Now that I am retired from teaching, I have taken a vow never to correct anyone’s English ever again. This is quite a challenge in Hawaii where the English language has taken on a life of its own. When I hear a local say, “We should of went surf but no can, gotta go work dat’s why,†I nod sympathetically. But when I see signs for “Shave Ice†all over the island, I struggle to resist the temptation to add a “d†to the word “shave†with an indelible sharpie pen. In truth, however, in Hawaii, Shave Ice is Shave Ice, not Shaved Ice. That’s all there is to it.And happily, there is plenty of good Shave Ice around, a good thing in a climate that is always warm. Conversely, there are also plenty of grainy snow-cones filled with ice chips and dripping with sugary electric red and blue syrup masquerading as real Hawaiian Shave Ice. When you travel to Hawaii, I am here to help you find the good stuff and avoid the imposters at all costs. First of all, the texture of real Shave Ice must be very soft and fluffy, much like snow, which ironically is never to be found on the island of Oahu. In the old days, Shave Ice was literally made by scraping a block of ice with a razor blade to produce light powdery ice that could then be flavored with syrups made from actual tropical fruits. Today, the ice shaving machine is key. First class Shave Ice places like Uncle Clay’s House of Pure Aloha and Matsumoto’s Shave Ice use traditional ice shaving machines in which a block of ice is inserted and a crank with a blade is turned to produce a pile of delicate ice powder that is immediately flavored and handed to the customer. True Shave Ice is a fragile and ephemeral delight that must be consumed immediately.

Our favorite Shave Ice place on the island of Oahu is the afore mentioned Uncle Clay’s House of Pure Aloha, run by a charming family team, Uncle Clay and his nephew, USC graduate Bronson Chang. This little establishment, located in the Aina Haina Shopping Center east of Honolulu at 820 West Hind Drive, will serve you the best Shave Ice around along with a generous helping of welcoming love—the essence of the Hawaiian spirit of Aloha. If Uncle Clay happens to be on the premises, he will introduce himself to everyone in the room and then introduce everyone he has just met to everyone else in the room. We have made friends from all over the world just by dropping by Uncle Clay’s for our favorite treat.

But there is much more to the House of Pure Aloha than hospitality. Uncle Clay and Bronson are passionate about the quality of their product. All of their syrups are made by hand in house of natural ingredients such as mango, guava, pineapple, passion fruit, coconut and yes—green tea. They also have a kale flavored syrup that is quite delicious, as well as a lovely milk chocolate flavor. The syrups at the House of Pure Aloha are not tinted with artificial colors, and imaginative seasonal flavors appear on the menu from time to time. My favorite is the autumnal pumpkin flavored syrup, made from real pumpkin and naturally orange colored.

Uncle Clay’s customers can choose from pre-selected tropical combinations or create their own. Fresh fruit such as ripe strawberries or pineapple chunks can be added to the Shave Ice, or customers can choose the Japanese version, called Uji Kintoki, which includes the addition of sweetened azuki beans and mochi balls to green tea flavored Shave Ice with ice cream. The House of Pure Aloha serves very fine quality Tahitian vanilla or chocolate ice cream. Serious Shave Ice lovers can also choose to top their creation with condensed milk, coconut or chocolate chips.

​We believe that Hawaiian Shave Ice originated with the Japanese immigrants who came to the islands to work in the sugar cane and pineapple fields in the 1800s. Japanese style Shave Ice is still very popular in Hawaii, and a very good version of the sparkling green tea flavored Uji Kintoki can also be found in the Shirokiya Village, a Japanese department store and food wonderland in the Ala Moana Shopping Center in Honolulu. This uber-food court, which almost rivals the mega-food palaces in department stores in Japan, has been under renovation and re-opened to glorious fanfare at the end of June, 2016. Look for Japanese Shave Ice and other Japanese dessert treats at the Kulu Kulu shop. The Hikotaro shop offers kakigori, the traditional Japanese-style Shave Ice dessert with slightly crunchier ice; the Uji Kintoki version with green tea syrup, azuki beans and mochi balls is readily available there.

An even more venerable institution which keeps the old Japanese tradition alive is Matsumoto’s Store in Haleiwa on the north shore of Oahu. Matsumoto’s has been around since 1951, originally in a rickety old wooden grocery store. They have now moved into newer and more elegant surroundings near their previous location. The new Matsumoto Shave Ice, which still claims to be a grocery store, can be found at 66-111 Kamehameha Highway, Suite 605, near two old plantation style buildings with M. Yoshida 1923 still emblazoned on the wooden facades. Across the street is the Queen Liliuokalani Protestant Church, established in 1832. Matsumoto Shave Ice now faces an inner courtyard where customers can line up without creating a traffic jam on the highway and enjoy their Shave Ice in a pleasant outdoor seating area.

Matsumoto’s is a well-run machine with a nice staff who will take your order, make your Shave Ice, take your money and get you out into the courtyard as efficiently as possible. They have thirty-eight flavors including watermelon, guava, lime, pineapple, coconut cream, peach and a new flavor, Ramune, named for a Japanese soda pop which was originally lemon-lime flavored (Ramune is the Japanese language version of the English word “lemonade.â€) Matsumoto’s version of Uji Kintoki is called Ichiban (“number one,†in Japanese.) This imposing concoction is served in an edible tray, actually a crunchy, flat bottomed, rimmed oval waffle designed to keep the melting ice and ice cream from dripping out onto your lap as you slurp with your tiny straw and shovel as quickly as possible with your little flat wooden spoon. Like the Uji Kintoki, the Ichiban contains Shave Ice, ice cream, sweetened azuki beans and mochi balls, but the customer gets to choose his or her own flavor for the Shave Ice. In a recent visit, I chose coconut cream, which to my surprise, turned out to be pink, and my husband Wayne chose Ramune, which was a startling blue color. Wayne remembers drinking Ramune as a child, but he thought Matsumoto’s version tasted like another Japanese soda, the yogurt flavored Calpico.

Another form of Shave Ice available in Hawaii, and one that I must not omit, is the stunning and visually over the top Filipino dessert known as Halo Halo, (“mix mix†in Tagalog.) This complex treat is indeed a mixture of many dramatically combined elements, including Shave Ice, purple yam ice cream, a little square of the Spanish-inspired leche flan (baked caramel custard,) a dab of purple jam, fresh fruit, small colorful gelatin cubes, sweetened beans and a topping of sweetened condensed milk. If you order Halo Halo at Max’s of Manila, our go-to spot for good Filipino food and desserts, it will arrive bursting over the rim of a beautiful stemmed clear glass bowl and topped with a colorful little paper umbrella. You will feel that you are re-living the best birthday of your childhood, or perhaps wiping out that painful memory of a long ago birthday when the grownups forgot to get you a cake.

The “mix mix†concept comes into play when eating your Halo Halo too. Your stemmed bowl will rest on a small plate which itself is covered with a napkin, an acknowledgment that some spillage could occur as you dig in to enjoy this astounding melding of colors, textures and flavors. We have observed experienced Filipino diners stirring the entire contents of the bowl into an almost homogeneous purple mélange. However you choose to eat your Halo Halo, focusing on each individual element or enjoying the sum of its parts, you will have entered a new and gorgeous room in the Palace of Desserts.

If all this talk of Shave Ice inspires you to book your next (or first) trip to Hawaii, you can do your homework on the subject of Hawaiian food in general by reviewing our Hawaiian Tea menu in the World of Tea Parties section of myteaplanner.com. Even better, host a Hawaiian Tea before your trip to get into the Aloha spirit. Meanwhile, you can make your own Green Tea Granita by following the procedure for the Pineapple Coconut Granita in our Hawaiian Tea Menu. I offer the Granita recipe for those of you who do not own ice shaving machines and are willing to live with the grainy texture of Granita. This icy refresher can be served over vanilla ice cream for an almost Uji Kintoki Sundae, which you might want to eat with some nice little macadamia nut shortbread cookies or Green Tea Madeleines. For the adventurous souls among you, I recommend going to a Japanese market and buying canned sweetened azuki beans to make a real Uji Kintoki Sundae.

Green Tea Granita

4 tablespoons matcha (green tea powder)
1 cup sugar
1 cup water, room temperature
1 cup ice water

Vanilla ice cream for serving

Special equipment: small saucepan or 1-quart glass measuring cup, shallow flat-bottomed pan such as a metal 8†x 8†cake pan, fork, plastic wrap

Makes: 4-6 servings of Granita

1. Mix the green tea powder and sugar thoroughly in a microwaveable measuring cup or small saucepan. Add 1 cup of tap water and stir to combine.
2. Microwave or heat in a saucepan until very warm but not boiling.
3. Add 1 cup of ice water to the syrup and stir. Pour into a shallow flat-bottomed pan and refrigerate until cold. Transfer to the freezer.
4. Stir with a fork every hour for at least 4-5 hours. Do not allow the mixture to freeze completely. The Granita should have a granular texture. Stir again and cover with plastic wrap if not serving immediately. To serve, divide among four to six small bowls of vanilla ice cream and enjoy immediately.