Mondo Gelato

Oh man, they closed and there’s a Subway in its place!
Guess I’m going to have to fly 5 hours to get decent gelato.
WAIT — I hear a rumor that they moved to the Foodland in Kailua. Can anyone confirm?

Mondo Gelato will always be one of my favorite places in Hawaii — sure its just gelato, but it is one of those places that one would go to have a great cup of gelato-​happiness and people watch. Mondo Gelato has a wide variety of gelatos to choose from, but there are a few really great ones — After 8, Mango, Lemon and Stracciatella. It is also located in the center of the revived Lewers Street mall — which if you lived in Waikiki long enough you’d remember when it was pretty sketchy. Today, however, I would recommend this place to anyone who is spending time in Waikiki. One can never get enough Gelato…

What, it’s closed? And they’re opening a Subway in place of it? Eww…

On a one week trip to waikiki I think I went back to this place 4 times! People talk about how good the Ice is in waikiki with fruit and syrups on top but my favorite was still Mondo Gelato. I know it’s a chain and all but it had me craving for it every single night i was there which is enough for it to deserve 5 stars for now in my book. I loved every single flavor I tried (and my friends and I tried a lot thanks to the patient and friendly woman behind the counter). I tried and fell in love with pistachio, worm dirt, kona coffee and bacio. The tiramisu and biscotti were good too. Worm dirt is basically a cookies and cream however with chocolate cream instead so that everything is chocolate (chocolate + more chocolate = heavenly!). They also serve affogato which was good too. As an added bonus the displays they create for the gelato are so cute!

This is the only place that I know where I can get gelato besides some Italian restaurants, and the quality here is good. The strawberry and the mango flavors are true to their fruit flavors without any syrupy taste and is just so smooth. They have a pumpkin pie flavor this fall as well that tastes of cold comfort if that makes any sense. The boo part of this place is that a small scoop is $ 4 and you have to order a medium or large in order to get more than one flavor. Get your Kama’aina discount. It’s slight but better than nothing.

Came here after dinner at Kaiwa right upstairs.
The guy that was working behind the counter was super funny and patient with my cousin and I. We took forever trying to decide because there were so many delicious flavors! Everything from the typical to the exotic. He said that their best seller was the mango gelato, but both of us got something but it. Hahahhaa.
I wound up getting the tiramisu and my cousin got the Sp_​_​_​_​something Italian… and they were both so creamy and delicious! My uncle got the mango along with chocolate and green tea… ALL WERE EQUALLY DELICIOUS and the man was right… mango was pretty darn awesome and I can see why it’s their best seller.
Being the wonderful Chinese family that we are… my uncle decided to order a large (3 scoops) and ask them to separate it into one scoop bowls… therefore getting a «better» deal. Hahaha.

After a leisurely stroll with Papason one night, we stopped in here on the way home. He knew without entertaining the thought of tasting anything else that he wanted the strawberry. I on the other hand was 90% confident on the dark chocolate mac nut but needed the little spoonful just to make sure.
Both were DELICIOSO & we enjoyed our treats outdoors while admiring the Peter Lik art work from the concrete bench nearby. Definitely recommend for the friendly service, cleanliness & excellent gelato.

My little cousins really wanted to go get Gelato and since we were in Waikiki we stopped by Mondo Gelato. The staff were fantastic and they offer a great selection of flavors of gelato.
The flavors are definitely hit or miss… I think it really depends on what you like and it is definitely a subjective flavor type of place. However with the huge selection of flavors, you are bound to find something that you like!
Portion sizes are a little on the larger size, so unless you are hungry or really craving more than one flavor, stick to the petite (I’m sure the store loves hearing that…).

Gah. I want to give it 3 stars but my first date with my husband was at the Vancouver location so I’m a bit biased… Oh well, 2 extra stars for being lucky (and getting lucky ;D)
The rundown: this place has a large selection and so long as you’re not comparing it to Italian gelati, it’s pretty great. Some flavors suck but that’s kinda subjective when it comes to gelato.
And ffs people, it’s not quite ice cream. Well most of you know this I’m sure but…
Ice cream: butterfat from cream, 10−18%. Gelato: butterfat from whole milk (sometimes cream too), 3−4%, less air hence more density. Sorbet: nondairy.
*queue ‘the more you know’ commercial sound*

Went on Saturday night, they had the «Nutella» flavor, yay!
My friend didn’t care for it, he thought it was «too dry.» I guess for an ice cream it isn’t so melt-​y, which is good, in my opinion.
Anyway, yum!

I really liked the WORM DIRT. It’s like an oreo flavored one.
My friend got the KIWI flavored one, and I must stay it did taste like kiwi! LoL.
I like this place…

There are only 2 other places that I can think of that have REALLY good gelato (versus OK or mediocre or just plain bad gelato). Mondo gelato was really good, despite a little bit of freezer burn on the macademia nut dark chocolate the second time I had it. Mix that with the amaretto or the irish cream and it’s simply beautiful.
The fact that you can’t mix flavors in a small cup takes a star away. Why do I have to buy a medium cup with enough gelato to feed Waikiki to get 2 flavors? I’ve never seen that in another gelato store. There is a coupon floating around somewhere, though, that allows you to mix flavors in a small cup.

Very delicious gelato.
For some reason I ordered a large which came with… six…scoops of gelato. luckily all six scoops rocked and I walked out with about 4 pounds of gelato which made me laugh out loud to myself. It was kind of a ridiculous scene but w/​e. It tasted really good and the italian (?) girl working there was way sexy.
Don’t order the large cup unless you’ve got a lot of time on your hands. I got the straciatello (sp?) and was happy with every single scoop. My friend who got the same thing a couple of days later said he couldn’t do any more than one scoop — too dairy. Try the «after 8» flavor. Another solid winner.

If I ever come within a two block radius of this place I ALWAYS stop in. Last night was no different. Even though we had already eaten dinner and dessert around the corner at Matsugen we came to Mondo Gelato for my favorite Nutella Gelato! But they didn’t have it. The girl tried to convince me that the Bacio flavor was «exactly the same.» No, idiot, it isn’t. Have you ever tasted Nutella??? It is chocolatey and nutty and SMOOTH. It doesn’t have little crunchy bits of Bacio crap-​candy in it.
This would normally be a four star for me. They lose one star for being out of Nutella and one star for hiring an idiot. Fix it, Mondo. I’ll be back.

A high 3 stars, like a 3.5. I mean if I was in the area and wanted something cold to eat I would hit this place up. Oh and if I had $ 5 too.
We got (pictured):
2 scoop — Bacio (it’s an Italian candy in a silver wrapper, chocolate and hazelnut. The candy has a little Confucius note inside) & Amaretto.
2 scoop cone — Worm Dirt (like the candy with worms and Oreo crumble) & Cookie Dough.
1 scoop — 3.95
2 scoop — 5.95
3 scoop — 7.95
Cone is an extra; buck something maybe.
Yes, they do have many different flavors, and sampling everything seems like a nuisance. I feel for that girl; she has to always give out little spoons of this stuff. She seemed nice to the untrained eye, but I knew she felt annoyed to hand us over 8+ spoons of stuff for us to sample.
The Hawaiian Mix thing was good and refreshing. The Bacio taste like the candy, Worm Dirt was good (look out for the frozen-​hard-​to-​chew worms inside)
My problem is, though I like/​wanted two totally different things, it would have tasted horrible being in the same cup. Is this just me or do people find it hard as well? Because I liked the Hawaiin Mix and amaretto. I felt they would have tasted horrible in the same cup, so I opted for amaretto and Bacio…

I think this is a chain, but nonetheless, these shops probably make a nice killing in HI considering the weather.
The bf and i were walking around Waikiki after dinner, people watching etc and we saw the gelato place. Let’s go! yah!
At my usual gelato place you can get up to two flavors in a small cup, can’t do that here. Only one flavor allowed if you are are getting a small. bummer.
I got the lemon cream which was good. BF got the biscotti which was also good. They are also nice /​generous with taste testing b/​c i tasted like 4 flavors before deciding… y’all know, it’s hard to decide! SO many choices…
anyway, for these little cups of heaven, expect to pay a little over $ 4 each, as our two small cups came to about $ 9.00.
Oh, lastly, the location is nice, if you don’t want to walk and enjoy, it’s located in a pretty touristy area a part of this plaza where little kids dance hula or there are other performances for free, so it’s nice to sit and people watch a bit.

After returning from Italy where I ate gelato 3 times a day, I was excited Hawaii had gotten a gelateria during my absence – now I could keep up my bad habit at home. Alas, Mondo Gelato doesn’t compare to the stuff in Italy, which was addictively creamy and light with just the right amount of sweetness.
Although this place boasts many flavors, it doesn’t have my favorites: Yogurt with strawberries, yogurt with oranges, yogurt with anything let alone yogurt! I asked the gelato guy why and he responded, «Yogurt isn’t popular. Nobody likes it.» Omg, JERK. Yogurt gelato is so a la mode in Italy and the rest of the world – I could even find it in CAMBODIA. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had lived under a rock with only 3 flavors since birth.
Anyway, the 4 or 5 flavors I’ve eaten here weren’t that memorable. However, what was memorable was that it was a rip-​off. I don’t like paying $ 6 for 2 scoops after a $ 100+ dinner at Roy’s. Additionally, the website lists a billion flavors – I’ve only noticed the 20 most boring ones on rotation.
3 stars for the appealing displays and edibility I suppose, but Mondo Gelato won’t cut it for anyone who has had the real deal.

You can’t get any better than this. Haven’t been there in a while and last night was the first time in a while I’ve been there.
One of the great things about this place is that they have a great selection of gelato to choose from. One of the problems I have is that there’s so many choices I don’t know what to pick (this is a GOOD problem). All the gelato is nicely laid out for you and they have the greatest decorations for them to accentuate what the flavors are. Now they’re really started to diversify because they have alcoholic flavored gelato??? Saw that they had Corona, Heinekin, and another as gelato flavors – not interested in those. It’s always a toss up for me whether to get fruit flavors or or more chocolate/​vanilla flavors.
Like people have said the line can get pretty long, but it moves really fast. If you have another person with you I would suggest one of you wait in line while the other check out what flavors there are (they don’t always have the same flavors all the time). What’s good is that they pretty much let you sample as many flavors as you want. .. Unfortunately, that’s also a bad thing. On more than one occasion I’ve been in line here and random people cut in line just to get samples and then walk out. I know they probably can’t help this but it’s irritating as hell when it happens to you.
Their prices are reasonable and they also have some other specialty desserts and creations along with a few sandwiches. Located on the newly renovated Beachwalk, this place has frozen goodies just a cut above the rest.

Mondo Gelato was the site of nightly gelato runs. Because 4-​course dinners topped off by sinful deserts did not sufficiently satisfy me, I needed to gain more poundage by adding on a double scoop of gelato right before I went to bed. A single scoop serving is not enough because you only get one flavor and that’s just wrong. So the medium size with 2 scoops and a choice of 2 flavors was more befitting of my «gain one pound a day while on vacation» goal. I am neither underweight nor malnourished, I just like to put the «glut» in «gluttony.»
I’ve had the Nutella, which tastes just like Nutella, the biscotti w/​bits of biscotti in it, the Ferrero Rocher which tastes just like the Ferrero Rocher chocolates (starting to see a pattern yet?), the pineapple and the passion fruit. That’s all I remember having before I passed out from sheer satiety to the point of exhaustion.
Then I got up and crossed the street to Beard Papa’s.

First of all, I couldn’t find this place because the address said Waikiki Beach Walk, which I took to mean it was on Beachwalk St. Not so. It’s on Lewers. Duh.
When I walked in, all three of the girls working the counter were very friendly and helpful. One of them kept plying us with samples of flavors she liked, until I had to ask her to stop because I was getting too full. That was a nice departure from being made to feel guilty for wanting to try before you buy.
I actually did end up being too full to buy anything, but I did help my friend eat his. (heh heh) Well, honestly, if it was mind-​blowingly good, there’d be no way I could pass up gelato, but the flavors I sampled really weren’t good. They had added too much sugar to them to help the consistency along and the flavors weren’t very intense. I wish they had balanced the sugar out with some acidity for brightness and contrast. I think it would have brought out the real flavor more.
My friend liked his scoop of milk chocolate, but we both had to toss the pistachio. The texture was awful – extremely grainy and dry. We had to eat some strawberry sorbet after that to cleanse our palettes!