Why I’m Obsessed With Kamana Kitchen 2, Honolulu’s Newest Indian Restaurant

I ate my first Indian meal in college, back when I was landlocked by cornfields in Ohio. On Friday nights my friends and I would pile into a beat-up sedan and hit up Bombay Garden & Greek Eats. Their mashup menu came with nine spice levels and nine more secret levels for masochists. One night, I tried the chicken masala in an urgent shade of red, and an outpouring of flavors and heat went off like a bomb on my tongue.

I’m pretty sure that bite rewrote my neural pathways. Why skydive when I can just eat Indian food? Its potent blend of spices arouses my sense of smell and fires up my curiosity. The curries are a musical alchemy, their heat levels ranging from gentle grace notes to daredevil crescendoes. It’s always exciting.

SEE ALSO: 5 New Indian Restaurants Have Opened in Honolulu This Year

After I moved home to Honolulu, I tried the city’s handful of old and new Indian restaurants. One hit just right. I need you to understand how much I love Kamana Kitchen. I celebrated my birthday there. My next birthday is a tossup between Kamana Kitchen on Bishop Street and the new one in Kapahulu. If you’re looking for an unbiased writeup, I suggest you find an almanac.

Kamana Kitchen opened its doors in Kona in 2013, expanded to Hilo, jumped to Kīhei, Maui, and finally set up shop in Downtown Honolulu in 2018 as New Kamana Kitchen (which I will refer to as KK1). If you don’t work or live Downtown, KK1 can be a tough location. Parking is limited to the curb, which is a gamble on Bishop Street, or municipal garages a couple blocks away. Plus, KK1’s setup of small tables and metal chairs works for the in-and-out lunch crowd, but it’s a bit cramped for groups.

Photo: Alexander Pang

This is a main reason why Kamana Kitchen 2 exists, according to its gentlemanly manager, Bipin Jung Khadka. KK1 customers frequently asked for a more accessible dine-in spot, so the owners spent the last couple of years looking. Set in the old Haili’s Hawaiian Restaurant space on the corner of Winam and Palani avenues, KK2 is nearly twice the size of KK1, with booth-style seating for larger groups. Directly behind on Palani are 10 parking spots in front of a two-floor apartment building.

Photo: Alexander Pang

That’s good news, but I was already parking by ʻIolani Palace and walking through rain, hail and sleet to get to KK1. What I really care about at Kamana Kitchen 2 is whether the food is as good as KK1. So let’s cut to the chase: Everything I ate tastes almost exactly as it does at KK1. That may be because the head chef commutes between both spots, Khadka tells me.

Though nearly identical, KK2’s menu lacks lunch specials. That’s a shame. If you find yourself Downtown, I recommend the lunch special for its healthy serving of an entrée, such as tikka masala or vindaloo, as well as rice, naan and sides. You will need a desk to crawl under for the kanak attack that will follow.

SEE ALSO: What to Order at Tadka: Eat Like a Chef

Both Kamana Kitchens offer a fairly standard menu, with a variety of chicken, lamb, vegetarian, vegan, seafood and rice options. You’ll find chicken tandoori, samosas, daal soup and chana masala, as well as biryani and naans. Many curries and other entrées offer a choice of proteins. For example, vindalu is a garlic-based curry with a punchy vinegar tang that pairs with chicken or lamb; smooth, yogurt-based korma curry pairs with chicken, lamb, shrimp or vegetables; and creamy, tomato-based masala can be ordered with chicken, lamb, shrimp or paneer.

You can choose a spice level: mild, mild plus, medium, medium plus, hot and hot plus. The higher levels are certainly hot, but not painful. I would schedule a nice long walk afterward to let your guts settle. KK2 is also BYOB with a $10 corkage fee.

Photo: Alexander Pang

Our exploratory dinner here consists of lamb saag ($19.95), coconut fish curry ($20.95) and chicken tikka masala ($19.45), each accompanied by basmati rice; and a basket of peshwari naan ($5.95). Kamana Kitchen makes a mean mango lassi ($6.45), which we sip alongside the salt lassi ($5.25).

Lamb saag can be described as a kind of spinach curry. Soft chunks of lamb complement and infuse the darkly delicious spinach. Each spoonful is like a walk through a spinach-canopied forest. You can trade out meat for palak paneer, a lightly milky house-made cottage cheese blended with spinach and spices.

Coconut fish curry. Photo: Alexander Pang

The dancing, creamy coconut fish curry may be my favorite dish of the night. In other cuisines, the fish, tender and juicy, might be the star; here, it’s a vessel for uplifting flavor.

Chicken tikka masala is a creamy, tomato-based curry. Buttery and sweet with a slight tang and vibrant spices, it’s an addictive crowd-pleaser. The cubes of chicken, slightly overcooked and chewy, provide more texture than headline. After the spinach forest and sunny coconut fish curry, the tikka masala is a bustling marketplace. I’ll stop with the metaphors.

Naan is great and garlic naan even better, but for something different, I highly recommend the peshwari naan, which is stuffed with almonds and raisins. At KK2, it’s crisp with a chewy heft that makes it excellent for dollops of curry. I associate raisins with the Sun-Maid boxes that you get from disappointing houses on Halloween. Here, their softness and jam-like flavor, combined with the crunch of almonds, make the peshwari naan a good pairing with our entrées.

Photo: Alexander Pang

KK2 serves lassi in goblets that can easily be shared between two people. The salt lassi is interesting—salty and yogurty, as you’d expect, with a slightly bitter undercurrent of mint, cumin and black pepper, which dots the bottom of the glass. If the ocean were made of yogurt, maybe it would taste kind of like this. The mango lassi is an outright winner. Creamy and not too sweet, it’s a palate-cleansing comma between flavor-packed bites.

We are stuffed to the gills, with leftovers in tow. I’m always deceived by the portions at KK1, and Kamana Kitchen 2 is no different.

Food is sometimes described as an experience, which I think is apt here. In my little corner of the world, I eat delicious curry and think about how much experience is out there and how many incredible flavors and permutations I have yet to try. Just like my first mind-blowing masala in Ohio.

So anyway, I really like Kamana Kitchen 2. Maybe I’ll see you there for my birthday?

Open daily 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., 760 Palani Ave., (808) 734-3160, @newkamanakitchen