Jen "death by snu snu" K.'s Profile

The last time I was here to take advantage of all of their amenities was almost a decade ago. I just came back a few weeks ago and holy crap, it's such a changed place.

It's not so much a dive any more. The arcade got pushed around the corner and downsized a little to make way for a small private party room. The restaurant is still the same size, but turning over huge amounts of people. We had to wait about ten minutes for a table on peak weekend lunch hours. They give you one of those vibrating disc things to alert you when your table is ready. Classy.

The menu still has tasty chicken! Try it, so ono. But I tried the portabello burger. It was subpar. I mean, i don't expect anything spectacular, but really, all it was was a bun, portebello, lettuce, and tomato. Mac salad on the side. srsly.

The women's bathroom no longer looks like a biohazard. There used to be a hole in the door to the bathroom. I always felt icky, like some one was watching me pee or ... you know, that other thing I do in the bathroom. The bathroom even has real foliage. It's really tacky, but kind of endearing.

There's always adequate parking upstairs, but also parking on the lower levels. Parking is especially abundant on the second level, because all of the businesses closed down. So sad. But I blame the horrible design of that block.

My Viet bf's mom really likes this place and she's really picky about her pho. I'm not so discriminating when it comes to pho broth. I'm more of a banh xeo person. So the bahn xeo was good. We also had the jellyfish salad. Really good. Good ratios and a good combination of textures, nice and spicy.

I had to ask for water refills.

Their prices are decent and standard.

Parking kind of sucks. It's right off Kapi'olani. So as soon as you turn into the drive, be snaking for a stall.

The restaurant is pretty big and accommodates a lot of people for as little parking as there is.

The whole establishment including the bathroom looks clean and well kept.

Waitstaff is as friendly as Asian waitstaff can be.

Whoohoo. As good as it gets.

After being back on O'ahu for a week, two people name-dropped Apartment 3 on two separate occasions. I went to the website, but besides the location, the website has no info up yet.

It might be a little hard for beginners to find. Access is tucked away in a business complex. Look for a lobby with mailboxes behind the front desk. Take the elevators up to the third floor. The elevators let out in to the foyer of the lounge. There's a maitre'd to card you and validate your parking.

The decor of the place is beautiful and they've not neglected attention to detail. I always use the bathroom as a barometer of quality and their women's bathroom definitely rates high. Although, one of the stalls (the one that's like a water closet) is tiny and anyone a pound over  average BMI could not fit in there.

The men's bathroom has no urinal, only a toilet and bidet in a water closet. Just kidding, no bidet. But it's like so classy, you'd think there would be one.

The whole joint is nicely broken up into sections. I love when designers split up the space. It keeps the noise down. And this place is all about conversation. They play easy listening lounge, there is no dance floor and the lights are down to a mellow hum.

One of Apartment 3's really good selling points is that it's a versatile space. You can sit at the bar, the fireplace, a two-top, a four-top or a ten-top for large parties.

Our cocktail waitress and food runner were both sweet and on top of service.

The clientele were all dressed nicely, but my bf got in, casual as ever -- wrinkled Lacoste and Adidas Sambas.

The drinks are pricey for Hawai'i, I suppose. But after living in Vegas for five years and sucking down $12 martinis at premium locations, their cocktails were so easy on the wallet. They have $5 happy hour cocktails, but we went on a Tuesday and happy hour was all day long, honey. Even the non-happy hour prices are good. ~$6-7. In Vegas, the only $5 drinks you can find are in the dive or neighborhood bars.

Their specialty martinis are okay. I had a Bloody Martini and my bf had some Dragonberry something. He asked for the Dragon thing sans simple syrup and it was sweet enough. My martini wasn't punchy enough so I defaulted to a pure.

The menu was good, too. My friend had the sammies (sliders in Chinese white buns), ~$12 for three. My bf and I had the cheese and nut plate. The three cheeses we had were a gorgonzola, halloumi, and brie. Both the brie and gorgonzola were good and in large portions, but the halloumi was outstanding. It was served grilled (a cheese that doesn't melt when grilled). The platter also came with baguette, honey dew melon, sliced Fuji apple, and macadamia nuts rolled in spice.

If you park in the complex, they'll validate your parking. But this place is so close to Waikiki, if you're staying in Waikiki, you might as well walk. Near the Hard Rock.

I'm surprised this place is still alive.
The ladies working here aren't exactly the role models for American customer service, but the shave ice is good and priced accordingly. Does friendly service cost more?

They have a variety of great toppings like mochi, condensed milk, oatmeal, chocolate, flan, azuki beans. I always want to try something different, but get sucked in to my old famliar: strawberry shave ice with mochi and condensed milk ($3). The soft ice melted and caved in under the sugary burden. So good, so sweet, make your diabetes shake.

There's lots of parking because it's a ghost town around here (for now), lots of closed businesses. It's on the second floor. Not the Aiea Bowl floor and not the Times Supermarket floor. The complex is really poorly designed. The whole intersection is poorly designed. You might have some troubles getting out.

Ice Garden is barely more than a kiosk-sized space. There's about six seats at the tiny Asian-sized counter, but it gets cramped in there, so I'd suggest going back outside. Many times during the day, you'll find a line of patrons out the door.

They also sell crack seed and manapua.

The art in the First Hawaiian Center is part of the state's initiative to integrate the arts into Hawai'i. I think it's a great solution.

The space is borrowed by the Contemporary Museum and there is no charge for admission.

The featured exhibits are by artists of Hawai'i, Hawai'i expats, or artists who created a body of work in Hawai'i.

There's art posted downstairs by the tellers, but that's not all. Go up the marble stairs and check out the main gallery space.

The gallery on the second floor houses temporary exhibitions in a ~ 40'x40' space and then extends down a long hall. They coordinate the space really nicely.

The building is located in the middle of downtown, so is very accessible. They don't have their own parking, so you'll have to hunt for street metered parking. But while you're in the area, check out the local fare or Chinatown.

We got here at 9p, fairly early on a party Friday. We ordered a round of $6 Kettles and caught some prime real estate right across from the DJ booth.

They have a long bar. I love long bars. In busy bars, it's most efficient because you have more surface area. Or circular bars. Come to think of it, the most efficient use of space would be a multi-tiered bar, tended by midgets.

The DJ played hip-hop mished-mashed with house. I hate it when DJs slow the music to almost a halt. I feel like I'm being tested. Anyways, I always pass the test. Or maybe it's DJ code for "There's someone on the dance floor that I want to go away."

The bathrooms are tidy and stalls are plentiful, but they're broken up in weird ways. Like there's a omnisex bathroom next to the men's  bathroom in front, then in the back there's a ladies bathroom next to an omni? But there never seemed to be a problem with long bathroom lines, so maybe that's the ideal formula. Anyways, I got walked in on in the omnisex stall I was in. Lock doesn't function as lock, but as decoration? Girl that walked in on me, look for my ad in Missed Connections Craig's List Hawai'i. Come find me and I'll pee on you.

There are private areas (I'm assuming bottle service), partitioned by cascading curtains of dogtag chains.

There's also an outdoor area with satellite bar that we didn't bother with. It seems with these bars in Chinatown that offer outdoor seating, the outdoor seating fills up first. Makes sense.

We came here early on a Friday night, around 8p, and we were the second group there. We left and hit it up again later, 11ish. At 11p, it was just as busy as the other neighboring bars like Bar 35, The Manifest. But Soho was less pretentious (read: dirty) than the others. Just kidding. It was just more of a dive.

We didn't buy any drinks because we were pretty well lit by this time, so I couldn't say how much the drinks were. Gauging by the prices of the other bars in the area, drinks would've been around $5 or $6. We just went straight for the dance floor. The DJ spun mostly drum and bass. The dance floor was large and accessible.

They also have dartboards and a pool table.

Music: uptempo and speed reggae.

My bf said it smelled like ass in there. I didn't notice, again due to my copious alcohol consumption. Funky and skunky.

Dress to unimpress or undress to impress. They'll let you in with slippahs and a foozball jersey. Mo moke, mo bettah.

Soho was hardly like NY's Bohemian capital Soho. But if you mean Soho, as in "south of Hotel street," then sure, by all means Soho. Soho it up.

This was the last bar we hit up on a seemingly endless circuit of Chinatown bars on a Friday night. We got there with just enough time to have a couple of $6-Kettles before 2am closing.

There was a band, Captain Kaos playing punk/ rock 'n roll.

The Dragon Upstairs occupies a tiny area. There's only enough seating at the bar for about seven people and the surrounding tables offers another maybe 25 squished-in people.

The decor on the wall is tastefully tacky, like if Jimmy Buffet went tchotchke gewgaw dingbat bibelot gimcrack knickknack Asian. (Go head and read that sentence again.) It's like a hipster's wet dream.

There is one female and one male bathroom stalls.

Like all the other closet bars in the area, there's only street parking or you can pay a limb of your choice to park in a paid lot. Hunt for street parking. It's worth it. Your walk to the bar will be spotted with sightings of benevolent street denizens.

We came here on the first First Friday of the year. It was an odd night since it was New Years Day. The bartender was afraid it wasn't get busy. When we got there around 730p, we were the absolute only ones in there.   When we came back later (after 10p), the place was jam packed.

The first time we went, there was no cover. The second, we payed a $5 cover.

Like all of the other Chinatown bars, you have to either pray for street parking or pay $12 in a pre-pay lot. Unless there's something I don't know ... someone enlighten me, please.

I'm loving the style of these newly emerged Chinatown bars. Manifest lets the raw materials of the architecture like red brick and concrete poke out. The walls are decked with sparing, but large bits of art. The main bar is pretty small, but there are two satellite bars: one in front, one out back outside.

Drinks are reasonably-priced. Two premium drinks were just $11. The first time we were in there, the bartender got friendly with us as he prepped the bar for the night.

They have a few beers on tap, including Guinness, Harp, Sam Adams Winter Lager.

There was a large flat screen behind the bar and a stack of DVDs. There was also an espresso machine. During the day play place turns into a cafe.

The bathroom was nice. I think a lot of businesses discount the bathroom, so if the bathroom looks good, it demonstrates attention to detail. It was clean and nicely decorated like the rest of the joint.

The whole place has a decent amount of seating: about ten at the bar and forty more tops on tables and benches (including outside).
The DJ spun uptempo house and dance. A nice alternative to hip-hop.

We came back during the day for a some foo foo coffee drinks. I had a Zebra Mocha with a shot of Bailey's and my bf had a iced Tiger chai with a shot of dark rum. Everything came out to ~$12. Starbucks should get a liquor license, man.

I think downtown Honolulu is the most beautiful metropolis. It has a great combination of architecture. The Hawai'i State Art Museum is located in a Hawaiian colonial style building. The gallery is on the second floor. The left wing houses their permanent collection and the right wing circulates out different exhibitions. When I went the featured exhibition was "Ho'oula," hula-inspired art and "Accession," new acquisitions. Oh, man. Some of that stuff is hot lava good.

Their permanent collection is a respectable gathering of some great local artists. Even though the genre is a little pigeon-holed, I love that it all sticks with the Hawaiian/ local theme.

I think the fact that it's free bumps it's rating up a smidge. Not even a pake can dispute that.

They also have an educational kids play room. There are items to teach kids fundamentals of art, like color, line, texture, shape, etc.

A down side is that the building doesn't have it's own lot. You have to hunt for metered parking in the area. It's not hard to find a street stall, though. And when in Hawai'i, no walk is ever too far.