Beard Papa

Beard Papa is conveniently located inside Food Pantry – one of my most frequent stops while on Kuhio Ave in Hawaii (I have a habit of walking into markets and walking out with something).
I walked by and couldn’t take my eyes off the mochi. Needless to say this is the best mochi I have ever tasted! And this review is about mochi and mochi only.
MOCHI:
The center is as cold as it gets while still keeping it’s creamy texture, the outer layer soft, and not chewy like store bought ones. The lychee was good but my thoughts on lychee is it’s a difficult taste to replicate in ice cream. Watermelon is my runner up to the passion fruit and was dead on to the actual fruit in the flavor department. The most memorable flavor for me is the passion fruit as it was very refreshing, and different on the palate (a very tropical flavor).
However, my previous tastes of mochi have only come boxed and behind a cold door in an Asian supermarket. Ok… this is only my second review and I’m already discrediting myself on Unilocal.But also reading the other reviews about the mochi here I can feel good to say that others would vouch for me.
With ALL that being said, Beard Papa is now closed on Kuhio! But Food Pantry is still a great market to browse. I randomly ran into a friend there once. You’ll never know who you’ll run into in Hawaii… small world. BP mochi will be missed on Kuhio.

Mahalo Papa! You always get me a bit fatter when I’m in HNL. I adore your sweet side, your creamy middle. & ur outer puff. And I always win my senior crew members over, (as I’m Jr still as a flight attendant and will be til I’m 80!), with your delights. Friendly staff. Ready to wrap for my redeye journey back across the Pacific… :-)

Bubbles review — MOCHI~!! MOCHI~!! MOCHI~!!
I had 8 different flavored Mochi ice cream here over a span of 3 nights. Me and my friends literally stopped by 3 nights in a row because they are so good. With such a wide assortment of mochi balls, everyone found flavors they were happy with. Oh btw, there cream puffs are pretty good too :)
Hint: DO NOT EAT THEM TOO FAST~!! YOU WILL GET A BRAIN FREEZE~!!

Cream puffs! Tasty. Fast. The club sandwich was good. Plus they have Bubbies Mochi ice cream. Nice for a quick treat.

Beard Papa, I already love you because you have such yummy cream puffs. But you raised the bar yesterday when I realized you carry Bubbies Mochi Ice Cream! I could just kiss you through that furry white beard of yours!!! Thank you for carrying these and such an assortment of flavors!

This review is only for their MOCHI ICE CREAM! (So yes, this is more a review for Bubbies than for Beard Papa.)
I realize Beard Papa is all about cream puffs but I’ve never gotten them here. I’ve had them at the mainland locations and think they’re a little overrated. To their credit, they have a large selection of non-​cream puff items like pitas, puff sandwiches, bread pudding, cream pies (
), and even crème brulee (
), but it was the mochi ice cream sign (
) that caught my eye. And not just any mochi ice cream, but BUBBIES mochi ice cream!
WEEEEEEEE! (That’s my attempt at expressing how overjoyed I was). When we came to Hawaii last year, my mom and I walked all the way from our hotel in Waikiki to the closest Bubbies location, which at that time was the one on University Ave. It’s walkable if you’re a little insane like me, but it’s still a looooong ass walk (~1hr). I contemplated making that trek again this time around, so imagine my excitement (and relief) when I saw that they sell them here, only a block away from my hotel!
Bubbies makes THE BEST mochi ice cream I’ve ever have. While the ice cream itself is really tasty and has great flavour, the mochi wrapping is what makes mochi ice cream special. (I mean, without it, it is essentially just a puck of ice cream.) The mochi wrapping has the most incredibly texture and is thinner and firmer than other ones I’ve had. Biting into one of these, with the contrast of textures between the mochi and ice cream, is just so gratifying…
I came here every day during my 4-​day stay in Waikiki and tried 10 out of their 13 flavours. The only one I wasn’t a fan of was the pistachio because it didn’t really taste like pistachios. But all the others I had (chocolate coconut, chocolate espresso, chocolate mint, green tea, lychee, mango, passionfruit, strawberry dark chocolate chip, and tiramisu) were amazing.
They’re served frozen solid though, so let them thaw out a little before digging in.

Beard Papa’s is AWESOME. even the ones here in Hawaii. i love just about everything they sell here. Cream Puffs!!! sweet! Ice Cream Mochi!!! the flippin best! Grilled sandwiches (without veggies of course) the closest thing i have been able to find to this deli back home called D.R. Deli’s flatbread sandwiches. stop here for a snack or breakfast, or lunch!

We stumbled on the beard papa’s in the food pantry on Kuhio. We ordered 6 cream puffs (2 each of chocolate, vanilla and haupia). We thought they’d be like mainland cream puffs, small, slightly eggy, one or two bite sweets.
These fist-​sized beauties are really good, and you can get them dipped in chocolate. They were expertly packaged separately, and then nestled into a box. We took them back to our hotel suite, refrigerated them and enjoyed them over the next few days. The haupia (coconut cream) are our favorite. The haupia are not always available, but the vanilla and chocolate are.
We also ordered mochi ice cream (3 for $ 3.75). We got a chocolate coconut, chocolate peanut butter and mango. So good. Each mochi is about 3 bites of ice cream, a perfect little treat. They had a a wide variety of mochi.

Not the best Beard Papa’s, but for a craving, it’s ok. It’s located in a supermarket, so it’s nice to be able to shop for food while there. The puff itself was a little dried out here. They also sell Bubbies there too, and I love the fact that they carry the blueberry ones. So yum.

We were looking for the Beard Papa on Lewer’s, but I was told by a person working a directory kiosk on Beach walk the one on Kuhio was they all closed «around here.» The directory lady had a thick Russian accent … Just sayin’.
I had great expectations of Beard Papa, based on reputation. Hm. Not so great.
They’re supposedly famous for their cream puffs. You can get chocolate, vanilla, or the flavor of the week. But we had everything but. We got three mochi ice cream (Bubbie’s brand) and a shave ice with lilikoi and li hing mui syrup and mochi balls. It all came down to ~$ 8.
The shave ice was a generous heaving of soft ice and a not-​so-​generous sprinkling of syrup. The lilikoi was okay (they should take note from Waiola), but the li hing mui was really good. The mochi balls, on the other hand, were 100% wack. They didn’t look like mochi. The looked as dense and opaque as boba. They tasted like boba, too … I think they were albino boba.
I’d like to take this opportunity to mention that this is a mainland franchise. The cream puffs are the big deal. But the other things are local flare.

Ok, I have to say I tried the cream puffs here and I was honestly not impressed — while they did stand out as being perhaps one of the messiest foods I have ever eaten (once you take one bite you’re in it — can’t stop), the flavor was nothing extraordinary. In fact the cream puffs my mother made when I was little were a lot better… has no one here ever had homemade cream puffs before?

It was lunch time and boy was I hungry! I stumbled across Beard Papa’s while in the food Pantry on Kuhio Ave. Couldn’t find anything that I particularly fancied in the food aisles so I decided to check out who this Beard Papa chap was and what he had to offer. Negative on finding the actual Papa BUT what I did find was some oh so good Strawberry cream puffs.
I actually discovered the delectable puffs when the lady at the counter offered me a sample which then led me to ordering two of my own. While not exactly lunch material, I decided to try one of their cranberry turkey sandwiches as well. I thought it was a little odd to see the sandwiches being made then nuked in front of you but none the less it was pretty good.
I think on my next sweet tooth attack I will probably head back for some more cream puffs, however I think I’ll be a little bit more adventurous and try their other flavours like… Earl Grey Tea?

You can find Beard Papa’s stand/​store usually in a grocery store. They serve fresh cream puffs which come in a variety of flavors. The vanilla/​original flavor is a personal favorite of mine! I’m not really into cream puffs, but they looked good so I tried it out. It was unlike any cream puff I had in the states… even home made ones.