Tanaka Kahuku Shrimp — Restaurant in Oʻahu

This is the new location for Fumi's! It's been 2 years since we last had Fumi's, so we were so happy to learn that this was what reopened to replace Fumi's down the street.

We've tried other garlic shrimp in Oahu and Maui, and this is still the best out of all of them. I still don't understand the hype of the more popular shrimp truck when it tasted like any other garlic shrimp I could get at Boiling Crab in California.

Our go-to is the spicy garlic shrimp. The shrimps were huge and exploding with garlic flavor. You get about 8 shrimps with 2 scoops of rice. I think the sauce is plenty, but you can also purchase additional sauce on the side. What me and my husband and I love about their shrimp is that it doesn't taste heavy with the butter. And you get a slice of pineapple! We always get our own plate to eat when we normally share to try other food.

They have a sign that says cash only, but I saw people in front of us using their card for a large, complicated order and needed to show ID. We still paid with cash to make it easier.

There is a large lot of parking and plenty of tables with seats. There are restrooms with multiple stalls with a hand wash station outside of it. We have stopped here between 1:30 - 2pm, which seems to be an ideal time with no wait and after the tourist busses have left.

On our last trip to Oahu in 2022, we came here 2 days in a row from the Waikiki area. We knew we had to make our way again to eat here and don't regret any of it! This is always one of the highlights of our Oahu trip that we can't stop talking about and continuously recommend to our friends....

Tanaka Kahuku Shrimp was a stop on our circle island bus tour. It primarily serves shrimp but if you are allergic to shellfish, you have one item to choose from, which was the chicken katsu.

I ordered the spicy garlic shrimp and my partner ordered the chicken katsu. Our bus guide told us it’s best to order spicy garlic sauce 2/$1 to add to the chicken as it can be quite tasteless and dry and that was the best advice we got!

The chicken katsu came with its own sweet sauce and they gave you so much chicken that it was definitely shareable between two people. Adding the spicy garlic sauce made it delicious, without having to worry about allergies.

The spicy garlic shrimp was really good and came with I think 6-7 pieces of shrimp with plenty of garlic slices. Your breath won’t smell good after this and you might be burping up your food for hours after so I recommend bringing some gum or mouthwash.

Both platters came with two scoops of rice and a slice of pineapple. I was there was a salad or a side dish that came with it other than just rice and protein.

Lots of covered seating but it can be busy due to tour buses....

So this is my second meal in a row having some shrimp, rice, and a sauce. This one was disappointed me like the last. This one was a bit more pricier as well costing$18 vs $17 I paid in Wakiki.

The meal for me just lacked flavor. I ordered the tempura shrimp and the shrimp was so tender it just disintegrated into the tempura bread crumbs so I didn't taste any shrimp meat texture. And then a slice of pineapple and a sauce of sweet chili sauce came on the side. Add well as two cups of plain, unflavored white rice. So meh. Like no onion, no salt, pepper, nothing.

Not sure if Ingredients are local or something, because if so that would justify the cost for the money. But yeah I was so so disappointed I couldn't even finish because there was like zero flavor.

Happy to support local restaurants, but being a foodie, I know good food when I taste it. And unfortunately this wasn't it.. I wanted to like it though. :(

Note: this place is CASH ONLY which is horrible. Yet the business next door that sells ice cream and coffee...