Just Like Home

Oxtail Pho ($14.50)

Fairwood Drive Inn and Pho 27 in Kaimuki offers a unique two-in-one restaurant, with Fairwood Drive Inn serving take-out-style Chinese and local-food favorites, and Pho 27 designed as a dine-in Vietnamese and Hong Kong-style cafe (with take-out also available) serving traditional Vietnamese dishes and tasty Hong Kong-style comfort foods.

“It’s like home cooking (at Pho 27),” says owner Tiffany Ko. “When customers come here, they tell us they would eat this growing up and they never had it for a long time. For example, Hong Kong-style Baked Spaghetti, Baked Seafood and Mixed Grilled Steak Sizzling Platter (with grilled chicken, grilled pork chop, grilled New York steak, sausage, ham, french fries, broccoli and tomato). A lot of people don’t know we have it.

“Also, with the pho, I think now people are really looking for healthier food with lots of vegetables, so we try to make something healthy,” she adds.

Ko, who originally is from Canton, China, opened Fair-wood on Keeaumoku Street about 20 years ago before relocating to Kaimuki Shopping Center (with Times and Longs Drugs) four years ago with the addition of Pho 27. The contemporary restaurant was designed by an interior design team from Hong Kong and features custom, handmade light fixtures.

SIMPLY UN-‘PHO’-GETTABLE

Pho 27 has introduced two new dishes: Oxtail Pho ($14.50) and Pig Feet Pho ($9.95). “It’s available as a special, and if a lot of customers like it, we’ll continue it,” says Ko. “So far, it’s been doing good.”

Oxtail Pho consists of pho-noodle soup, oxtail, carrots, Chinese cabbage, peanuts and black mushroom, plus a ginger and shoyu sauce on the side. The oxtail is cooked for more than two hours until it’s soft and tender, and the soup base has a lot of ginger for added flavor.

For Pig Feet Pho, it’s pot-roast pig’s feet cooked Chinese style with a bean-curd sauce, and served with pho noodles in a beef broth, along with a side of bean sprouts, basil, lemon and chili.

Fairwood Drive Inn & Pho 27

3221 Waialae Ave.
739-6688 (Fairwood Drive Inn) | 738-0027 (Pho 27)
Daily, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.
fairwood-pho27.com