Island Manapua Factory

Always great takeout and quick Manapua I like soup on the run and take out treats and more.

2^nd time there. Friendly service. Manapua is ok. pork hash good size and filling if you get 3. Would go back f I ever go by manoa.

I grew up going here but it has really gone downhill and is soooo overpriced! I got an Asian brand coconut water I can even get downtown for $ 1.75 for $ 2.75! And the food is so bland. My old favorite chow mien noodles don’t have any char siu and barely even any veggies other than white onion. I asked for lemon chicken because the sauce goes on later so is crispy but instead they gave me their soggy orange chicken which was also not good at all. The only thing halfway decent was the beef Brocolli (because even I can cook that) but that had been sitting too long and was yellow. Ugh. Not even going to go into the overpiced dim sum I got for my friend visiting from out of town. Other than the crust gau gee which was just average everything else was embarrassing. Wish I had saved my $ 30!!!

I have been coming here ever since I was a small kid going to school at Manoa Elementary but today I think this will be my last time. My wife actually asked me why I went back since I actually forgot how bad the previous experience was. But this time I am reviewing it so that I never make that mistake again.
My main gripe was the Eggplant:
— It was not spicy at all, very watery.
— Not all of the pieces were evenly cooked. Some were under cooked, while some where over cooked.
— Plus they charged me an additional dollar for this choice.

Strangely, I don’t care for the manapua much but this has the best half moon and is the only place I like to buy from. The pi is just the right thickness and the contents have more of a shiitake and water chestnut type flavor and consistency rather than the gelatinous overly shrimpy stuff most places serve.

I should have followed by companions’ lead and ordered dim sum (manappua) at this small take out restaurant operated by Chinese immigrants, but I saw turkey jook was the lunch special and I felt more like having soup. A mistake! I got a quart container with a few piece of shredded turkey in an extreeeeemely hot, very thin rice gruel.
Small rounds of gau gee were also available, though that is usually sold only around the new year (Chinese). I tried one and It was like most other gau gee I have had.

I come here practically every weekend because of the laundromat there. I love the dim sum they have here, the pork hash is my favorite on island. They manapuas are so pillowy soft when you get then fresh from the steamer! My only complaint is that they open when they feel like it I guess. I usually corn in the middle of the day but the few times I decided to come before work to pick up some goodies for my coworkers they are closed! They say it opens at 8am but they weren’t I thought hey they might be running a little late and that’s understandable but I’ve waited for 20 mins. I was going to be late for work! I’m so disappointed at businesses that don’t run properly. If you state you open at a certain time I would think to be successful you would follow that time! Ughh im just pissed that I took the time to get there and i didn’t get my pork hash and manapuas. Get it together people!

So I went to get a steam manapua and a pork hash, the manapua was soggy and it taste sour. The pork hash was good only its $ 1 each. You decide.

Shark advisory in Manoa: the woman with the short red dyed hair will convince all unsuspecting and indecisive customers to buy far more food than they intended all under the guise of «better deal for you okay.» Food options are pretty limited in the valley, and this place is an icon for local-​style dim sum. While I admit they were a lot better years and years ago, there’s no point in dwelling in the past. The food here is decent. I stick to the standard items like the steamed char siu manapua and pork hash. The pizza manapua, while completely empty with the exception of the two slices of pepperoni and Costco canned tomato sauce is surprisingly good and manages to bring back childhood memories of summer fun cooking with English muffin toaster oven pizzas. The service here ranges from horrendous to extremely horrendous. Just tell them what you want so you have to deal with them as minimally as possible.

Whenever we’re in town, this is a must. For years. We have our go-​to favorites: char siu chow fun, jin dui, black bean manapua, duck bao w/​hoisin sauce and baked char siu manapua. I don’t even mind the up sell from the owner. Not sure what’s going on but this time it was kind of meh. The jin dui and black bean managua were fine. But they were out of baked char siu manapua — and it wasn’t even late. They cooked up a fresh order of the chow fun but it lacked flavor — even with the shoyu-​mustard added — and they were skimpy on the char siu. The duck bao was cold and rubbery. Come on, guys. Coming here from the airport used to an anticipated destination. After this trip, not so much. Please be consistent.

Love the manapua here, «buns» for you main landers. Sweet rice cake takes me back to my fat boy days! Prices are on point, but watch out for the shady lady at the register, and always count your change.

Come here every once in a while to pick up manapua. Convenient location and decent prices. I only gave them 3 stars because of the times I’ve come, they’ve never opened on time.

The Manapua is alright, nothing really stands out as amazing, but nothing is bad either. We have come here a couple of times when we wanted a small snack. My girlfriend does like the turkey jook a lot and has made special trips just for that.

Food’s ok. There’s stuff that i like and stuff i don’t like. It seems a little overpriced.
To the owners: If someone orders something with a lot of sauce, filling up a clamshell container and telling the customer to «be careful» is very half-​assed and lacks common sense. No matter how careful you are it’s still going to spill out into the bag by the time you get home. There are other containers that should be used.

Sorry, not a fan… maybe other things that I didn’t order are better (there were a lot of other patrons so something must be good).
Manapuas (at least the more specialty type, like pizza) runs $ 1.85 each. Pretty steep and barely any filling, mostly bun.
Ordered har gau at $ 1/​each. They weren’t hot and the outside was so thick and didn’t have a very good taste. Potstickers also didn’t taste freshly cooked (also $ 1/​ea). For the same price, I’d rather have fresh dim sum at a real dim sum restaurant. If you’re going to have already cooked dim sum, price should be lower.
The worst of the lot was the side of chow fun. It was completely tasteless and the noodles were super dried out (not soft and chewy). I barely touched it and threw the rest away. Yes, I’m the queen of saving leftovers and ok with eating them and even I threw this out! That’s how bad it was, what a waste!
Ordered 9 har gau, 2 potstickers, 1 can of juice and a side of chow fun and total was just over $ 20 — what a rip off. I didn’t buy the pizza manapua but our lunchmates did, which is how I saw what was inside.
Located in Manoa Marketplace — parking is ample but gets full during the lunch hour. No seating inside — takeout only but there are tables outside and around the Marketplace.

Location:
The shop is located in Manoa Marketplace in the heart of Manoa. The shopping center has tons of parking.
Food:
They sell a variety of Chinese food such as dim sum, manapua, noodles, Peking duck with bun, Chinese main entrees, roast pork and etc.
Price:
The food was reasonably priced. I paid around $ 1 for baked manapua and pork hash each.
Overall, it’s a great place to get dim sum and manapua without going to Chinatown.

Under the former owners this place used to be very good. Now it’s just disappointing. The ma tai su was burnt on the bottom due to the juices leaking out, which made it inedible. The main flavor in the pork hash was salt. The half moon filling was strangely lacking in taste and color, except for some black pieces I think were black fungus, something unusual in half moon dim sum. Food was one star, but I added a star for decent service. I hope they find a new cook or new recipes.

If you’re in Manoa and craving simple, straightforward manapua, you can get it here. The store is just a walk-​in place, but you can sit outside and enjoy your food «al fresco». They have the usual… har gau, siu mai, crispy gau gee, peking duck buns, white rice cake, 9-​layer cake, baked char siu bao with many different fillings. There are also hot foods, and pre-​packaged snack foods like shrimp chips. There were even «Special» signs for turkey jook.
The store isn’t gorgeous, it’s got signs taped up all over the place and it’s crammed full of things. But it’s not as dirty as Chinatown, and again, when in Manoa and you want manapua, it’s a good place to go.

Island Manapua Factory is one of those spots that you go to… no really, you just go to it. You don’t bother thinking its will be the greatest manapua, however it isn’t the worst either. Its edible and while the prices are on the higher side, it has parking so it makes it easily accessible if you are in the neighborhood.
Their selection include both baked and steamed char siu bao. It almost comes across as a modern day identity crisis that it can’t figure out exactly what it should make… so why not both? In the end, they make a respectable steamed char siu bao, while its baked comes out a tad dry and under seasoned. Its steamed version is moist and pillowy soft while overing a decent char siu mixture. It’s ratio could be improved, but you aren’t eating as much bun as if you were at Libby or Char Hung Sut.
Their pork hash is a tad greasy while their half moon was pretty bland.
Its location is convenient right in the middle of the Manoa Marketplace and you might be hard pressed to not find a parking stall there. That right there is a pretty big plus when you can avoid the madness of chinatown.

After checking out the manoa farmer’s market, I walked past this small shop in the back of manoa marketplace and decided to give it a try. They have quite an extensive menu for a manapua and dim sum shop. Normally, I would consider that a good thing, but in the case of dim sum, more options makes me wary that the quality might suffer. Unfortunately, this instinct turned out to be right.
I ordered a few different manapuas, including the standard char siu, oyster sauce chicken and peking duck. The char siu was average, and the other two were noticeably bad. The tiny amount of filling was inexcusable. The bread itself was rather dry and the filling did not impress me either.
I also got a few pork hash, and these were even drier and more tasteless than the manapua.
On an impulse, I picked up a small container of garlic roast pork because it looked enticing in the warming tray behind the glass. The taste on this was actually pretty good and the crispiness of the skin was great as well. Sadly, there were all of maybe 3 – 4 pieces of meat to go along with it. Fail.
Overall, I tried a lot of different items here and none of them were good. Stick to the more reliable takeout dim sum places like Libbys or Royal Kitchen.