Martha’s Pick:

Ono Pinay Kitchen
2221 Madison St., Bellevue
Fare: Hawaiian and Filipino
Cost: $30 for two meals
Reservations: Not for seating, but needed for our meal choices

Greetings, Eaters and Readers!

Ono Pinay sits in the corner of an unassuming building on Mission Avenue in Old Towne Bellevue, before you get to other Old Towne favorites like Luigi’s and Swine Dining. Having lived in Bellevue for about 5 years, I would be reminded of Ono Pinay’s existence whenever I would treat myself to a Blizzard at the Dairy Queen across the street. My attention span lasted however long the drive through line was. I would tell myself to look them up, check out the menu, see if there was an online buzz about the place and report back to Jaclyn to add it to our radar for the blog.

When it was my turn to pick a place back in August, Ono Pinay finally caught my attention outside of the DQ drive through. I don’t remember if it was the Omaha Food Lovers or just a Facebook “suggested for you” post – but I saw a post about their planned Friday menu for the week we would be eating and researching. Checking out their Facebook activity and their website, I quickly learned that they were a Hawaiian/Filipino/Pan Asian restaurant that offered traditional favorites as well as a rotating menu of plates and dinners, depending on the day of the week. For their Friday pop-up menu items, Ono Pinay will post the options on Facebook on Thursday. They recommend you call and order by 1:30pm on Fridays to guarantee your order.

On the particular week we would be visiting, we decided to wait for the Friday pop up menu and order it to go. That week’s offerings featured:
Sweet & Sour Chicken – local Hawaiian – fried wings tossed in sweet and sour sauce
Escabeche – Filipino – fried fish with sweet and sour sauce, carrots, bell peppers and pineapple
Huli Huli Pork – local Hawaiian – grilled seasoned pork chops
Pork Guinisa – Filipino – pork stir fry with upo (long squash)

Each plate comes with your choice of two sides: white rice, pancit, mac salad, or steamed veggies.

Sweet & Sour Chicken with Pancit ($14.45) — Fried wings tossed in sweet and sour sauce

Both Jaclyn and I landed on the Sweet & Sour Chicken as much for comfort familiarity as for interest to find out what the Hawaiian take on the dish would be. If you have any image of bright red sauce and overly breaded nuggets of chicken – we are pleased to report you won’t find those here. What we saw when we opened our to-go boxes was a generous pile of gooey, yummy-looking, saucy wings — full wings. Living less than 2 miles from Ono Pinay, everything was still piping hot. If we admit seeing things like “sweet & sour chicken” on the Hawaiian menu (at first) bummed us out – we were quite happy and pleased for the experience. For my side, I ordered the pancit. That serving was as big, if not bigger, than the wings and I enjoyed breaking up my bites of chicken with a mouthful of noodles.

What I didn’t realize at the time of our ordering was that you could still order from their full/dinner menu despite the pop-up Friday offerings. While standing in line to get our order, I had a bit of longing to try things like the spam musubi I had recently discovered (and loved) at Tsao Cha. They also had a shelf full of freshly made treats and desserts that I was too shy to ask about – but I’ll remind myself about on my next visit!

Jac says she enjoyed the chicken, but is unsure if she’d get it again. The flavor was good, but not really out-of-this-world good. She did not enjoy, however, the steamed vegetables. Expecting to see broccoli or carrots, she was surprised to see, well, not that. She’s not actually sure what it was, but after one bite – Jaclyn put her fork down and decided to focus on the chicken.

Final Bites

When I imagined myself enjoying Hawaiian/Filipino/Pan Asian dishes for the first time, I thought it would be something totally new to my palate. Though underwhelmed with the focus on sweet and sour dishes, I accept that it was my fault for not researching or digging a little deeper to realize I could still order from the menu at large.

If there’s anything that takes my experience from a sideways fork to a fork up – it’s Ono Pinay’s dedication to providing an authentic, family-centered experience for their customers. I was only in line for about 5 minutes, but the restaurant was buzzing with activity with people getting their own to-go orders, sitting down to eat, and a whole line up of (what appeared to be) family members working behind the counter. On the door, Ono Pinay has a list of ways they interact with and support the Bellevue community – with particular love and attention given to service members and their families.

I’ve read their pop-up Friday options on Facebook a few times since our visit and, honestly, some of those dishes pull my attention more than the options we had on our visit. For their obvious passion to representing their heritage and offering their favorite dishes for everyone to discover – I give them a fork up. Jaclyn says she gives them an upward-leaning fork sideways. She believes they have the potential to wow her, but just. not with the dish she had.

Cheers!
The Good Bite Gals

And one last scrumptious nibble:
We hope your entire holiday season has been whatever is most delicious and fulfilling to you – whether it’s a full table of family and your favorite foods, or a quiet couple of days in cozy jammies and Netflix. We have loved sharing our journey with you as we’ve explored some of the area’s restaurants throughout 2023 — your support, comments, shares and likes mean so much! We’ll see you in 2024 and we wish all of our Eaters and Readers – wherever you are – the most scrumptious new year!

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