Cafe O'Lei at the Plantation — Restaurant in Maui

I wanted to come here for the scenery of the surrounding mountains within the valley. Unfortunately the only reservation I had was after sunset. So all I can talk about is the food and service. At arrival I checked in with the hostess. She told me it’s a couple of minutes to seating. 15 min later I’m still standing and I noticed during this time she says the same thing to everyone checking in. This must be Hawaiian minutes that last very long or she failed kindergarten math. Once we got to sitting our waitress had the appearance of knowing what she was doing. She took our drink orders, disappeared for 15 min and then came back to retake our drink orders and gave an excuse of being a busy night. Since I could see what she was doing at the bar all night I concluded that this was a poor excuse. The Calamansi Honey Sour was not balanced. There were sips that suggested this could be a good drink while other times not. The Lihing Mui Mango tasted nothing like mango as it was just a bland smoothie. I’m going to chalk it up to poor bar tending. Then another long wait for the onion soup while watching the table next to us get their salads after sitting after us. Granted the salad is easier to make but 30min lost because my waitress just got “lost”. It finally came and was it underwhelming. I’m used to onion soup having onions in it. This didn’t so it should have been called onion broth. The Gruyere cheese lost all its flavors because what little there was sank to the bottom of the bowl. The puff pastry look pretty but was all looks and no substance. I would have preferred a floating toast with roasted cheese on top. The waitress showed up again and said the entrees were coming soon and disappeared for 20 min. This was followed by 2 more tables getting their entrees before me. Meanwhile the waitress seems to be having a good time chatting with the bartender. When she does show up there are no apologies so I made a comment about wondering if I was ever going to see my meal and she replies she wondered the same thing too. I wonder what else she wonders about. The hanger steak and shrimp tasted warm to cold, so it must have sat at the pass for a while. The seared ahi was good for my wife but the one stem asparagus roll looked like a cheap roll you get from a sushi dive. Is the food good here? Maybe it would have been if it showed up on time but really there is nothing creative about theses dishes. In summary, 2 stars because my wife liked her tuna (not the roll) otherwise a 1 star. Come for the scenery only and accept that you’re paying premium prices for average meals and carelessly...

On the website is claims To be Local yet has a reputation of being unpleasant to Local and people of color, we sat down between 2 tables that were seated with tourists and waiters and servers were giving them all the attention while we sat for nearly an hour then when the female server named Dee came she Apologized and made the excuse that she literally forgot about us. She did our order and we got our apps and they were delicious. Then when we were getting our main course is where the trouble began, in our party of 5 only 2 were correct, brought 2 different plates entirely and one was simply forgotten, it was a simple misunderstanding and were were willing to try to fix it but then the manager came and started pinning the blame on one of my friends and accusing him of changing his order which he didn't. Then she asked if we were sure that we ordered our food like our server didn't write down what we wanted and was being extremly passive aggressive. At the end when we all got our food, it tasted great but because of the terrible service it ruined our appetite, the entire time we were there, the server only came when getting our order, giving our order and then the bill but noticed that other servers where giving all the attention in the world to tables were seated by non-locals or Caucasians, she offered to refill our waters but that never happened until we were just about to leave. I jokingly said that it was because we were a table of mixed races but after seeing the reviews on how badly they treat the locals and people of color, I 100% believe it now because of this experience. Bottom line is, if you're white, you're going to have have a good time and good customer service. If you're not white and are a local or a person of color, don't bother coming because they will treat...

We were very excited to try this place given all the great reviews. The restaurant itself is quite nice- lots of outdoor seating, great views, and attentive staff. No complaints there.

Now, the food. Overall we wanted more from here— more quality, more “wow”, etc, but we left feeling underwhelmed by it.

I’ll break it down. We had lunch there. The flatbread special of the day was topped with roasted brussel sprouts and bacon, and honestly, it was our favorite item. Loved it. The entrees are where it kinda fell apart for us. My wife had the mahi mahi with chips. It was good, but I guess we had just expected it to be better. It was classic fish and chips, which is great by itself. But we again just kinda expected it to be at another level— something Hawaiian about it, or something that set it apart from standard fish and chips you can get anywhere. It just wasn’t. I had the pork belly kawali— not impressed. The pork belly was supposed to be crispy, but it was over-fried and very dry, which removed all of its taste. Being so overcooked, It wasn’t fun to chew either. I wanted to send it back, but I didn’t. The garlic rice lacked any garlic taste and the rice, too, seemed overcooked. It came with a tomato onion achar, which was just tomatoes and onions chopped fine and put into a small bowl. Achar is supposed to be spicy and added to other items to “up” the spice level. This had no spice to it.

So the flatbread was 5 stars. The fish and chips and pork belly were 4 stars and 3 stars. To me the real reviews come down to the entrees, and they didn’t really impress us that much. Good, but not great… and the pork belly wasn’t even good. We just expected more from this place, given its...