Mark's Place — Restaurant in Kauai

A rare gem for local/hawaiian-syle food on Kaua'i.

If you know anything about Kaua'i, you know local food. Musubi, fried noodles, mac salad, teri chicken, teri beef, loco moco, delicious sticky white rice, gravy, chicken katsu, bento, beef stew. The soul food of Hawaii. If you've spent any extended period of time here, you know how good it can be - sometimes like you've died and gone to heaven. Mark's Place is one of those places. Every bite of pretty much everything on the menu is loaded with the best local flavors I've ever experienced. The food tastes incredibly fresh and the meats are amazingly tender and juicy, most especially the teriyaki chicken plate which was one of the best bites of meat I've ever had. My first bite from here was the loco moco, and I fell in love almost instantly. A slightly charred, well-done juicy beef patty, perfectly fluffy and runny eggs, the best sticky white rice imaginable, and absolutely drenched in an amazingly succulent gravy. Even the mac salad was among the best I've experienced. You're seriously missing out on some of the best local food on Kaua'i if you've never eaten here. They're open M-F 10A-8P. If you got up right now and went, you'd thank me.

People tend to say this place is "off the beaten path" but it's really not hard to find. Big "MARKS PLACE" sign on both sides of the building. Use the small parking lot next to the building. Have a look at the menu and the friendly staff will get your order in. Chill out at the picnic tables for 8-10 minutes (less people) but expect to wait a little longer if they're slammed. They bring your food out to you, and you now have an amazing plate lunch. All I know is...

After a fun rum safari, we needed to eat something to absorb all that magic liquid! I looked at Yelp and saw that Mark’s Place was near us and had good reviews. We decided that was our spot.

Don’t let this discourage you, but Mark’s is hard to find. It’s tucked off a side road in an industrial park. It is takeout only and you order outside under a canopy.

The menu is very heavy on meat. We took the easy route and ordered “Mark’s Famous Mixed plate” to split. (It was a good thing we split, the two of us couldn’t finish it.)

The plate came with beef stew, a small chicken cutlet and beef teriyaki. It was served with a giant scoop of steamed rice and a scoop of macaroni salad. The menu says it comes with chow mein noodles but they were missing. (Bummer, I would really have liked to try them.)

The stew was amazing! Thick with the most tender, melt in your mouth beef and loads of roasted potatoes and carrot all in a delicious brown gravy. Although I liked everything on the plate, next time, I will order a double portion of the stew. It was that good!

The chicken cutlet was just that - a sliced piece of fried chicken. Nothing special yet tasty none the less. Rounding out the plate was beef teriyaki. Beef teriyaki is often chewy and dry. This was delicious. Super tender, no fatty pieces, sauced just right. It would also make a good individual plate but oh that stew!

Just writing about that stew is making me hungry. It’s definitely worth your effort to find this little gem of...

We were in Lihue last week and stopped by on Thursday. Lucky we did because they were closing early that day and was going to be closed on Friday too. Overall, this was a great place. The menu is limited but the portions are very generous! I love chicken katsu and ordered it. OMG...there was enough for leftovers for dinner and lunch the next day!

The parking is a bit of a challenge but given their prices and the portion sizes, I can see why a lot of people recommend this place. I gave it 4 stars because they don't have a bathroom for paying customers (we ordered 4 plate lunches, canned sodas and a few bags of their cookies that they had available. I also noticed that another couple wanted regular tap water for their child and the lady at the register told them there was a water spigot outside.

Overall, I would definitely recommend Mark's Place. I would suggest you not only bring your appetite, but you also bring your own cup if you want water from their spigot outside and to use the restroom beforehand.

I will definitely come back next time we're in Kauai. We were not able to make it to Waimea Canyon this trip due to the weather last week so we'll be back later this summer...