San Nicolas Chicharon & Sausage

Located in the heart of P-​town (Kalihi) on King St just Ewa of Gulick Ave. It’s a quaint little spot with Inside seating only and 1 TV with the news on. They sell Filipino plate lunches and authentic Filipino dishes and food products… but they are famous for their Chichrone and Sausages! The Chichrone was the only thing I came here for. This item was going for $ 5.90 per lbs. and sold buy their chunks… so depending on how big of a chunk you pick will be your cost… don’t forget the vinegar sauce… maybe take it home and cut your own tomatoes and onions and eat with this pupu style… it’s a definite wee-​nah! Grind On! Pau!

Several years ago, one of my husband’s former co-​workers brought in several huge bags of fresh chicharon (chicharrón) or fried pork rinds from this business as an office snack. Everyone dove into the crispy treats like white on rice and according to my husband, his co-​workers (including him) scooped up handfuls of the pork rinds onto plates or into bowls as they all gathered in the lunchroom. My husband said that rather than the usual chatter, the only noise that could be heard was the crunching and munching of his co-​workers. It was near lunchtime so my husband asked his co-​worker what other dishes could the chicharon be used in. His co-​worker had many recommendations but the suggestion that my husband remembered was to crumble the chicharon into rice congee aka Arroz Caldo.
Well, we were driving about Kalihi and my husband veered into San Nicholas’ parking lot. I thought we were going in to get some of their wonderful tasting Filipino food but, it couldn’t have been because we had just eaten breakfast. My fried food loving husband wanted to get a bag of chicharon! Hm, he’s become quite the impulsive foodie whereas I would have planned the stop. When we walked in, the restaurant was packed! There was a line wrapped around the service area and all of the seating was taken. We did take a few moments to ogle the hot food line but quickly checked out the bins of chicharon. There were several other patrons snatching up the different sized bags of the chicharon that ranged in price based upon the volume of pork rinds per bag. We picked a large sized bag that cost $ 10.
I know that he wanted to snack while driving but… I don’t allow eating or drinking in MY car! Haha. So when we got home, he tore into that bag as I started to make a pot of congee. Several hours later, we were feasting and not a word passed between us.
We’ll return for some of their other tasty pork-​centric dishes such as dinuguan, pork adobo and pinakbet. Maybe we’ll even have room for some of their sticky rice desserts, too. But, San Nicholas’ Chicharon and Sausage Restaurant is our go-​to for this fresh and crisp pork snack.

As good a Filipino food as you can get anywhere. If you’re Ilocano and your mom can cook, that’s what it tastes like. I like the dinaguan, balatong, pinacbet, and the chichiron is very good. All the other stuff didn’t look appetizing, like the pig ears, intestines. I think they should have more popular Filipino menu items such as pork gisantes and chicken adobo. Their desserts are awesome too, banana lumpia, cascarons, peechy peechy.

Stopped in here on our way to get lunch and I’m so glad we did. They were having a special on banana lumpia, so we picked some up and it was delicious. They have many of the same dishes that I am used to seeing in Filipino restaurants on the mainland: chicken adobo, traditional lumpia, chicharron, the cassava desserts, and my favorite, puto. Service is very friendly. Too bad I couldn’t have stayed longer. Be warned: parking is difficult to find.

I came here for the first time with my fellow colleagues yesterday. It was a small hole-​in-​the-​wall Filipino restaurant, and none of us have been here before. We planned on dining in for lunch, but since they had a limited amount of seating and all of it was taken, we decided to do take-​out instead. I enjoyed the food quite a bit. I’m not a Filipino, and nor do I consider myself an expert when it comes to Filipino food. However, I did learn how to appreciate Filipino food ever since I was introduced to it many years ago by my brother-​in-​law (who happens to be Filipino.) After spending a few minutes glancing at the options in the food line, I decided to order their «big plate» which includes two scoops of rice and three items of your choice. I chose the pork adobo, their tripe stew, and the stomach & ears. The adobo was as good as it looked, but it was really fatty since they used pork belly to make it. It was tender and flavorful, but not too vinegary like how some places make it. The tripe stew was a little on the bland side and there were only 3 tiny pieces of tripe in my container. The rest was mostly meat and soup. I expected to get a lot more tripe since it was referred to as «tripe stew.» Nonetheless, it was decent tasting. The highlight was the stomach & ears. The stomach was soft and slightly chewy, and the ears were soft on the outside and crunchy in the middle. I love that play of contrast in textures. I would totally order this item again when I return. Two other things that caught my eye was their chicharon and the intestine adobo. Unfortunately, I was told that they only sold those by the pound so I wasn’t able to order it as one of my options. Service was okay. Nothing to rave about, and nothing to complain about either. On a side note though, my colleagues and I all wished that they would label what each item was in the food lineup so we didn’t have to ask them what was what. Prices were very reasonable and portions were decent. I’ll probably be back with my family very soon.

For this Filipino boy who used to live here, it’s great to visit and eat the local food (Flip style).
Went and bought the usual Filipino dishes to take back to Hau’ula, or the north shore. Went there from the airport! Could not help but eat some of the chicharon while driving to Hau’ula. It’s a long drive so I had time to «sample» the food! That familiar crunch of the crispy skin followed by the gooey goodness of pork fat — well, that was satisfying.
My sister and niece had a time choosing which dishes to buy so we just pointed to what we thought looked delicious. We don’t eat Filipino food as often as we’d like but when in Hawaii, those taste buds return with a vengeance.
My niece ordered the halo-​halo and she loved it. She had never eaten it before.
On my next visit to Oahu, I’ll be coming back to this place again.

A friend brought some chicharron today for our fantasy football draft and I couldn’t believe how delicious it was fresh! The best I have ever had. It’s basically roast pork and better than any Chinese restaurant, no offense since I do love Chinese:-)

3 stars for great food selections.

This is the only place I like to buy my filipino chicharon. There’s the freshly deep fried chicharon with meat on it that’s kept warm in the glass at the counter, I like to get a slab of it. This is the best chicharon on the island that it’s skin stays crispy even after I have put it in the fridge for couple days got it on a Friday but had dinner plans stuck that thing in the fridge, Sunday comes I totally forgot it was there. I chopped that chicharon into bite size pieces threw it into oven to reheat at a high temperate. While that was heating mixed soy sauce, patis, chopped tomato, onion, & some calamansi juice. Then put the heated pork on a serving platters poured the tomato onion soy sauce mix on the half for those who like lechon kawali. The other just like that for those who like it with the Tomas sauce. The skin stayed crispy. Wish I had bought more because I could of used the rest in making other filipino dishes like sari sari.

We had our niece with us on this visit and she wanted a pancake, which is not on the menu. That was not a problem thanks to the awesome owner/​chef who told us that if he had the ingredients he was happy to make what we wished.
The pancake was amazing. Fluffy middle with a crunchy outer rim resulting from the real butter he made it with. I honestly have never had a better pancake. He even had some extra batter left so he made us an extra for FREE.
We also had the fried rice with egg (cooked over easy) and it was really good too. Simple, fresh ingredients made with care made the food outstanding and the service was just fantastic. Hard to come by this kind of service nowadays. Highly recommended this little gem of a restaurant.

Unless your accustomed to true Filipino food, (meaning grew up in the PI eating the food there) I would have to say that this place is too extreme for some people because it’s not clean and the food is fattening etc… Well guess what, all Filipino food is fattening and full of MSG. I give them a 4 star because their longanisa is the best on the island. Second, the chicaharon is crispy and always fresh. I grew up eating home cooked Filipino food, however there are some items that I would not eat from their ala carte menu. Other than that, this place is alright!

Pork Adobo with the fat, Dinuguan, and squid… their cascaron is good too! I love eating in and watching TFC or taking the food out to enjoy somewhere else too. Filipino food lovers will love food from here and they’re great at catering too.

The chicharon is probably the best one on the island. I also like their Kaldereta and pork blood stew (dinuguan). The place is small and packed and kind of looks untidy a bit.

When my mother-​in-​law wants longganisa (Filipino sausage), she’ll only buy it from San Nicolas. When out-​of-​state (Filipino) relatives come to visit, they make sure to stock up on longganisa from San Nicolas as well. Guess it’s that good. Clearly, that’s typically our primary reason for coming here. They have hot food available here also, but we usually bypass that and go straight for the longganisa. We also get balintawak, pan de sal, polvaron and other Filipino sweets and snacks here as well. All very, very tasty.

Discovered this place today, my dad took me here. My dad’s favorite is caldereta and pinapaitan. My mom’s favorite is the cascaron. We bought a large serving of caldereta and pinapaitan and 2 cascaron which was a total of $ 29. There’s a lot of variety inside the store which compared to other Filipino stores nearby (ahem golden coin) is fairly priced. Now the taste test. I’m not a big fan of pinapaitan so I took a bite and I moved on to the caldereta. It was good, I would’ve given it a 5 star if the meat was more tender. The cascaron was pretty good and I would most likely buy more in the near future. Staff were very friendly and helpful and I didn’t encounter any issue finding a parking spot either. Overall, I’m a happy customer and I would suggest my friends to try this place.

I was Introduced to San nicolas by a friend that lives at kalihi valley, This place is famous for that crispy chicharon. The place is pretty small, it has that family business vibe to eat real simple. They have all kinds of filipino dishes here, very authentic most of them are family recipe.
Service: The ladies that work there are really nice, the line gets really long specially for the chicharon so they make small conversations which is nice while waiting for new batches of chicharon to be made. There’s not very much staff, you’ll see 3 girls the most, but they move pretty fast.
Ambiance: real simple, casual place to chill. it’s a little old but clean enough, but could get real hot since the kitchen is right behind the cashiers and the place is small so yah could get real hot in there.
Price: $$ price is pretty good, this is a good place to eat lunch if you work close by.
Food: I haven’t really tried anything in their menu but the chicharon, since that’s what they are famous for, but let me tell you I live in Kaneohe and I’ll drive to kalihi just to get the best chicharon in Oahu. I brought this before to a potluck party and people loved it so much I always get invited to potlucks because I’d bring this. For those of you who don’t know what it is, Chicharrón is a dish made of fried pork rinds, not sure exactly how they cook it to make it so crispy and yummy but I think they deep fry it and do some magical stuff to make it so yum.
Another thing I’ve learned is you gotta get the Mang thomas gravy to match this dish, they sell it there to for $ 2.50, it’s this brown gravy thing in a glass bottle. You’ll find it on the shelves right next to the entrance.
Chicharon + Mang thomas = yummy in my tummy! It’s serious so good, but of course I wound’t recommend this for people that want to eat healthy because this thing is deep fried fat and some deep fried meat, but hey this a good comfort food and perfect pupus when you go to the beach.
Overall, you gotta try this perfect pupus to bring to the beach, don’t forget the mang thomas is seriously a must to get when you buy the chicharon.

First time I ate here today. The chocolate meat was really good with some hot rice oh boy. The pinakbet was also good. The adobo was kinda dry. Most likely because there was no fat on the meat. Other than that this place was pretty good. Idk what that was next to the roast pork behind the glass but it looked pretty hard core. Think I’m gonna step up and try it my next visit.

This is a place for eaters. Those that crave boneless chicken tenders, seasoned fries, ranch dressing, wraps, generic burgers, pretentious fusion cuisine, and ethnic cuisines dressed up for Western comfort need not apply.
When it comes to ethnic cuisines, it’s about experiencing that which one is not accustomed and finding not that which relates to what you know in your own culture, but to discover something new. One will not always like what is discovered, at least at first. Sometimes a new gastronomic experience results in a paradigm shift in what you thought was good or bad or in between.
San Nicolas is probably the most authentic restaurant in Hawaii. Not just for Filipino cuisine, but all cuisines. A lack of regional ingredients and dumbing down of ethnic foods result in a westernized version of most ethnic foods. Not at San Nicolas… walk in… some people call it dirty. I call it character. Greasy? Yeah, pork fat has greasy, oily goodness, the best part of the pig does anyway. I guess you can add boneless pork loin to the list with ranch dressing and boneless chicken.
San Nicolas offers a hot line of popular Filipino dishes such as sare sare, kare kare, chicharron, pinkabet, sisig, and others I cannot identify, but its all so good. If you’re a fan of all parts of the pig, it’s here. I especially like their cold dish of shredded pig face with onions and peppers. The combination of meat textures of the face along with the like differences in porcine taste is a dream.
If you can’t travel to the Phillipines this is as close as you will get. The food you can order, the snack items you can take with you, the limited English spoken… You are for awhile in a town or roadside shop in Ilocos.
The folks at San Nicolas, like restaurant owners of Vietnamese, some Korean, a few Japanese, are proud of what they serve and make no compromises. They are not there to please your western palate, they are there to feed their own, and whomever enters with an open heart and open palate.
I’m going to rant. I recently was in a Vietnamese restaurant. In walked 3 middle aged men with pretentious sounding voices. All acting like they knew all about what they were to dine on better than the owners. «I want the rare phở, make sure the vegetables are fresh.» WHAT THE F — !!@#%!!! FRESH is all that Vietnamese restaurants DO!!! Get your candy ass outta here and order a southwestern egg roll with avocado reduction!!!
But I digress. The next time you’re in Kalihi, give this place a check if you’re a fan of down country Ilocano cuisine. If you’ve never had it, give it a try and you may discover something new. Food is all about flavors and textures. Don’t ask what’s in it, just try it. If you love all parts of the pig, chicken and seafoods… time for a paradigm shift.

My craving for Filipino food has been harder to contain and has lead me to drive down Kalihi looking for some eats that will sate my desires.
It was hard to ignore the its pink road side sign with the odd combination of chicharon and sausage prominently catering to my ilocano half’s eyes. If you are familiar with many Filipino mom’s and pop’s restaurants, they are small, they use all kinds of meat parts in their recipes, and they have character. When you put chicharon on your store sign, they must not be joking. To my delight, the deep fried pork sides were the crispiest I’ve had on this island! The only thing missing was the vinegar-​shoyu-​onion-​pepper concoction that I know my fellow Filipinos know what do do with. Along with some pinpaitan, my stomach and filo food yen were satisfied.
Mabuhay to crispy chicharon! When my cravings want that Filo flavor, I know I can come here again.

I had to review this because the previous person made this place sound so bad… I had to tell you guys my side of the story.
This place has pretty good Filipino food. You can find this place in the heart of Kalihi by Richard Lane. We came about 8am when they just opened and all the food this early are hot hot hot so it tastes really good. It can get very busy. I must warn you must brush up on your Tagalog ok, cuz some of these dishes may not have signs. But they speak English. They use fresh products. They offer plate lunch, ala carte and catering.
Plates come with rice
Mini plate cost $ 5.95 one choice
Regular plate $ 7.95 2 choice
Big plate $ 9.95 3 choice with noodles
Ala carte
Small $ 3
Medium $ 6
Large $ 12
So they have everything from freshly fried chicharon with some meat on it, pansit, pansit palabok, pork this pork that ;) chicken, goat, squid, mussel and shrimp and pinakbet vegetable. They also have deserts like puto, mochi, bibingka, lumpia. I uploaded the menu so you guys can see.
Check it out and give it a chance :) and come early cuz I hear once they run it its out.