Local Boys Shave Ice - Kihei, Maui

This is Part 3 of our Maui Food Adventures! Check out the rest!

After a long hot day of beaching at Charlie Young Beach, it was time for my first taste of Hawaiian shave ice. SHAVE. Not SHAVED, AngryRussian drilled into me.

After much research, we decided to head to the nearby Local Boys Shave Ice right here in Kihei. I wanted to go here because 1) it’s close, and 2) you get free ice-cream and toppings, and if you know me, I’m all for freebies.

This location of Local Boys Shave Ice was a little hut at the outdoor Kalama Village Shopping Center. It was a bit cloudy when we arrived but that didn’t deter us from getting our shave ice fix. The lineup wasn’t long but the single girl manning the hut was definitely working on local Hawaiian time. She was very mellow and was singing the whole time.

After much inner debate I finally decided on a medium size Local Girl ($4.50USD). It has Tiger’s Blood (strawberry, watermelon with a hint of coconut), Li Hing Mui (an Asian salty, tangy dried plum), and Blue Vanilla. I also got it with free MacNut ice cream on the bottom, cream on top and dusted the top with lots more Li Hing Mui powder. On review sites they say that they have mochi balls as toppings but in fact they no longer have it anymore. I asked. I was disappointed.

The shave ice ball has syrup all the way to the bottom and the way they achieve this is by poking holes all over the ice ball before dowsing in syrup.

The ice ball was soft and fluffy and the syrups delicious. The Li Hing Mui powder added extra tartness and the MacNut ice-cream added a creaminess, plus it was loaded with macadamia nuts! As expected the ball melts at an accelerated rate due to the heat so there was no preventing a milky puddle at the bottom of my cup.

AngryRussian got the Lava Flow which has strawberry and pina colada, and chose Mango ice-cream. No Li Hing powder for him either as he didn’t know what it was. The flavors of the Lava Flow were on point also and he was able to finish his with a smaller puddle in the end.

We also went back a second time on another day and this time I picked my own flavors of Melona (a creamy honeydew flavor), Dreamsicle, and Mango, with Haupia (coconut) ice-cream on the bottom, and of course more Li Hing powder.

Melona was delicious but I couldn’t really taste the Dreamsicle. Mango was intense also. Haupia wasn’t as coconutty as I expected.

This time AngryRussian went a different route and picked Chocolate, Toasted Coconut, and Coffee flavors, with MacNut ice-cream on the bottom (he really enjoyed my MacNut from last time).

I wasn’t too interested with his choices so I didn’t really try.

I think out of the two shave ice places we tried (more on the other, more popular place on a later post), I liked Local Boys more as they were cheaper overall and the texture of the ice was softer and better. I definitely can’t wait to go back.

This is Part 3 of our Maui Food Adventures! Check out the rest!