Omusubi Gaba

I’m a fan!
My boyfriend was living in an apartment across the street for a short term and I would fly up to visit every weekend. About two meals every visit was spent on these. My favorite is the mentaiko and almost tastes as good as my late great grandmas. A few others that I like are the unagi, salmon, bonito, and brown rice.
Great grab and go for hiking days.

This is my first experience with this type of Japanese cuisine. I got the salmon and unagi. The ingredients were very fresh and tasty. I’m not a fan of the rice to meat ratio, however. It’s a lot of rice and only a little meat. I think I’d like it better if it came with sauce.
If you’re looking for this style of cuisine tho, I’d definitely recommend this place. Very fresh and nice customer service. I showed up at 2pm and there were plenty of choices.

I love there musubi’s here. They really take pride in the work, and it shows with each musubi they make. My co workers love the ume musubi

Loved it! Went back another day before we came back to the mainland. The rice is so good… never thought it would be so good.

I didn’t think I would ever stray from Iyasume, but I’m happy I stumbled upon this little neighborhood gem! I love love LOVE onigiri and musubi and this shop delivers just that. The selection is a bit limited but these rice balls are just as delicious and fresh as my usual selections elsewhere. since I’m staying in Honolulu/​west end of Waikiki, this is much closer to me and convenient to get to. also, I’m just super excited for more musubi shops around here!
Quick note: I’m not sure if I stopped in too late (11am) but they already sold out on a couple of flavors when I got there on a Friday morning.

They sell omusubi in a bunch of interesting varieties. It’s good. If you’re in the area and are looking for a snack, this hits the spot.

I’m a sucker for onigiri. Balls of rice, filled with yummy goodness. This place delivers all that. And the rice is fresh milled?! Gimme gimme.
The flavor we got were the Hokkaido salmon, tuna mayo, and unagi. Oh damn they were all tasty. My (then fiancé) really enjoyed the unagi, I loved both the salmon and tuna mayo. Strange enough, my mother never made onigiri with tuna mayo growing up (even though it’s a fairly common filling), so I was rather hesitant to try, but I’m glad I did.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that this place was meticulously clean and organized. Each onigiri is packaged nicely, lined neatly on the shelf, labels stating what they are and the ingredients inside and the source. So Japanese.
Prices start a $ 1.50 and go up. Makes for a quick mini meal or snack. Seriously, check it out if you’re in the area. I only wish I went back for more!

Quintessential Japanese onigiri destination tucked away. Parking is ok. Wonderful walking destination of you’re in East Waikiki. Ume, eal, Hakaido salmon. My only criticism is that they don’t go the extra effort to source identify sustainability of fisheries (eg Marine Stewardship Council) for Tuna and salmon.

Mmmmmmm! I am a sucker for mentaiko, and they have delicious mentai-​mayo onigiri! I also had a plum onigiri and a golden oolong tea. The rice is soft and perfect for a beach snack or bite on the go! When I went there were only 8 types of musubi, but they all sounded good too! Next time I want to try the unagi!

Gaba is somewhere that you must try if you like onigiri (musubi). I am all about good rice because it makes the biggest difference. You’re thinking no way, rice is rice but that is differently not true! One reason why I don’t like a lot of Hawaii sushi places is because they don’t have good rice or a good rice cooker. Anyways Gaba has the rice and they are cooking it the right way because this is the only place I have been to in Hawaii that the onigri’s taste like the ones I get in Japan. They don’t have a whole lot of selection as say some of the other places doing onigiri but they have the quality! A must try if you want to experience real Japanese rice!

Omusubi GABA Waikiki is the first overseas handmade rice ball store of Satake Corporation of Japan. It is a tiny take-​out shop tucked away inside Eaton Square so you have to walk thru the courtyard to find it and there aren’t any tables or chairs for dining in. Not a problem because the musubis are small and you can eat them standing and most people buy extra to eat later anyway.
Their handmade rice balls are special because they are made from Hiroshima’s GABA rice freshly milled daily on site. GABA is the acronym for Gamma-​Aminobutyric Acid and it is supposed to be good for us. No other musubi store in Hawaii make theirs from Japan produced rice and definitely not milled fresh daily.
One of their employees told me that the primary goal of this store is to promote the GABA rice and selling rice balls is secondary. Only two batches are produced daily and they do not make any in between. The sign on the window shows the batches come out at 10:15am and 2:15pm. I was hoping to get the GABA Brown Rice musubi today but they were already sold out by the time I arrived at 10:15am because they only make 5 pieces of this per batch due to brown rice being perceived as not popular.
Here’s the type of musubi and quantity produced for each batch:
Seto Salt (5 pieces)
Hokkaido Salmon (10 pieces, most popular item)
Shiso Konbu (10 pieces)
Mentaiko (5 pieces, my favorite)
GABA Brown Rice (5 pieces)
Also available is one type of GABA Chirashi bento.
For those who cook at home, the freshly milled GABA rice is available at $ 9.99 per kilogram (2.2 pounds). It is expensive but you should try cooking this at least once to see if you can taste the difference between freshly milled rice and mass produced rice that’s available in other stores.

Tucked away in Eaton Square is this tiny delicious musubi shop that you must try!
HYPES:
Rice is shipped daily from Japan, served EXTREMELY fresh and packaged so elegantly! I came in around 1pm & was informed that they usually have batches around 10AM & then 2PM. At this time, they only had salmon available, which I was excited to try! I was actually looking for spam musubi, but they don’t serve spam. Hehe!
I can’t say enough about how yummy the rice was! I’m already craving it again!
Service was outstanding! The guy who helped me was super informative and had great customer service! I really hope this establishment is around for a long time!
GRIPES:
It’s a small shop & there’s no opportunity to be able to eat here in the evenings, so just remember 10am & 2pm is when they try to have more available!
The salmon was yummy, but I felt the salmon itself was just a little salty… might just be me though.
Still 5 stars cuz I believe in this place!

This place has a assortment of differnt musubis made from rice imported from Japan and milled fresh daily prices vary and are around $ 2.00 a piece and they are yummy!