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| - I grew up on Maui and tuna sashimi was my favorite food as a kid. I still love poke and pretty much any fresh seafood, so I was excited to try Paina Cafe after reading the reviews. I went with my wife during lunchtime. I ordered the Hawaiian Poke Bowl with shoyu poke, kalua pig and lomi salmon, my wife had the nanea salmon bowl. When we got our food I noticed that the poke cut very small and warm to the touch. The flavor wasn't fresh, and I didn't taste and soy or onion just sesame oil soaked warm fish. The kalua pig was easily the worst I've had, very dry and stringy, also didn't taste fresh and had a pungent gamey flavor. The lomi lomi salmon was the worst part though, I even had to take my bowl up to the counter to let them know they didn't put any salmon in my bowl. They said 'that's it' and pointed and some chopped onion and tomato that I thought was salsa. Upon closer inspection found tiny little pieces of salmon that tasted very fishy. All the lomi lomi salmon I've had in my life had big pieces of fish not unlike the poke I'm used to getting in Hawaii. The bowls had a small amount of protein, were swimming in sauce, lots of rice, and no veggies. My wife didn't enjoy her meal either, salmon was warm and had no ginger or soy flavor was just sweet and had tons of 'lemon citrus aioli' (mayo),so we just ate enough fish to not leave totally hungry, dumped our bowls, and left completely unsatisfied and disappointed in spending $25 on such an underwhelming lunch for two. No one came by to ask how our meal was and were defensive toward me asking about the missing salmon. No aloha vibe or authentic Hawaiian cuisine to be found here, and I was really surprised by our negative experience based on the other reviews.
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