Matiki Island BBQ — Restaurant in Fullerton

It's our first time here.   Typically, we go to the Anaheim location when we're in the area.  This place is a lot bigger and more modern.  When you walk in, it is bright and beautifully decorated.  You get instant islander vibes with the smell of the bbq cooking.   You can even watch them cooking. I placed my order and walked around.  I was happy that this location had pani popo.  They have restrooms for customers and it was nice and clean. I ordered :

Sam's plate -  you can never go wrong with the beef ribs.  It's flavorful, yummy, messy goodness, and follow it with the mac/potato salad.  Heaven, you can hear 😇 going "aah"

Steak & short ribs - I always order this but always forget that the steak is like think pieces of steak, not like a juicy chunky piece of steak, you know?  If that's what you're expecting, don't get it.  Short ribs are deliciously messy

Kalua pork & cabbage  -  my husband loves this and be careful with this.  When handling it, be careful of the juicy goodness spilling.

Pani popo - I've been wanting to try this for a while now, but the other location never has it in stock.  I think I built this up so much that by the time I had it,  I was disappointed.   It was basically a pan de sal with coconut milk/saucy thing.  It's like a bread pudding.

Overall, the food was delicious.   Service was fast, and they are efficient.   Price wasn't too bad.  I think it is affordable. Portions were a good size. This location had plenty of parking and was a little...

This place was delicious! I ordered the #1, which was the beef rib plate, and my wife ordered the #2, which was kalbi short ribs. The beef ribs were tender and would melt in your mouth. She liked her kalbi ribs, but they were a bit chewy. The plates came with 2 scoops of white rice and one scoop of their potato macaroni salad, but we substituted one scoop of rice for two scoops of Mac and one scoop of rice. For both meals, I paid about $33, and it was worth it. Most hawaiian places are about this price, but my beef rib plate almost couldn't close in the take out box because there was so much food. It is worth a visit if you are in the area and I'm sure it won't disappoint. There are a couple of locations, which include Fullerton, Anaheim, and Huntington Beach; I visited the fullerton store. They have their teriyaki sauce on each table along with some Sriracha, but also some bottles set to the side with sauce containers for people ordering takeout. If ordering takeout over the phone, try and call well before an hour before they close. I called at 7:58, they closed at 9, and they answered, but immediately put me on hold. I remained on hold for 6 minutes before hanging up and calling back multiple times, but they disconnected their phones; I would just get a busy tone every time. I was already driving to the restaurant, so I ended up...

Good food can be extraordinarily good, eliciting good memories. In the case of Matiki Island BBQ, it fell WAY short of the meals I experienced while living in Hawaii. While the Chicken teriyaki (left) had a good taste, the chicken was dry. The Macaroni salad was my most anticipated item of this meal; as I loved it in the ubiquitous Hawaiian Plate Lunch meal from The Rainbow Drive-in in Waikiki. This fell short too. It felt like calories wasted instead of well spent. My husband ordered the Kalua Pig; he loves anything pig and was almost salivating while ordering. Unfortunately, a pig dish, renowned for its tenderness, was also dry. He liked the cabbage.😬 The most important aspect of this meal were not the dry meats, it was the dry, inattentive staff, who instead of greeting us, hid behind dark glasses and a black hoodie; acting as if I was ruining a personal moment for her. Also offensive in this day and age of COVID, we’re the cooks without masks coughing while cooking. Yeah, we should have cancelled the order; but we had been wanting to go there for three years. There was no Aloha and the food was… meh. There was a LOT of food in each dish. However, I’d rather have a fair amount of food, that tastes perfect, with smiles and warm greetings, than mounds of Meh food. We will...