Hawaii has better pizza than most people realize.

There’s the handcrafted pies from JJ Dolan’s in Chinatown, the kiawe wood-fired pizzas from V Lounge near Ala Moana Center and the wood-fire specialities from the mobile pizzeria Inferno’s now on Kapiolani Boulevard.

But there was this little hole-in-the-wall — literally a grass shake — in Mapunapuna that we’d always head for pizza when I was in college. It has the biggest stacked pizzas around, with interesting toppings you, at the time, couldn’t get anywhere else.

But after 13 years, Big Kahuna’s Pizza moved to the Airport Trade Center — and I never went back.

Not because I didn’t like the pizza. It was just, well, different.

I hadn’t heard much about the place lately until Nonstop’s Mari Taketa wrote about the best pizzas in town — and put Big Kahuna’s in the bottom. (“Listen to everybody who tells you to get the garlic balls. Pizza here, aside from featuring the most cloyingly sweet sauces sitting atop bread — yes, bread — comes closest in composition, taste and texture to school lunch pizza in elementary school.” Ouch.)

I had to check it out for myself.

So I ventured to the airport area the other week and, against my better judgement, ate way more than I should have.

Garlic balls were awesome — but the pizza wasn’t bad, either.

Here’s what we ate:

Big Kahuna's Pizza

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For 13 years — from 1993 to 2006 — this pizzeria was in Mapunapuna. In literally a grass shack. But since it moved to the Airport Trade Center, I stopped going. Well, that's about to change!

Big Kahuna Pizza, Airport Trade Center, 550 Paiea St. Hours: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday through Friday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (or until it sells out). Phone: (808) 833-5588