where jess ate

Without a doubt, Star Noodle (@StarNoodle) is one of the most popular restaurants in Lahaina. With a 4-star rating on Yelp (with nearly 2,000 reviews) and notoriously long waits, we made sure to make a trip to this Asian fusion noodle house.

Known for consistently having 1+ hour waits, we were thankful we only had to wait around 10 minutes for a table. It was our first day into Maui and we didn’t get to Star Noodle until 2:30. It was still surprisingly busy even though it was way past prime lunch hour. If you want to avoid the wait, I recommend coming during off-peak hours.

The space wasn’t what I expected. I thought it would be more of a hipster joint but it actually had a very chain-like feel to it.

In terms of seating, there’s communal seating down the middle of the restaurant with bar seating down one side of the space and tables down the other side.

As a Top Chef fan, I was surprised to read that Chef Sheldon Simeon (from season 10) used to be a chef here. During his time at the restaurant, he was nominated for 2 James Beard awards (2011: Rising Star Chef of the Year and 2011: Best New Restaurant). In early 2013, he left Star Noodle and is now executive chef at Mala Wailea and recently opened up MiGRANT.

Star Noodle’s menu is pretty extensive and is broken down into share plates (including pork buns, karaage chicken and Filipino bacon & eggs), noodles (including udon, pad thai and saimin) and sweets (including malasadas) all of which are quite reasonably priced (especially for Hawaii!).

To start, we shared the Pohole Salad – Hana fiddle head fern, Maui onion, ebi, kombu ($8). I’ve never had fiddle head ferns before (only fiddle heads) so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. They’re long green stems and have a great crunch to them. I was also curious about this Maui onion referred to in the description but to my disappointment it was pretty much just a standard onion. Nevertheless, the salad was light, refreshing and something I highly recommend ordering.

The five of us decided to share three noodle dishes. Family-style is the way to go at Star Noodle. The first to arrive was the Hapa Ramen – rich pork broth, roast pork, poached egg, choi sum, kamaboko, bamboo shoots, mayu, Aka miso ($12). The broth was insanely rich and flavourful – I made sure to finish every bit of broth I was allocated. The piece of roast pork it came with wasn’t bad (but not particularly memorable) and I felt the noodles could’ve been better. They were lacking that chew in ramen noodles that I really enjoy.

Up next was the Garlic Noodles – fresh & fried garlic, dashi, green onion ($10) which is a dry noodle dish (no sauce or broth). They were certainly garlicky as advertised and while it wasn’t a mind-blowing dish, it was quite satisfying when covered in chili sauce.

The last dish we tried was the Singapore Noodles – vermicelli, chicken, shrimp, vegetables ($12) which came highly recommended from our server. It looked really promising but unfortunately it fell flat. The brightly coloured noodles were seriously lacking in flavour (nothing a ton of chili sauce can’t fix!). It looked like most other tables were ordering this, so no doubt it’s a popular dish… so maybe we just got a dud.

Overall, I felt let down by Star Noodle. I just don’t understand the hype. Don’t get me wrong, it was a solid meal and for the most part, I enjoyed it. But would I drive out of my way for it and/or wait over an hour for a table? No.

At a glance:

• One of the most popular restaurants in Lahaina; a short drive from Kaanapali
• Specializing in Asian fusion noodles (from pad thai to ramen)
• Notorious for long waits (1+ hours); I recommend coming during off hours
• Previous home of Top Chef contestant Sheldon Simeon
• Overall, it was a solid meal but felt the restaurant is overhyped; good but I wouldn’t drive out o my way for it nor would I wait 1+ hours for it

Ratings (out of 5):

• Food: 2.5 stars
• Service: 3 stars
• Atmosphere: 2 stars