On our way back to our hotel from the North Shore, we stopped to get some shave ice from Matsumoto Shave Ice in the Matsumoto Grocery Store. This is a popular shave ice place on O’ahu, so I was excited to go there to try it. Sometimes it can get very busy and it lines up out the door but when we went it wasn’t that busy.
I ordered a large shave ice with coconut cream, lilikoi (passionfruit), and guava ($2.50). They charge you an extra 50 cents to put the shaved ice in a cup. You definitely need the cup because the syrups drip out of the bottom of the paper cone, so it’s a bit of a scam and they are basically $3. The only one of my flavours that was good was the guava because it was sweet and refreshing and actually tasted like guava. The coconut cream was for some reason hot pink and it tasted more like cream soda than coconut. The lilikoi was too mild and didn’t have much flavour. The ice was also too hard and wasn’t fluffy and light.
Overall I thought that this place was totally overrated and over hyped. It’s a tourist trap and definitely not the best shave ice to be found in Hawaii.
Recommendation:
No, the shave ice is overrated.
Agree with you.
There is better shaved ice to be had on the islands.
We tried it because it was so highly rated but I was very disappointed. The ice and the flavours were both off.
Ok, so where can you get a better tasting snow cone in Hawaii??
Are you trying to find a place on O’ahu or any Hawaiian island? The best shave ice I’ve ever had was from Ululani’s Shave Ice on Maui. I didn’t have any amazing shave ice while on O’ahu. We stayed at the Disney Resort there and they had a shave ice stand that was okay, but nothing exceptional.
We love it. We have it on ice cream, which is so good. We choose coconut, dreamsicle and piña colada. My husband likes it with evaporated milk on top of his. If we go on Sunday’s they do seem to be lacking something. It could be that Sunday’s are training day’s cause we have seen a few at least being trained, saying that, we will make sure to go on Friday or Saturdays and brave the lines, cause depending on who you talk to…..It is so worth the lines.:)