioned.
Read moreWilliam
Pros: many choices, variety, parking
Cons: uninformed staff, portion size
Guest
beve_luna
Points +16
ehh...no - Edit
I ate here for dinner and although it is a very nice atmosphere, the food i not that good. I had the quesadilla which had practically no daiya cheese in it. Then had the mushroom linguine with white sauce....lets just say that i was eating just pasta without any sauce. Everything was lacking, and they are tight with their servings.
Read moreGuest
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