Hawaii Mom Blog: Broken Rice

Broken Rice is a small, Vietnamese restaurant in Kaimuki, specializing in .. you guessed it - broken rice. What is broken rice? It's fragmented pieces of rice, broken during the milling process. If cooked properly, broken rice is tastier than plain white rice, as it does a great job of soaking up the liquid and flavors of things like marinated beef, pork, chicken, etc.

So of course, I'll always order a dish here that has broken rice in it. One of my favorites is their shaking beef with broken rice. The shaking beef is prepared with loads of garlic. And there is a reason why they serve the beef on top of the broken rice - so that the rice can soak up all of the flavor from the sauce.

Another dish we enjoyed was the chicken bun, which included lemongrass chicken, lettuce, bean sprouts, and vietnamese rice vermicilli noodles.

And while summer rolls are not on their menu, the owner accommodated our request for them since my friend couldn't eat the spring rolls for dietary reasons. These were outstanding, and we appreciated that they gave us two containers of peanut sauce.

Broken Rice is open for dine-in or take-out (call ahead or order online!).