Manelé Cafe — Restaurant in Carmel

Overall nice place with a good menu selection, with a couple areas that could use improvement.

Pros: Food was well prepared, and there was a really nice balance between protein/carbs/veg. The option to pick between regular or cauliflower rice is nice if you're trying to be calorie conscious, and the overall flavor was really nice, looking forward to trying other things on the menu. Portion sizes I felt were nice, enough that we both felt satisfied without feeling excessive or like it would be impossible to eat without a take home box.

Cons: The service felt rather impersonal and unresponsive. Could tell generally that the staff were working, but nobody came to check on us during the meal at all. It felt more like they were interacting with each other than the customers.

We waited about five minutes at our table before water came out, and drinks didn't come until after our food was delivered by the chef (not our server). Our server came to take our order, and then dropped off the check at the end; did not even ask if we wanted dessert, which we had to ask to order after the check had been dropped off.

We also asked for outside seating, but unfortunately were placed in an area that had zero shade which made it uncomfortable until some cloud cover came in. Getting enough umbrellas/shades to cover the outside seating would be nice.

Food was generally very good, but some of the pineapple in the dole whip we ordered was pretty sour and some pieces still had inedible pieces of green stem still attached.

Overall the food, location, and atmosphere were nice enough to make us want to go back and try again, but the lackluster service holds it back from being 5 stars for me.

**Edit Visited again, and am now changing this to 2 stars. Service was slow and didn't seem like they paid attention to our order.

We asked for some nachos as an appetizer, and sat waiting for what felt like 20 minutes before they were brought out along with the rest of our food.

Server did not seem to understand their own menu, as I ordered the loco moco and was brought the loco moco sliders. When I told the server they brought me the wrong dish they at first did not seem to understand that there was even another dish on the menu. Who appeared to be the manager did a good job getting the dish made quickly and correcting the situation, but unfortunately the food was very underwhelming. I have had loco moco many times before when living in Japan, but this just seemed like a poor imitation. While the eggs were cooked well, everything was just totally bland and under-seasoned. The gravy tasted thin and lacked any sort of flavor. And somehow despite the dish seemingly being cooked to order, the food itself was oddly not particularly hot.

My wife had ordered the garlic butter shrimp and found it lacking any sort of garlic flavor, and in general the side vegetables/fruit skewed too heavily towards sour/acidic (pickled cucumber, pineapple, kimchi, slaw all in one dish).

The pork nachos were quite good taste-wise, but it was just kind of awkward to eat due to the size of the wontons and distribution of toppings (everything kind of stuck together so you'd either pull way too many toppings or get nothing unless using utensils to assist).

Nothing was so bad as to be inedible, it just tasted more like something you would get at a cheap family restaurant popular with elderly people as the main clientele rather than a hip spot with authentic Hawaiian food.

We will likely give this place one more try as we really like the overall concept and are hopeful they can iron out their issues, but unless it improves we will likely not be going back after that. There are just too many better options in and around Carmel to justify eating at a place with inconsistent...

I don’t like leaving bad reviews and I have a lot of empathy for people in the HoReCa industry, but in all honesty I can’t give this place more than 2 stars. I want this restaurant to succeed and I hope my feedback will help.

We came for brunch, there were 5 of us. Nobody greeted or acknowledged us, we waited about 10-15 mins to get seated (the restaurant was about 2/3 full)

After we got our table, we didn’t see any waiters for another 15 mins. Nobody offered us water or other drinks. I thought maybe the restaurant was understaffed due to Covid, but there were about 4 people waiting tables during the time of our visit. We had to ask a server to bring us water and other drinks.

Silverware - in our party, two people got forks with lipstick on them. When I asked to replace cutlery, it was delivered 10 mins after our food.

Food - overall, lots of good options on the menu. We got two skillets, rice bowl with chicken, omelette, and chicken salad. Skillet food somehow came lukewarm and eggs were not over easy - they were almost raw. My chicken rice bowl was ok, but didn’t have any sauce and was dry. I also had to remind our server to bring my pineapple dessert. Once we got our food, nobody checked on us a few mins later to inquire how everything tasted.

Check out - again, long-long wait to get our checks and pay.

On the positive side, the restaurant looked nice inside and it was easy to park nearby. Unfortunately, that’s it. It’s one thing if I came to eat here by myself, but I also invited 4 other people and we didn’t have a good experience. I hope it...

It felt like Spring so we decided to try out Manele Cafe. My wife has food allergies so we did our investigation and while reading up we found out they had outdoor seating and were pet friendly.

We walked up to the cafe with our dog and found out that they have outdoor seating, just not yet. :(

Bummer!!!

So we had no option but to do a to-go order as they don't actually allow you to bring your dog inside, for good reason.

We ordered our food and it was quickly ready. The staff was friendly and kind, and the food turned out to be delicious. The lemon grass panini was a nice blend of flavors but was tough to eat because it was all one piece of chicken.

I think strips or shredded would have made it easier to enjoy but it's a small difficulty to overcome. The taste of the sandwich was good though. I ate half and saved half for the air fryer, so I'll try slicing it up to see if that makes it easier to eat.

My shrimp were perfectly prepared and seasoned. They were incredibly delicious!

My wife loved her salad! It was a unique but delicious tasting dish and it was safe for her to eat.

I also got a chocolate cookie at the recommendation of the in-house baker. It was a delightful blend of chocolate cookie meets brownie.

Manele is close to our condo. I will make sure to check and make sure the outdoor seating is available before we walk up next time with our dog, but we will...