Sam's Kitchen — Restaurant in Honolulu

We had just landed and unpacked our stuff at our hotel when we went exploring the area (mostly mall(ish) area with a lot of tourists). We ended up getting hungry and was wondering what to get when a gentleman with a Frenchie overheard us debating what to eat. He was a local that lived around the area and suggested this garlic shrimp place around the corner. After a moment of chatting he left us and we made our way around the corner and spotted the restaurant he mentioned: Sam's Kitchen. It had outdoor seating with warm lights all around when we decided we would go ahead and try it.

You order at the counter before seating yourself at any of the empty tables. We ended up going inside to their alley style outdoor tables since our group was large. I ordered their garlic shrimp with side salad and a pineapple mango tea. I'm not sure what the other food items tasted like, but will say that the garlic shrimp at this location was the best out of all the other garlic shrimp places I went to. The size of the shrimps were perfect and the flavor and texture was just AMAZING. It wasn't overcooked and the garlicness was spot on and not too overwhelming. Pair it with a pineapple tea was 🤌🏼, the sweet and slightly tartness of the drink was spectacular. The staff that served us was also really nice and helpful, one of our order was wrong and they went ahead and made us another one.

I'm so glad that we took that person's recommendation and tried this place out. I've been recommending it to all my friends when...

Normally don’t post reviews, let alone negative ones, but this place was a waste of my time and money.

Lady at the counter was a bit rude and didn’t even say anything to me when I ordered, but I didn’t really care. Then I get my food after waiting 20 mins when it wasn’t even busy, didn’t get what I ordered, went back up to the counter and politely apologized for not speaking clearly enough to be heard and taking the blame for the messed up order.

The lady just looks at me and the takes the food, asks if I touched anything on it, and then takes it back to the kitchen without saying how long it will be or if they’d fix it. I said I had handled it but didn’t touch the food.

Stood at the window for 5 mins, nobody said anything, went and sat back down and they finally came back out a few minutes later and gave me my food. Cool. It was the same bowl with the same receipt so it literally looks like they took the meat out and gave it to someone else after I had handled it, but I’m unsure.

Anyway, I get to eating my food, Garlic Steak with rice, and not even kidding, half the steak is inedible gristle that is actually disgusting, had to spit out half of it. Seriously? These guys can’t even be bothered to trim some meat on a 13 dollar bowl with nothing but some meat and white rice? Nice. Walked away hungry and annoyed, 13 dollars lighter.

Do not even waste your money here. Walk one minute down the street to Topped (Korean place) and get the Shoyu Chicken for literally half the price ($7.5) and...

We came here seeking garlic shrimp over rice and in its execution it was better than Giovanni's shrimp truck in the North Shore. It's not a completely fair comparison as Sam's shrimp comes unshelled and are bigger and more temder and plump. Steak was tender and cooked to medium rare. Poke tasted of ginger. We appreciated the spinach on the side. Water is free in the back and theres a bathroom.

If you enjoy your seafood well done, I think it would be too challenging as this was just cooked but I love my seafood this way as it is more common in Asian cooking.

The manager who was serving the food was as nice as I've had anywhere. Sam's has been around for 6 years and he, the manager, has been there for 5. He works for his friend, Sam and he treats the place like his own, with great respect. The lady taking the order was also very casual, upbeat and kind. I liked her too.

The place sits on a sliver of land cut between two buildings, brightly painted in red, white and blue.

They are opening a second location within a hotel soon.

It wasn't a ton of food as we are avoiding eating too many carbs but I definitely liked what we ate (potato salad was decent) and were thankful we got a parking spot in front... just after 6pm in this high traffic area of Waikiki. Come if you can manage it. Most of the customers are young Japanese families with super cute little kids. We loved watching...