Waka Sakura Sushi Restaurant — Restaurant in Oʻahu

ATMOSPHERE: I was impressed with the atmosphere of the restaurant, very clean, simple, Japanese-style decor. On the table, there's a box that holds real chopsticks, not disposable kind but a real chopsticks in it's sleeve. They also have pre-packaged wasabi, shoyu, and fresh slices of ginger on the table.

SERVICE: Wait help was friendly and attentive, provided great service. Once you're seated though, it's pretty much a self-serve restaurant...you access their menu on your phone by scanning their QR code at the table and place your order with the iPad that's on the table. The food comes pretty quickly on the conveyer belt. The servers do check on you from time to time to see if want more water or have questions.

FOOD: I was expecting the food to taste as good as it looked on the menu, and because it seemed like an upscale version of their counterpart Genki Sushi. Sadly, it fell short.

I ordered a bowl of ahi poke and it came literally piled up in a rice bowl over a bed of rice. The poke was piled high like a mountain, so it was hard to eat without the chunks of poke falling out of the bowl onto the table, because it was stacked so high. I can appreciate the generous portion, but you can't get to the rice underneath until you've eaten most of the poke. It looked good but the flavor was somewhat bland. I'm a fan of Foodland's poke, and this did not come close. Also, as another reviewer mentioned, the rice was brown. I don't think it was brown rice though...it seemed like it was seasoned with something. It tasted okay, but I prefer white rice when eating sushi or poke.

I also ordered pumpkin tempura. It was a bit firmer than I'd like, it could've been cooked a bit longer. Tastewise, it was okay.

The unagi nigiri was good.

VALUE: Compared to their competitors (i.e. Genki and Kurukuru), it falls short on value here. The prices are much higher but falls short on flavor. It would help to have more variety of menu items too, but need to step it up on taste first. It's a shame because, the restaurant itself has a great atmosphere and the service was good. I hope they make improvements on the flavor/taste.

I may revisit later on and give it another go to see if it was just a off...

Update: 28 Feb 2024

It’s heartbreaking to update a review that’s not so positive. 💔

We dined here for the second time but it was disappointing. The service was disorganized and customers were having to wait 60-90 average time for dinner. You are discouraged to have your name written down to dine in. The reason is that they cannot accommodate the volume of patrons.

By my observation, there was one hostess/cashier/manager, one server, one busing the tables, and I don’t know how many were working in the back kitchen. Half the tables were closed down at 6:00pm.

I highly recommended that the management focus on the staff level especially on the weekend and dinner time. This restaurant recently open and it should not be this inefficient. I understand that hiring maybe an issue but it should have been considered by the management team to have a fully staff restaurant before going on full operations.

Some notes on our dinner; my hot udon did not come out after 30 minutes. When the bowl of udon was finally served, it was luke warm. I had asked to take the order back and cancel it. 15 minutes later they came back with another bowl. I don’t know if my request was ignored or it was just another mistake since one server was handling the expedited service of the restaurant as well.

Also, my check came 15 minutes after I had requested it twice. The manager made a mistake by giving my receipt to another patron. The manager did not come over nor made any explanation for the delay of service, it was the server came by and mentioned this.

No apologies were given due to the mistakes. They were too exhausted to even have small talk with the customers.

I will give this place another try and see if there are any improvements. Hope this review is taken into consideration by the management!

————————-

The place was definitely a traditional style setting much like in mainland Japan 🇯🇵

We enjoyed picking our orders at the table! The place was quiet and intimate (it’s inside the new Don Quixote store in Kapolei).

We will definitely be back! ...

*update: fyi , especially to those negative comments here…..DON’T expect Japanese service, it’s Hawai’i here. No offense lol And DON’T think it’s a fancy sushi restaurant, it’s a conveyor belt kind restaurant. The brown rice for sushi is Japanese red vinegar sushi rice , it’s not as strong as white sushi vinegar and it’s not the regular brown rice. Unfortunately , price is not as cheap as genki but some fish are better quality. And I believe they use better rice machine too because it’s so soft like someone actually hand shaped it. I went here more than 5 times now and only 1 plate the ahi was cut wrong way. Overall I still enjoy coming here.

4/15/2025 @11:30am Tuesday For 2 people, no wait line They welcome with nice irasshaimase!

Choice for order food by touch panel or your own phone with QR codes I used touch panel. Easy to use. Slide to left and right.

Very clean and my server was good Sushi came fast Their sushi rice is amazing. They use red vinegar and it’s so good They have a bowl of sushi rice on the “special service “ selection.

And they have good selection of non fish items too.

Salmon and hamachi, as good as everywhere else Fresh ahi, ika, scallops were exceptional , very good! Ahi mmmm yummy

The price of plates differs , but mix and match, it’s around $5 a plate. Unless you only like beef, uni and ikura lol

They all said nice “arigatou gozaimashita!” So that was very nice I will definitely...