Dining Scene
Lunch Break: Create a plate lunch with favorite local foods at Alakea Delicatessen

By Debra Yuen
TGIF Editor

Dae Jang Kim stands ready to fill a customer's plate with a variety of local delicacies at Alakea Delicatessen. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

When you check out Alakea Delicatessen, on a busy corner at Alakea and King streets, you'll find a modest eatery with folks eager to fill your plate-lunch desires and the full array of okazu choices.

Certainly you can create your own, but you sure can't go wrong with the special plate lunch. At $4.20, you get noodles, rice or musubi, macaroni salad, two veggie choices (get the watercress!) and a chicken selection.

Both the fried chicken and the shoyu chicken were tender choices; there's also barbequed chicken.

There's a special for vegetarians, too: Choose three veggie items in a plate lunch for $3.75.

In fact, there wasn't much not to like at Alakea Delicatessen.

We're talking no-nonsense, undressed-up portions of macaroni salad, long rice ($1.15 a portion), chow mein ($1.43), a generous hamburger patty ($1.15), sweet-potato tempura (95 cents) — all comfort foods to feed the fast-food soul.

Alakea Delicatessen is at 201 S. King St. Hours: 6 a.m.-3 p.m. weekdays. 533-4666.