Rokaru Shabu Shabu — Restaurant in Oʻahu

I wanted to like it but was honestly kind of let down. I will have to say their saving grace was the amazing and hard working service. All the servers and food runners were so friendly and welcoming, hence the 3 stars. The system of ordering and food options were meh though.

There are two AYCE options to choose from, standard or premium, where premium is just a few dollars more and includes pupus and better proteins. We went with the latter. The meat quality is good, and we made sure to order all the premium beef options plus pork belly and some seafood. Kauai prawns are huge, so definitely stock up on that. Proteins could be ordered 4 at a time. For pupus, the taro arabkiki (fried sausages) and candied bacon were pretty good. There were like 3 veggies you had to order from the server, but otherwise there was a self-serve veggie bar. I will have to say that they had an extensive selection of starches, with noticeably healthier options like tofu or zucchini noodles. There is a large selection of broths, of which I chose the spicy goma. They seem to have a lot of special items for broths or menu items, so be sure to ask! The sesame sauce is pretty good, and the yuzu sauce is tangy and fresh. Green tea ice cream was delicious, strawberry not so much.

The things that were kind off include things like having to ask for sauce bottles instead of having each bottle at a table or a self serve sauce bar, 1 tong and 1 ladle for a whole table of 4, small bowls for each person rather than plates to scoop food out to, and only 1 large plate to get veggies from the bar rather than everyone being able to grab plates themselves. While we were never denied and requests from the servers, it just got annoying to have to keep asking for things.

I enjoyed their playlist, but it was pretty loud inside and hard to hear. Recommend to make a reservation on yelp as wait times can get pretty long. Parking is easy in the large parking lot. Will probably try again to see if this one time...

I’ve been to the old location when it was next to Foodland Pearl City, and I enjoyed the food. Unfortunately I haven’t been back since. Today, I took my wife and my 14mo old son to the new location, near City Mill in Pearl City. There was a graduation party that took up almost the entire restaurant, with only a few tables open for the public. I initially was going to walk away because my thoughts were that the service might be lacking due to the huge party. However, a hostess came up and asked us how many. I told her three, with one being a baby and I needed a high chair. After she sat us down, Shanice(been with company for about 9 years) approached us and made us feel like family. She took our order, recommended things on the menu, even preordered some things for us to try so that we didn’t have to wait for food. Her service and attitude made this visit amazing for my family. The food was tasty, including the salad bar, and some things were menu items only. Even if they had a huge party in the restaurant, she was able to give us five star service. Another employee saw we had a baby and the party was about to play loud games. She walked over and warned us, to prepare my baby, in case it got loud, which it didn’t…but the thought is what counts. I’m apologizing to Shanice for taking this picture of her serving another table, but before we left, I wanted to show the world a picture of Shanice that made a huge difference in our family experience at Rokaru’s new location. Mahalo to Shanice and the staff and congrats to the owners Reid and Mark for their upgrade from the small space in the former location. We...

update to original review below

The management reached out - which I appreciate. I withdraw my comment about water not being refilled as they said it was and I failed to notice. Updated with 3 stars. Thank you Original review

Tiffany (employee) failed to make our customer experience worthwhile. We explained it was our first time and was unfamiliar with the dining concept. I don’t feel she explained well enough or cared to elaborate because we still didn’t know how to order. This led to a series of unfortunate events.

I ordered a pot (for lack of better terms) requesting ribeye and an additional side order of the fish of the day - she says is “salmon”

When the food arrived it was not salmon but some type of white fish. I ask her, “I thought you said it was salmon” and she mumbled the name of this said fish (I don’t recall).

She didn’t apologize for getting the fish of the day mixed up or even ask if I still wanted it.

I tried it and didn’t like it. I mentioned that to her and she said nothing.

I also over poorer my bowl assuming after the food is cooked, that’s where it went.

Each time we needed something we had to wait and try our best to get her attention.

Drinks were never refilled.

Worst customer service I’ve had in all of Hawaii. Hawaii is full of great people and amazing customer service. In her defense, the restaurant seemed busy and understaffed. Unfortunately our experience at this restaurant...