House Without A Key — Restaurant in Honolulu

I found HWAK in an online Reddit group. It was an informant trip and I wanted to choose places that would create pleasant memories for my gf and I. Having never been, I walked in right off the street after parking at the royal Hawaiin parking garage and made my way through the Sheraton valet towards the front desk since it was a first come first served basis with no option for reservations. There was a woman standing there, smiling, and greeted my gf and I by saying, “you two look like you’ll be dining with us tonight.” My gf was super impressed thinking I’d planned this intro and I was shocked by the level of hospitality as she walked us to the restaurant while briefly storytelling about the grounds on the way over. We checked in at the front and they had a waiting area that allowed you to view the show and the amazing sunset. One of the front desk staff even offered to take our photo and positioned us just perfectly to have Dismond head mountain in the back. While we were waiting to be seated, we made conversation with others in the waiting lounge area and my gf captured some videos and photos of the sunset, performance and herself. I went over to the bar to grab a drink and this is the only time the experience dipped for me. I stood at the bar for about 5 minutes before being. Acknowledged by anyone. I was actually greeted by a regular who was sitting at the bar before any staff member. Once I was able to place my order, they immediately asked me to make a payment and proceeded to run the card and print the receipt including tip before I received my drink. It was an awkward exchange and didn’t feel aligned with the level of service I received leading up to it, or after.

Once I grabbed our drinks, we were called for our table and they placed right up front. The performers even acknowledged our arrival over the mic and wished us a goodnight after the performance as if we’d met previously. He customized the menu to accommodate our vegetarian diet and we ordered another Mai Thai. It was a very warm environment and the singing and dancing were soothing. Perfectly matching the backdrop of a Honolulu sunset. Our server was amazing as well. Offering information about the mesquite tree, history of the main house and even suggested a constellation app as we gazed at the stars during intermission.

After dinner, we took his advice and headed over to their jazz club where we had front row seats and got a chance to speak one on one with the pianist. My gf and I love going to the same restaurants once we find one that we enjoy, because we like the familial feeling and good vibes that it brings. The fact that we felt that vibe and experienced that feeling on the first try at HWAK, made us instant fans. We travel to Hawaii once every year or so and we will definitely be back to HWAK. God willing, we’ll be able to afford a stay at the Sheraton and take in the full experience because the grounds and views were...

I have deliberated on posting this review for the past 11 days. It may be a little lengthy, but it may be worth it to save somebody else from dealing with what we had to deal with.

First things first, this place came highly recommended by several friends and also people we met while on O'ahu.

We had reservations for 8:00 on the 26th of September. We decided to have dinner at this highly recommended place the night we got married.

Granted, everybody recommended being there for sunset, but that timing did not work with our nuptials.

We arrived a little bit before 8:00, and we sat and waited for our table. We got seated right at the edge of the patio and the inside part of the restaurant facing the band. Unfortunately it started to rain, as it often does in Hawaii, but the band had to stop and get their gear inside.

Shortly after being seated, the waiter came over and took our drink and appetizer order. The drinks came out decently fast, and the appetizer shortly followed, both being brought by people other than our waiter.

The first problem of the night started when the band stopped, they did not turn any music on in the restaurant or on the patio. That immediately destroyed the ambiance between having it sound like we were in a cafeteria, but mainly because we had to listen to the businessmen behind us and one of them brag about being able to hook up with a local girl on his first day on the island, all while his wife was at home with their newborn child.

Making a very conscious decision to not ruin our first dinner as a married couple, I decided to let that slide and enjoy our drinks and really good appetizer.

The next problem came when it was a good 15 minutes after we finished our drinks and appetizer that our waiter finally came back out to take our next drink order along with our dinner order.

The meal came out decently fast, but the final problem of the night was that the catch of the day special was extremely overcooked. It was a beautiful cut of fish, but it was so insanely dry.

We did not see our waiter again until we were done eating, and at that point we decided we were going to walk back down the strip and get dessert somewhere closer to our hotel.

I'm not really sure if I would have complained about the food if our waiter did ever come back and check on us while we were eating especially since I did not want to ruin the evening, but after thinking about this whole experience and how it could have ruined what was an absolutely magical day, I just needed to put this out there.

I really try to only give positive reviews, but for a place that came this highly recommended and it's definitely known for its food quality and service, it definitely fell very short of my...

We were very excited to eat here for our anniversary. It’s in a very nice hotel. When we got there at sunset the sunset was right, there was a Hawaiian band, and a classy hula dancer. The atmosphere was really excellent.

The rest of it was really overrated. We tend to ignore some of the google comments where people sound petty or cheap. We’re never been afraid to drop some coin on a nice meal and recognize that experience probably isn’t for everyone.

So we made reservations well in advance and let them know it was a special occasion. That went completely unnoticed. We ordered some cocktails. $22 is a bit steep but hey why not!?They looked nice and that was about it. Guess I should have ordered the $15 beer instead. I really didn’t like the coconut old fashion; yuck.

On to the food. It’s a very very small menu that has 2 non-fish dinner options; definitely geared towards the asian crowd. Sounds odd, but all the food we had didnt really taste like anything. They had 5 gourmet pizza options which felt out of place for a premium restaurant. None of those were kid friendly enough for our 10 and 12 yr old. We found ourselves sitting there with a small menu of food that real american kids wont eat. Food options really suck if I’m being honest.

So wife ordered a salad with shrimp which was just okay at $40 ish. It was very very average and tasteless. I ordered a fish dish with pork belly after it was recommended. It was so bland and so so fatty and gross. Made me want to throw up. Small portion which wasn't a problem since it was gross. It had some weird sauces that were tasteless and unrecognizable. Made me feel like I had covid taste buds. Kids ordered poke bowls due to a lack of options for their age. One of them liked it. The other refused to eat it. I tried it and it tased like nothing. I actually like Poke but hated this. It was fresh but tasteless.

So we’re at $215 and 3/4 of us hated the food and drinks but loved the atmosphere. It’s not the money. It’s the feeling like we didnt get anything special for it. Needless to say, their food and service didnt create any positive memories for us. They really need to redo their menu. Seriously, what is the hype with this...