Moku Kitchen — Restaurant in Honolulu

The world food tourists stopped at Moku Kitchen in the SALT complex. This was the first time I visited this block of restaurants, bars and other shops … interesting! Let me get the bad out of the way first … the service was not up to my expectations. First off, having to open a tab at the front before finding your own table is strange. It’s like the focus is on having drinks. I wanted a bottle of wine and the cashier had to find me a wine list. I ordered a bottle of Frogs Leap Cabernet. This is an interesting winery with an even more interesting motto “Time’s fun when you’re having flies!”.

Anyway, we received a number (13) and found a table at the far end of the restaurant, close to Ala Moana Blvd. and waited, and waited, and waited … About 15 minutes later, our wine arrived. Beforehand, our server (listed on the bill as Christopher but it was a she) took our food order and brought glasses, utensils and a carafe of water (which I had to pour myself). I told my fellow foodie that if the food arrived before the wine, we were going to switch to cocktails. We perused the list of cocktails on the menu; just six were listed. Things were looking dim for a good evening. The wine finally arrived; the server said they had a little trouble finding this bottle; it was the most expensive red on the list ($120) but it’s a good value when one considers that the bottle is $66 or more in the store. Being a 2019, it needed a lot of time to open up. Luckily, they brought us large wine glasses.

We ordered the Szechuan Stir-fried Green Beans ($12) with Mac Nuts and Garlic Truffle Oil Fries ($9.50), Ribeye Steak Tacos ($21) and the Upcountry Special, mac nut crusted lamb loin with farro risotto ($39). The green beans were crunchy with a chili, ginger, garlic and oyster based sauce. The nuts added an interesting contrast. The fries were crispy (my only requirement) and came with a house made ketchup and whole grain mustard aioli. We shared the tacos and lamb loin. The taco was delicious, with flavorful steak, sliced radish, salsa fresca and more. My only nitpick … I wanted two tortillas because the filling was so juicy, the single tortilla couldn’t cope and I ended up eating it with a fork. The nut crusted lamb loin was prepared medium rare, perfect for me. The highlight was the farro risotto with cremini mushrooms and Maui onions and a Calamansi gremolata. It was simply delicious!

Service, if one could call it that, was leisurely. No one came to ask about other drinks or dessert and I had to flag down our server to get takeout containers and the check. What did we think? This is 4-plus quality food with less than 3 star service. I’ll give it a guarded (3.5) recommendation; the food more than offset the...

Weird service style, unavailable promotions still advertised, food that relies too heavily on presentation and not enough on taste/texture. Not a terrible first meal in Hawaii, but I really wouldn't recommend it to anyone on any day. Steer clear unless an overpriced menu 85% full of ill-prepared foods is your thing.

👍 - creative, extensive menu covering a wide spectrum of tastes

Employees are courteous, friendly

Nice place

👎 - employees all pool their tips and it's reflected in the service style. Since they have no viable incentive to provide their best service possible, there's gaps in communication and lapses in logic in how things are done (my drink never getting started until I went to check at the bar for it, my tab never being opened despite ordering things and having received them, everyone doing a little bit of serving + hosting + bussing + order taking holy goodness what a nonsensical way to work a restaurant)

Didn't bother us, but do not expect the server to come by your table much. Be prepared for European style serving

The truffle fries had zero truffle flavoring at all. Lots of parm tho

Drink specials advertised are unavailable due to missing several ingredients, but the advertisements are still up.

Had to check on my drink inside several times, the 3rd was a bartender walking to me while drying a glass and asking me if I needed something 😂😂 the drink I ordered yo. Took them 10 more minutes just to come to me and say they couldn't make it 🤣

The food being small portions of mild taste was ridiculously overpriced (I'm from LA, and I know overpriced nonsense). The cooks ruined the fresh catch fish tacos by cooking the fish too long, making them too dry to enjoy. The deviled eggs with shrimp? One of the most bland, seasonless egg fillings I've ever had. I literally saw no paprika, go check my picture. Imagine egg yolk in thick whipped cream form, and no salt 🤢

Some restaurants rely on marketing gimmicks and food presentation as an excuse to price gouge every guest with food quality that would disgust professional chefs if they saw how much it costs. This is...

I really wanted this place to be a great or perfect restaurant to kick-off our Hawaiian food adventures, but I have to be honest and rate Moku Kitchen fairly; it's average at best. We had a reservation for five through Opentable, but unfortunately the restaurant didn't actually reserve us a table so we had to go "find one" ourselves. Since the restaurant is service by the counter, our reservation didn't really help. It would have been great to know beforehand that it was counter service and we would have to find our own table in the end (we ate at 6:15pm so it was quite busy).

Next, the service was mediocre at best. First the good. The man working the counter and taking the order was amazing. This man deserves a raise or promotion shown through his hospitality, kindness, and patience with our group. He's a bright spot among a couple of flaws. The greeting staff was alright and did what was expected of them. However, the waitress that served us wasn't respectful and was actually quite rude. When we tried to order dessert, she simply gave us a "mhm" and walked away so we didn't actually know if she put our order through until the food came back through another waiter. Other times it would seem like she would brush our table off as an afterthought. It is what it is. Shoutout to the tall Caucasian male staff who was superb and helped our family settle down though!

With regards to the food, it's alright. The fish tacos are pretty good which is what I got. My friend's Margarita pizza was fantastic, but the Saiman and Fish & Chips kind of fell short. The dessert was the redeeming factor and if I could recommend anything on the menu it is the strawberry cream pie and the banana cream pie. Both desserts were amazing and had a perfect balance of flavours and great texture. All in all, a middling restaurant with a missed opportunity to be something great. Some tweaks to the service would bring the restaurant to...