FORC Restaurant — Restaurant in Hawaii

This is a very strange and bizarre restaurant. When my wife and I first arrived the hostess was like a robot cold and weird no eye contact or any welcoming vibe whatsoever she looked completely checked out of her body.

The inside of the restaurant is just ok. Kind of a strange set up with concrete floors and strangely painted booths and tables. A hard white and blue color. Everything looked like stuff you would see in a child’s play kitchen.

The food was by far the worst part of the experience. At times I couldn’t believe what I was eating it almost felt like I was being scammed, a huge disappointment. I wanted to like it but just couldn’t. Everything comes off as a farm to table vibe but it is the exact opposite. Terrible flavors and poor quality ingredients. I could have made a better meal at my house.

The chopped salad was awful. It said home made blue cheese dressing was with it and the dressing was disgusting and tasted nothing like blue cheese. The steak I had was covered in some weird store bought bbq sauce. My wife’s Korean short rib looked very fatty and uninspired. The presentation was horrendous it came with mashed potatoes and a massive charred semi steamed sad looking piece of broccoli. The dessert was bad as well. Really processed tasting chocolate cake. I could have made brownies myself that would have been infinitely better. This is some of the worst food I have ever eaten. Top that all off with the prices. These prices are more expensive than Merrimans ! And Merrimans is infinitely times better. Also! We had a gift certificate with this place. After the certificate we still had to shell out $130 bucks. The value of this meal was almost $300. I felt disrespected eating this food. Beware this food is highly processed and there is no care or love put into it. As I write this review the morning after my body feels really off from eating here. I won’t be back.

The only good part of the evening was the waitress Ambriel. She was very sweet and kind. The vibes in the restaurant seemed stressful tho for the waitresses almost like they knew they were serving people a scam. This place needs a...

In an area teeming with over-priced resort restaurants that provide soulless food exploiting ignorant tourists, this restaurant provides rare and much- appreciated value. As we entered the restaurant, we got warmly welcomed by the staff amidst the buzz and hum of activity on a Saturday night. I recommend reserving a spot ahead of time, as this place appeals to both locals and visitors. The levels of the music volume remained at the perfect volume that stimulated and encourages people to converse, which resulted in an organic and authentic vibe. People seems to generally enjoy gathering here. Me and my spouse noticed that many patrons seems to know each other and many a handshake and hug got exchanged...as a visitor, it warmed my heart to know that we happened upon a place that the community clearly valued enough to continue supporting.

The menu described the items in a very straightforward manner, dispensing with overly florid descriptions for accuracy and honesty in the ingredients and the fashion that Chef Hess chose to prepare them. We started with a beet salad that balanced all elements beautifully to start the meal. I saw a table near me eating the lettuce wraps (a menu item I normally avoid) that looked strangely tantalizing. I flagged down the server and placed an order as I felt compelled to try it. The lettuce wraps provided ample short rib meat offset by the crispness of the lettuce. We ordered the butterfish and the lau lau. Chef Hess diligently made rounds and took effort to welcome us and strike up a conversation amid a full house of patrons on a Saturday evening. He genuinely made us feel welcome, despite us being tourists who might never return to this area. As the food came out (promptly), we immediately could tell the quality of the meal we soon got to savor. As I must keep this review under 2000 characters, I shall simply remark that this type of restaurant exists as our kind of place. Thank you, Chef Hess, for providing us a...

Just Fantastic! We had a party of four and ate "family style" (sharing a bit of everything) in order to check out Chef Allen's menu. I think the best review information I can share is that our conversation was a series of brief "Wow!"'s and "Oh My God!"'s as we made our way through each dish. Everything was spot on and tasted great.

We started with pairs of sweet house made portuguese bread rolls baked in their own dish and served hot at the table. This was followed by soft shell house made flour tortillas filled with savory braised goat that was just heavenly in favor. We were not shy in using the last bits of the bread to "sop up" any of the braised sauce that was left of the taco plate -- it was that good!

The salad was farm fresh and helped to show off the local goat cheese crumble -- a nice dish to have between courses.

Normally the menu offers a whole kampachi, but the night we dined there were fresh menpachi available. These tender fish are delectable little morsels and when paired with the garlic ginger butter and unagi reduction sauce were the source of much happy eating at our table!

The bone-in slow smoked hog with caramelized onion was another crowd pleaser. Tender, sweet and savory at the same time. Just "Wow!"

While these main dishes were all great we were in heaven when we dove into the side dish of the "Rancher Mash". Mashed potatoes with goat cheese, green onion and bacon that was "over the top" good. And just to note that the "bacon" was clearly house made cubes of crispy flavorful meat -- just fantastic.

Dinner wouldn't be complete without dessert. We were fortunate to have a lilikoi crumble cake -- 3 layers with the distinct island taste of lilikoi (passion fruit) with some whipped cream and a sliver of shaved chocolate. The perfect finish to our meal.

Our only regret was that we only sampled a portion of the menu -- we'll be back to try...