Restaurant Marlow may have fantastic cuisine. However, dessert wholly depends on what pastries are done earlier in the day (or the prior day), along with what’s left over. As such, they only had ice cream on the menu that night. Because of this, we skipped and decided to check out Hula Cookies Ice Cream Sandwiches.
While I love Restaurant Marlow’s lunch and dinner fare, their breakfast items sound fantastic, too. It’s a simple affair, with drinks, different types of croissants, focaccia toast, quiche, and sourdough cinnamon rolls. Leftovers (if there are any) sometimes get formed into a scrumptious-sounding croissant bread pudding, but that wasn’t available during our visit. As such, we decided to skip dessert here to try another treat – Hula Cookies Ice Cream Sandwiches. Moreover, the ice cream sandos are sold in a novel way. But, more on that later.
Where to Get Hula Cookies Ice Cream Sandwiches
The Hula Cookies Ice Cream Sandwiches come from a shop called Hula Cookies & Ice Cream in Māʻalaea. Their shop is conveniently located for anyone staying in West Maui or those who want to visit the Maui Ocean Center, as it’s in the mall adjacent to the aquarium. Parking does come at a price, using the same system we encountered in Pāʻia, but they do offer free parking to kamaʻāina.
Now, we thought we could make it to the shop before they closed, but we failed miserably. In fact, the associate was heading out the door as we got there. Alas, our visit wasn’t in vain.
Novel Purchasing Experience
Though the shop was closed, they have a vending machine out front. From afar, I thought the machine was there to vend their standard cookies, but I was wrong. It is, in fact, an ice cream cookie sando vending machine. As such, we were still able to try some of their signature items.
Menu
Before we get into the actual Hula cookies ice cream sandwiches, it’s worth mentioning that Hula Cookies makes their own cookies, which you can buy both in-store and online. However, their ice cream is sourced from Maui-based Roselani Ice Cream, which is among my favorite local ice cream producers. When the shop is open, you can customize your own ice cream sando, so ordering at the counter is the ideal way to try these, but these will do in a pinch.
What We Tried
I really wanted to try something with chocolate ice cream, as we can’t buy Roselani’s chocolate ice cream on O’ahu. Unfortunately, the vending machine offered only one sandwich with chocolate ice cream, which was sold out. Alas, I settled on the Menehune Mint, while Mrs. Island Miler opted for the Keiki’s Fave.
Now, my favorite mint ice cream sandwich is the Coolhaus Dirty Mint, which uses its mint leaf-filled ice cream with delicate flecks of dark chocolate between soft dark chocolate cookies. Here, Hula Cookies uses standard chocolate chip cookies with Roselani’s mint chip ice cream. This means that, for me, the overall sando was almost too sweet. Plus, because it’s a chocolate chip cookie, the chocolate in the cookies froze and was quite hard.
The otherworldly green color doesn’t really help, either, but that’s my preference again. Overall, this was fine, but I prefer something less sweet. I honestly think this would’ve been better with a plain chocolate cookie.
Mrs. Island Miler’s sandwich was more successful, which isn’t surprising, as it’s the standard chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice cream. Roselani’s vanilla is among the best and nicely balances with the cookies. Of course, since it’s the same cookie that I had, the chocolate chips were quite hard.
Hula Cookies Ice Cream Sandwiches, Final Thoughts
I’m glad I got to try Hula Cookies ice cream sandwhiches. They may not be my favorite, and may not all be my cup of tea, but they’re a solid option, especially if you’re in the area. Honestly, I’d probably go back to try more stuff one day, too. So if you’re in need of a cool snack after a day at the Maui Ocean Center, maybe give these guys a try.