Maunakea Marketplace

Please visit the deaf butter roll and cinnamon roll baker inside the food court for 2 dollar cinnamon rolls or 1 dollar butter rolls, he’s a nice guy, help him out and get some cheap giant rolls

Ahhhh nothing like the sound of clipping nails in the morning.
Random Asian stores, including nail salons, restarants, and veggie, fruit, seafood stands in this market place and everything is cheap. Maybe you will get lucky and see Chinamen fight over money. Plenty of unidentifiable items and smells. One stop shopping.

There is a bubble tea vendor in the courtyard that you must try! They use real fruit to make the smoothie, and they taste fantastic. Some examples of what I have tried: Lychee (real fruit), Vietnamese coffee (STRONG), the sugarcane drink (where else can you get fresh squeezed sugarcane???), and Durian (also with the fantastically stinky fruit).

You HAVE to try this place!
Also inside of the market you will find a variety of things to shop for, from knick knack soveniers to chinese décor and tapestries. I bought a bundle of chopticks that they wouldn’t let me bargain for! There is also lots of fresh produce and seafood, but beware the odor for you who are faint of heart. This market is reminiscent of my childhood shopping with popo (gma) so my nose is immune.
Park in the municipal lot across the street on Beretania.

awesome. awesome. awesome. awesome. let me tell u a story about maunakea marketplace. i mean wats more ghetto than selling chinatown on the internet?! i know i know. its not the way it seems at all if that makes any sense… i reaally like the produce is very fresh indeed. there is plate lunch in downstair. gooood filipino options. and then u can go walk around the marketplace is like a scarface mansion. and this is what i want to happen. i want my sister to go in there. and take ova the whole antique sales department for visitors who like antiques. it would really help out the economy. no but joking aside, u go ask them about any one of the stories about the buddah with the coin or guangong legend and they all know a few but sometimes i be thinking they be making up anykine bsss. if u know what i mean. might i reccommend the coin necklace. was sooo luuuucckkyy when i had that 1. feng sui is very important. if u have badluck they can smell it on u like hex perfume. encourage all of u to make a visit. peace out. A town!..

Maunakea Marketplace is definitely worth an exploration! It’s a unique experience and compared to other Chinatowns (ahem, SF or LA or NY) this one is sooo laid back. I wasn’t pushed or hassled and I was able to pick up some really nice rambutans and other fruits/​veggies were a great price. I also saw mangosteens here, which is a rarity! I didn’t buy any seafood, but the shrimp looked amazing and was a really good price/​lb. They have both an open market side, as well as a prepared food side. I didn’t try any of the prepared food because I’d just eaten, but I’d be curious to come back and try.

Great place to explore when you visit China Town Honolulu! There is a lot to see and a lot of choices to eat so Unilocal the places in China Town! I would highly recommend the boba drinks located in the center of the market place. There are 2 boba drinks located next to each other and I like the one on the RIGHT! They make the best MANGO boba drink I ever tasted! It is made with fresh mangos, condensed milk and boba! It was so flavorful and so refreshing, I came back for another one the next day!
Besides that, there are number of food options and Naty’s Filipino Food is famous… located right behind the boba drink stands… and Famous YouTuber Mark Wiens went there and said it was amazing! The workers work extremely hard in this marketplace… small business that work hard every day!
Check it out with you families, there are a lot to see and a lot to buy $$$!!!
Would I go back again? Yea probably… mostly for the drinks!
Check out my boba drink pics!

I went through here on an errand trying to find something for my mom that couldn’t be found in run of the mill stores. As it was later in the day, the produce stands were closing up and I walked through anyway, mostly out of curiosity. I was horrified to see running between the stands, a giant rat that was close in size to a small cat. Also when a vendor was picking up and putting away boxes, I saw a swarm of cockroaches falling out of the bottom of them. This place is disgusting and unsanitary. I do not recommend anyone buy their fresh produce or fish here!

This is a pleasant and unique marketplace in Chinatown. The food stands are alright, but I wish there were more chinese places. I did have a wonderful dish of pork panang from the only Thai booth. And it was served with actual bowls and real silverware.
The goods for sales are in the fresh marketplace include hundreds of different live and fresh fish, mollusks, and amphibians! All of the seafood and meat looked very fresh and there was a large variety at reasonable prices. The produce was kind of hit or miss. I arrived around 10a and lots of it was already picked through.
The area around maunakea marketplace is fun, but can be sketchy. Hit hotel street afterwards for an alcoholic beverage at smittys smith house. Oldest bar on the island.
I would be careful after dark in the area, as there are lots of homeless and addicts wandering about. Use the buddy system and you’re fine.

Got food poisoning when I ate Jai from one of those tents when the Chinese festival was going on, which was two days ago. Very disappointed.

Maunakea market is made up of about a dozen little shop in one big place in Chinatown.
You can find rare items like pig’s head, manila clams, tiger shrimps, lychees (when in season), abalone, Dungeness crab, fruit and vegetables. Watch out for clam & shrimp shops. They are usually aggressive to get your attention.
Maunakea market also includes food court. They’re probably cheaper than food court at a mall. Outside of Maunakea is stores of clothes, purses, plants, toys etc. You can also get bubble drinks and smoothies. If you have time, this is an interesting place to browse through.

Always here to get my cheap veggies and fruit! Save so much money here compared to going to the regular stores like Safeway and Foodland!
Most of the veggies I see are grown locally or from the Big Island. They need good washings when brought home depending on which vendors you buy from but some are washed pretty well already and for half the price of what you would pay at the grocery stores.
The markets are typical of Asian markets where the hustle and bustle starts early in the morning just like in Asia! By afternoon to early evening it gets less crowded with merchants closing shops by 4pm and if you’re lucky you will find some shops still open at 5 by the time you get off work but all the fish and meat merchants are already closed for the day, so you only have veggies left to choose from.
I suggest going in the morning or during early lunch time to get your grocery shopping on!
And for budget tight folks like me, it’s the only way to stay afloat living in expensive Hawaii!
Happy shopping!

Where is all of the Chinese places go to because they are no longer here!!!
There used to be a few take out /​dim sum /​made to order fast Chinese street type food places in the little cut outs of the food court. They are no longer there!!!
There is still Nesters (Filipino) and a bunch of other regular and new pop up philipino fast food already sloppy and hot in grease pans cooked ends and rinds meats with left over wilted dried out vegetables with tons of pumpkin and onion fillers.
Otherwise there is just no where to eat… The Thai and Japanese place are still there but with weird out hours they close– close to 2 pm in the afternoon after the rush lunch crowd or just look dead closed.
There are places that are just plain empty which is never a good sign– If I was there working that would mean the foot traffic would more likely buy from me– but no probably not– I bet it really means less foot traffic and less people that are new to buying in Chinatown to begin with just will go back to Ala Moana where they can trust the store selling things because it has become so much closer in price that it is cheaper and easier to go to ala moana.
There are still the fruit and veg stands which I trust since I will cook it anyway– it is probably the same stuff coming off the ships that will go to safeway too so I feel safe.
There are the now world famous boba drinks that are only now popular in the mainland. The boba is a treat that I only got rarely and didn’t know it well enough — but those at my old work loved the avocado boba at one place and would ask me on my way to get for the office for all of them and they halved a bunch of the drinks from time to time as a treat for themselves too– so there is still that there.
It just upsets me to see that the drug scene is bigger than getting dim sum down in that area. It could be really cool like in places like NY or Chicago that has a unique feeling but no– as many Japanese tourist know it just feels dirty. And by dirty I mean smells of urine and vomit from the homeless pop. and it is not well maintained– tv news clips of rats the size of dogs getting into the food court area is still in my head that with little help– the animal world will quickly overrun civilization easily. They surface level try to clean the place and try to keep the rats down but it is dirty.
Do I go there– Yes. Do I like it– not as much as I wished.
My one friend worked for a council man of the area. He asked — try to get the police to stop giving jay walking tickets and have the cops walk 2 blocks over to where they are dealing meth– that would clean up the area more than students and office workers jaywalking on what is basically a college campus area– even though it’s private schools.
They try to clean it up — but to be clean it has to be clean at night– which means being open actually at night and they roll up the street at the first hint of the afternoon.

MAUNAKEA MARKET PLACE:
A lot of interesting little shops in there. I loved THANH’s Thai ice tea!

I really enjoyed my visit to Maunakea Marketplace. You can find almost everything here-​fresh produce, exotic fruits, gifts for tourists, smoothie stands, food courts, etc.
There’s a juice stand right next to a Vietnamese sandwiches stand (banh mi) that has really good sugarcane juice! Walk a little bit further down, there’s a smoothie stand called Thanh Coffee & Bubble Tea, they have really good Sapodilla/​sapoche smoothie. It comes in a huge cup just for 3 dollars! I think the last time I had this drink was back in 2009 in Vietnam. Brought back great memories!

Maunakea Marketplace is more my kinda place than wandering all over Chinatown. You can get most of what you’re looking for here! From souvenir goodies to fruit smoothies to fresh fruits and veggies, this is a great stop.
It’s two floors, but most of the action is on the first floor. The tables are kind of dirty, so I wouldn’t recommend actually sitting and eating here, but grabbing some food to go and a smoothie to drink while wandering around is great. Prices are reasonable as well.
Parking is the same situation as the rest of Chinatown. Maunakea Marketplace doesn’t have it’s own garage per-​se, but there are a couple of close ones you could park in.

This was a sad place, not sure if it’s really empty because it’s raining. It reminded me of the wet market in the poor parts of Asia.

I enjoy coming here for my grocery shopping or grabbing a quick bite.
Born and pretty much raised in Chinatown I recall shopping at Oahu Market with my paternal grandmother and father. But down the road Maunakea Marketplace opened and heard there was a great food court.
An enclosed shopping area that pretty much has everything what you’re looking for, this is a great place to pick-​up your fresh seafood. There is a stall operated by a Vietnamese young lady who greets me every time I pass by or shop at her stall. I often get my shrimps and Manila clams here.
In the center of the Marketplace is a seafood stall operated by Chinese and you can find live lobsters, crabs and abalone in large tanks. The prices here are quite reasonable. I like my dungeness crabs alive but noticed they have dead ones on a bed of ice at very cheap prices.
By far I really enjoy the food court here. There is a large selection of various cuisines and the prices are inexpensive. They have quite a few tables here so you have the option of dining or take-​out.
The only complaint I have is the walkway here is very narrow. Many times you will find elderly ladies with push carts and wagons. Don’t ask me why but they park it right in the middle where you can barely pass by them! I’ve tried numerous times saying «excuse me» but sadly they don’t understand English!!!
This shopping area is just near the bus stop so the foot traffic is busy here.
NOTE: It is highly suggested to walk around and check the prices at various stalls before shopping. You will be amazed of the price difference for the same item.

Maunakea has it all: veggies, meat, fish, food, and smoothies! It’s a one-​stop shop. Produce is fresh and cheap. My favorite part is the food court. Huge variety to satisfy your Asian food cravings. They have Filipino, Malaysian, Chinese and even a Spanish pasteles shop (though it was closed the last time I went). On a hot summer day satisfy your dying thirst in the courtyard with some fresh fruit smoothies!

Maunakea Marketplace is my «go-​to» place for their produce and also, some meats. Many vendors crowd this market place with either fresh produce and meats or some have prepared foods you can snack or have your lunch.
Of the many marketplace and vendors in Chinatown, Maunakea seems to be the most organized and clean (by Department of Health standards) and they try to run their business (by Department of Taxation standards).
On the busline so you can get in and out of Chinatown withouth having to hassle with parking (the parking lot by the Maunakea Marketplace is NOT SO PARKING FRIENDLY).
If you look hard enough, you might find something you don’t need or don’t want and yet, you will walk away buying it… trinkets, little plants, you name it! you might find it there

This place will make you hungry and make you lose your appetite at the same time… confusing but interesting!
…kind of scary actually… but fascinating… and a very different little corner of Hawaii that I’m glad I found. Well worth a visit.
I’d walked by the street entrance many times but didn’t realize the expansive warren of shops and food vendors inside. The complex has two street entrances and basically takes most of a city block of space… I had to walk in, then in again, and then further in… and was quite amazed by everything I was seeing. The food court is NOT your local mall food court… dimly lit steam trays of unidentifiable dishes from various Asian countries, Thailand, and the Phillippines… with locals sitting around communal plastic folding tables and benches.
I was not adventurous enough to try any hot food but found a fresh sweet bread vendor and another iced coffee vendor that were delicious and inexpensive. I will definitely return.