Tetsumen — Restaurant in Hawaii

Terrible service and atmosphere experience. Food was alright, ramen broth had a lot of oil.

Music choice is questionable at best, the kind of playlist you'd hear in an american grocery store.

There was a green onion in my beer, had to pick it out. Didn't want to make a scene and didn't want to wait another 5 minutes for my beer so I didn't mention it. Service staff is extremely disorganized and chaotic. No communication, although I don't entirely blame the wait staff for this.

We were seated at the first table near the door, which is really disappointing placement. Cold breeze from the door, and not enough space for groups to come in without practically bumping into our table. I noticed there is another table which is within reaching distance of some kitchen-stocked refrigerators and other kitchen materials. More on the seating arrangement later.

Unfortunately this is also next to the only wait-station in the restaurant, so we got front row seats to the mayhem of the service.

I was able to ascertain that there are no assigned sections to wait staff, so they operate on the fly. They are taking orders at random based on whoever is available in the moment. Same with delivering food, drinks, etc.

The kitchen seemed organized and efficient, we got our food quickly and it was generally good. My partner got the stick gyoza plate, which was overall good.

I think almost all issues with our experience could be resolved if the seating was changed fundamentally.

I can only assume our table next to the door and the refrigerator table exist because the owner thinks there isn't enough seating otherwise. If the counter seats were removed and replaced with normal 2 & 4 tops, there would be substantially more seats. Also, removing the counters would make the restaurant feel MUCH more open and not so crowded. We overheard a half dozen guests come in and when told they could either sit at the counter now or wait for a booth seat, many opted for the booth before being told there's a wait.

Most people do not want to sit at a counter unless they are solo, or the counter is facing the kitchen. The counter isn't facing the kitchen, so I can't imagine hardly anyone choosing to eat facing a wooden wall with their back to the walkway. As stated before, removing the counter seating would provide much more physical space for more seats. More seats means they could have a proper wait station and no one would have to sit next to the door or the refrigerator. More space near the door also means somewhere some guests can stand or sit while waiting for a seat.

Finally, and definitely a minor gripe, we were not able to pay with the QR code on our table. The URL stated there were no open orders for our table. This is clearly a process issue, I have worked with POS systems previously and it's pretty clear our order wasn't assigned to our table.

Again, food was fine (stomach hurts a bit, recommend using less oil), but service is a horrible experience. Would...

What an amazing last minute find! We rarely visit Hilo and when we do we have our go to restaurants and we had never heard of this restaurant until a happy accident yesterday. Hawaiian Style Cafe had a massive wait list and my husband was in an impatient mood. I left him in line and walked over, read the menu and excitedly called my husband over and were the first ones in when they opened at 11 am. We visited Japan last year and fell in love with everything we ate there and this took us right back on the wonderful culinary adventure. It was hard to not order everything on the menu. We had the French fries because I did a quick review search and everyone raved about the truffle fries. These were not those but we had a choice of 2 amazing dipping sauces of Wasabi aioli and an Asian sesame flavored aioli. Next up was Miso ramen with firm noodles and an absolutely spectacular array of options from extra pork oil to butter to spice and garlic powder. We also had the kaarage curry which was divine and a massive portion! Then came out sticky sweet tonkatsu. Very tender and a very generous cut. And my husband's absolute favorite of this serendipitous find was the Stamina Bowl. Thin ribbons of pork belly and poached egg and rice. Obviously we only ate about a quarter of everything and before we could even ask, our amazing server magically appeared with to-go containers. Late last night my husband and step son were thrilled with leftovers. My husband is now begging me to make a hotel reservation at the doubletree so we can go back for dinner asap and partake in happy hour with ice cold Asahi and...

Poor customer service!!! Another bad experience on a first impression on the east side....This place was not busy, or had other people waiting to be seated, but we were told they didn't have any tables available except seats at the bar. So we said okay, but it turned out it was a "sort of speak shelf counter" tucked away in the back room facing a wall with metal stools. When we got there, I noticed several empty tables, so I asked to be seated there, and was refused to be seated there because it was a table that could seat 4 and they weren't going to seat us there in case a party of 4 or more should show up. Was so upset yet again, and relive the same incident I experienced the previous night, we left in disappointment. I've been to other restaurants here, and I have experienced this kind of attitude. It seems that these restaurants here on the east side are more into maximizing their seating capacity, rather than making people feel welcomed and accommodating them no matter the size of the group is. I have worked in several restaurants, and have dined in different scales of service on the west side of the island, and have never been subjected to this kind of practice, or have worked in this kind of condition, nor was taught to do this in all of the restaurants I have worked at, and to experience this is uncalled for. Felt somewhat discriminated. I moved here a year ago and would have loved to experience it and maybe recommend it to my family and friends, but this kind of attitude have left a bad taste. I will never step into this...