Uncle's Hawaiian Grindz — Restaurant in Maryland

Aloha and Four stars for the fact that there is even a Hawaiian restaurant that serves mix plates and hawaiian classics in Maryland. For that reason, I never want them to close but I can't say my experience was 4 stars unfortunately. Overall, I won't be begging my hubs to get back here anytime soon but I definitely am happy that there is somewhere in Maryland that people can experience the real food of Hawaii.

I have been eagerly anticipating my meal from here for a couple weeks now, but coming here had to be planned and convenient as it's almost an hour away. The restaurant is located in a tiny strip mall about 1000 feet behind the main road, without GPS it would definitely be hard to find. I do wish that it would be located closer to me so I could go more often.

We started with drinks, I got the coconut porter from the maui brewing company and he got the draft of the maui brewing company. I wish that the menu actually showed what was on draft or there was a smaller physical drink menu that may get changed as the drafts rotate out. The coconut porter was cheap for a can...only $5 and tasted delicious. Very light for a porter, perfect for a weeknight lol. Not sure of what the draft was called but it was way more hoppy than anything we would of ever choose.

For appetizers we ordered spam musubi, kalua pig lumpia, egg roll boat and loco moco fries. I really liked the sauce for the spam musubi. The spam was cooked perfectly but the rice at the bottom was hard as if it was older , which completely turned me off. When I had gotten the musubi as take out last time it was delicious and perfectly cooked. The kalua pig lumpia and the egg rolls were alright. They were overtly greasy, it felt like I was biting into grease. The kalua pig lumpia was on the soggier side since they put the sauce drizzled over the top. The loco moco fries were also not really my favorite but I guess I should of stuck to the original dish. For dinner we got the uncles mix plate with Kalua pig and the Katsu Chicken and Waffles. The dinners were delicious!! I loved the kalua pig, tasted just like what I grew up on and the shoyu chicken was spot on. The teriyaki beef was a little tough but oh well everything else was impeccable.

Lastly was the malasadas for dessert and unfortunately, they were terrible. The waitress had came out and said they were having issues with the fryer so we have ultimately chalked up the deep fried donuts as a fryer issue. They were just about as hard as rocks but the inside was not cooked entirely. Would I get them again? Probably not even if they would be a little better without the fryer issue.

Mahalo! The experience curved some of my...

I came here last night with my mom and brother (since the reviews looked decent). As an app we ordered Hawaiian nachos w/ pork. That was delicious, and a very misleading fake out. For entrées, we ordered uncle's sampler, beer battered fish sandwich, and lau lau. The beef in the sampler was okay, the shrimp was definitely not fresh, the chicken was terribly dry and flavorless, and the veggies were extremely salty. The macaroni salad, I have no idea what kind of flavor they are going for, but it's inedible. And the little ball of rice they give you is no where near enough to cut the saltiness of the veggies with(not enough rice otherwise either). Beer battered fish sandwich was completely flavorless and definitely not fresh once again. Fries were mediocre as well. The Lau Lau was obviously old, not seasoned at all, and way too tiny of a portion. We have never been this dissatisfied with a meal before. All three of us got stomach aches. There are no fundamental basics being applied here. Food must always have a quality and taste check before going out to be served; they obviously do not do this. Even something as simple as the right amount of salt can make the difference. Seafood is not fresh. Unacceptable. This place needs a menu overhaul(everything except the nachos and pork). But mostly, a kitchen staff overhaul is needed. We were checked on briefly about our meal. We tried to be nice about it, but we obviously were not happy. A substition was offered but we were honestly scared for a substition also. In the end, nothing at all was actually done to help make our meal better. Just 'asking' is not 'doing' enough. And everything was charged at full price. Very disappointing, but once again we just let it go cuz we were trying to be nice. Our server however, was pretty good, she was fast with the drink refills. Our meal was a sad waste of money, except for the nachos, which is really the only thing as well as drinks that we should have been charged for. Everything else was overpriced and very disgusting. This is not in any way, shape, or form, Hawaiian food. Summary: $80 for an order of nachos and 3 sodas, and other inedible...

Uncle’s is a really solid choice when it comes to finding a place to eat in Harford County. We ordered two cocktails, the Blue Berry Mule and the Pineapple Mojito which were some of the best drinks we’ve ever had! Two perfectly crafted cocktails all around, you’ll have to try them to believe it. They just started with a new menu as of late March ‘23 so we tried out the Spam Musubi Katsu, which if you know about Hawaiian food, Spam Musubi is a staple.

This appetizer was wonderful, crispy, and simple. Can’t go wrong with a classic musubi, and getting it lightly fried up made it even better.

For entrees we went with the salmon and the ahi tuna. The salmon came with some simple and tasty sides of fried green beans and a nicely seasoned pasta salad. The fish itself lacked any real depth of flavor, but otherwise perfectly medium cook on it and a nice gingery taste. Nothing really remarkable about this dish at all, but not a bad one!

The ahi tuna was ordered rare (as all tuna steaks should be) and it did come perfectly rare. Unfortunately, the sear left everything to be desired, which is to say there was no sear at all. Thankfully, the fish tasted fresh and the tom yum soup paired perfectly with it. As a huge fan of thai food, I was almost hoping for more tom yum under my fish! The mussels sitting in the tom yum were a welcome and well-executed addition to the tuna, almost enough to save the dish. Sadly, the sweet potato side was a bit undercooked and hard. I really wanted to love this dish and just couldn’t for the under-seared tuna and undercooked sweet potato, but I would take that tom yum any day of the week!

Altogether, I would recommend drinks and appetizers at Uncle’s, and although I can’t recommend the entrees we had as a whole, I would be willing to give this place a shot again for the fact that there was some truly great flavor combinations when they were present. We will probably return to try out some of their other offerings like lumpia, burgers, and hawaiian pork. I recommend you try it as well!

The staff were incredibly friendly, the restaurant was clean, and the ambience was very welcoming,...