Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck, Kahuku, Oahu

As promised, here is my impression of Giovanni’sShrimp Truck, just down the road from Romy’s.  Last week, I gave Romy’s stellar marks for its prawns and li hing mui pineapple.  This week, I’m going to give Giovanni’s stellar marks for its lemon butter shrimp (left in the second picture below) and garlic shrimp scampi (right in the second picture below).   Both were, drum roll…  Great.  I’ll talk more about the shrimp in a bit, but first a few words on the menu at Giovanni’s.  From my memory, there was not too many choices on Giovanni’s menu.   I actually think that it is pretty cool and it worked quite well.  Namely, Giovanni’s sticks to what it is good at and focuses on that exclusively.  No diversification here, no weak attempts at BBQ chicken wings or Kung Pao chicken to appease to the masses or get that few extra customers.  Just make the best shrimp and have people come to you for that.  As stated in a few lines above, pretty darned cool and pretty effective in this case.

Each plate was 13 dollars and contained a dozen shrimp.   The shrimp were perfectly cooked, not chewy as overcooked shrimp can get.  The shrimp scampi (right) was full of flavor, pleasant, carmelized garlic is great.  The lemon butter shrimp (left) were the favorite with my group, good for kids and a fresh flavor.  Not exactly sure what I mean by fresh flavor, but try them and you’ll agree.  Both were a mess in terms of deshelling the shrimp.  Luckily, Giovanni’s had very good facilities to wash hands.  From my memory, I believe Giovanni’s actually had non-portable restrooms too.  

Many of the shrimp truck reviews warn of long waits for orders, but since we went around 4ish to both of them (on a Friday), we were not hit by the long wait times, roughly only 15 minutes each.  I can imagine that on the weekends and for lunch and dinner, you might have to wait a long time though.  But for the shrimp and prawns that Giovanni’s and Romy’s have to offer, the wait is well worth it.

My review, five out of five shrimp for Giovanni’s lemon butter shrimp and shrimp scampi.