Aloha Food Factory, Alhambra, CA

Aloha Food Factory
2990 W. Valley Blvd
Alhambra, CA 91803
626-308-0215
Located 2 blocks east of the end of the 710 freeway.
Plenty of parking in their own lot.
Casual. And Hawaiian style, they're closed on Mondays and holidays.

Visited: May 2010, Lunch, Take-out


We wanted to get a good feel for this restaurant, so we ordered several items. The kitchen is rather small, and it took a while for our order to be completed. In the meantime, the lovely lady of the house gave us each a sample Macadamia Nut Pancake. The little pancake was tasty itself, but it was really the topping and little crunchy bits of mac nut on top that were amazing. I'm not sure what the topping is - it's not syrup, or sweetened condensed milk, but it was more like a creme anglaise. Very tasty.

We ordered the Loco Moco ($7.25) which was a very large portion of rice, hamburger patty, scrambled eggs, and gravy. While fine, it was overall rather plain. Which is what we found to be the case with all of the items we ordered. Good, but plain - not highly seasoned.

For the Aloha Plate ($10.99), we chose Kalua Pig and Cha Shu (which we had heard raves about). The Plate came with steamed rice, veggies, and Mac-Potato Salad. The Kalua was light on both smoke and flavor. And the Cha Shu was tasty roasted bbq pork, but definitely not cha shu. If we had been served it without a name, we would have assigned it the title of cha shu.

And lastly, we got the Kalbi Plate ($9.75) that came with rice, veggies, and Mac-Potato Salad. The ribs were tender and had a nice char, but also very plain. As if they needed to marinate longer, or have a sauce applied during or after cooking.

A friendly little hole in the wall that also serves shave ice, but not sure that we'd be back for the things we've already tried.