Tag: maumelle

Food Review: Hokaben Japanese Kitchen Maumelle

Hokaben is the new-ish Japanese place for take-out here in the Maumelle. It replaced the Captain Express Hawaiian BBQ place, which originally replaced Dominos Pizza. While we have plenty of Japanese food options here in Maumelle (2 food trucks and 1 full restaurant), this new addition has a few items no one else has…and I’m loving it!

MENU

The expansive menu can be found on their site. There are plenty of appetizers, a ton of sushi options, poke bowls, bento boxes, and then the typical hibachi dinners with one exception: you can get noodles instead of rice!

While I haven’t tried one yet, the bento boxes are supposed to be so good! I just can’t bring myself to not order those hibachi noodles!

FOOD

OMG Roll: $12.
Description: Sushi rice, spicy tuna, crab stick, avocado, topped with crunchy, sriracha aioli, eel sauce, scallion

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I’m a sucker for a fried sushi roll, so this is easily delicious! Even though it was packed hot, it was still plenty crunchy at home.

Spicy ahi poke bowl: $11.50

Source: https://hokaben.square.site/

This was such a great surprise. While I love making my own poke bowl so I can add to it what I like, this had just about everything I could want!  There was salmon in a spicy sauce, seaweed salad, avocado, onions, roe, wasabi, scallions, and more on top of a bed of rice. It was spicy! If you want a fresh, healthier option, go for one of these poke bowls. They are quite large, as well.

Hibachi Shrimp with Noodles: $10.25

While I love fried rice, these noodles are even better! So saucy and flavorful, plus they give you extra yum yum sauce to use as you please. I just dumped all of it over the noodles, veggies, and shrimp and mixed it all up. Absolutely delicious!!! These made for amazing leftovers, reheated in the microwave, as well….for days. This is a HEAVY box, full of more food than you would ever expect.

Hibachi Chicken with Noodles: $9.75

Everything I said about the shrimp holds true here. The chicken was perfectly cooked and so tender and flavorful. There was a lot more chicken here than there was shrimp in my shrimp box, so I’m going to stick to the chicken hibachi from now on.

Side Order of Grilled Vegetables: $4.75

I always order extra veggies to put with my leftovers so I’m not just eating noodles only for lunch.

Overall, you can’t go wrong here. There’s still so many things I want to try on the menu, but I’ll always have to get those hibachi noodles! I’ll get a bento box soon, though!

Food Review: Grampa’s Catfish & Seafood in Maumelle

Grampa’s Catfish & Seafood has been around for a while, at different locations,  but they are now located on Maumelle Boulevard. Luckily for me, I live in Maumelle! However, it took me a while to finally get out and try the place. Here’s the breakdown:

Environment

Grampa’s Catfish is in a building that has been many different restaurants over the years. It’s nothing fancy, but now the decor is a little Southern/ country, with plenty of things to look at on the walls. Interestingly, there framed pictures of, I assume, the owner’s family and friends all over the restaurant as well.
Our server was very friendly and made us feel right at home. He talked to us throughout the meal and made sure we had everything we needed at all times. Great service!

Menu

   

The menu is mostly southern fried foods, but there are plenty of healthier options as well. So, you can get anything from fried zucchini chips and a fried shrimp po-boy, to grilled mahi-mahi (plain or in a taco) with sauteed veggies.

Food

Coleslaw for the table- FREE

As soon as we sat down, a big bowl of coleslaw was ready for us to share as we decided on what to order. More came when that was gone. It is your typical mayo-based coleslaw, but with good seasoning, better than many others.

Fried Green Tomatoes, $5.99

We started off with the fried green tomato appetizer, that came with some lettuce leafs and ranch dressing. While they were cut thin and crispy, there wasn’t very much flavor in the breading. They were good, but I wouldn’t order them again. Next time, I’ll have to try the fried zucchini chips.

Dinner for Two: Fish and Fowl, $25.99
Description: Four catfish filets and eight chicken tenders, served with two large sides.

What a deal! This enormous meal is more than enough for 2 people. Drew and I couldn’t even eat half of it. The fish was large and the breaded was seasoned well. I took most of mine home, though, to cook it a little longer in the toaster oven, as I like my fried catfish very crispy.
The hand-battered chicken strips were long and thin and plenty. They were good in dipping sauces, but lacked flavor overall.

For one side, we got grilled veggies, and they were garlic-y and delicious! I will always order these.

For our other side, I was a little less healthy and got onion rings. Alongside them came many hush puppies. The only rings seemed hand batter in a beer batter of sorts and were very crispy. The hush puppies were typical, non-spicy balls of fried dough. But I’ve never met a hush puppy I didn’t like.

In the end, we carried home a completely packed to-go box and left with very full bellies. For about $30, we got so much food, and I love a good deal…so I like this place.