Aloha Hawaiian Kitchen — Restaurant in Orlando

I learned about Aloha Hawaiian Kitchen (AHK) from a regular email I receive on new restaurant openings in Orlando. My wife and I have visited Hawaii a number of times and love dishes that many of the locals enjoy. When I saw Loco Moco on AHK's menu via their website, I knew it was time to make a visit! We arrived just after opening on Father's Day to an extremely clean and welcoming strip location next to CarMax on S Semoran. Parking is a little busy due to the number of restaurants in the plaza, but we managed to get a spot in the front (plenty in the back though). The menus have a clean layout and are very easy to understand. AHK definitely leans in towards Poke Bowls (yum) but as mentioned, does offer other Hawaiian dishes not normally found in any other local restaurants. We were pleasantly greeted and given a sort-of private tour of the menu. My wife and I typically share our meal as we try to eat light throughout the day. We decided on a Poke Bowl and Spam Musubi (yes, spam is a must). Going down the line, our host put together our bowl as we requested our favorite ingredients. Now for the important part: how does it taste? Well, the first thing you notice is just how FRESH all the different ingredients look. The second thing you notice is just how FRESH all the ingredients taste! I'm pretty picky on my sushi and AHK passed the test. We used a little Unagi sauce on our bowl to add a little bit of sweetness that we enjoy with our greens, rice, and fish. Our bowl was a half/half of rice & greens, ahi, salmon, seaweed, edamame, mandarins, pineapple, corn, and crisp chow mein for a little crunch. One of the best Poke Bowls I've had! We concluded the light lunch with the Spam Musubi, which not only brought memories of Hawaii because of the Spam, but was also deemed a great deal for the size and price. To sum it up, the entire crew at AHK were super friendly, the restaurant was super clean, and most of all the food was delicious. Thank you AHK. We'll be back!

Update: When I visited, the front door didn't want to open easily. The staff was inside, but they were busy so i was a little confused. I called the phone number on their door and they immediately answered and said the door was open, but they've been having problems with it and it needed to be adjusted. I felt kind of silly as the door did indeed open with a little more effort. I wanted to point this out since I saw there was an incredibly unfair 1-star review because of this problem. Keep in mind, the front door operation is the responsibility of the property manager, which should sound a little closer to home for that reviewer. Let's help small businesses and not...

Above Orlando Airport. Delicious food, not really Hawaiian but more of a twist on kamaaina classics.

“Huli huli” means turn over and over, and in Hawaii,large pieces of marinated chicken are placed between two large racks and turned over periodically while cooking on a charcoal grill.

Aloha HK’s version of this is delicious, but has a whole different taste. My friend’s picky grandchild ate it all up though, so who’s complaining?

My friends had the pork lumpia, ahi katsu, crispy pork belly and Spam musubi and raved about the meal!

I had the macaroni salad and malasadas filled with haupia cream. Great flavor on the malasadas, they were very fresh and yummy!

Now the best mac salad in Hawaii, like from a church potluck, is made with Best Foods mayonnaise (aka Hellman’s)—-you can Google this. There is to be no sugar in Hawaiian-style mac salad. Furthermore, if you go to a family meal in Hawaii their macaroni salad will also have cubed potatoes, grated carrots, minced onion and maybe even crab in it. Some will add minced celery or olives, but that’s a bit out there. The “plate lunch” places will have plain macaroni salad, with only Best Foods mayo and shredded carrots. But it is supposed to be salty, not sweet.

Aloha HK’s version of macaroni salad was sweet with a strong presence of garlic and minced onions throughout. For color they’ve added furikake (foo-ree-KAH-kay), a topping for rice made of bits of nori, sesame seeds, sugar and sometimes bonito (dried fish flakes).

But the local community loves their food and I want this place to keep spreading the aloha so 5...

So nice I came back the next day

I really hope to see this place stick around in the area - wonderful vibe the kitchen is open you can see the workers grilling and how hard working they are

I came with a friend and we tried the combo and tuna, the mochiko sandwich, lumpia and inari

EVERYTHING was good, I was a little disappointed by the tuna but thats more because i felt like I could have done it myself and liked it - obviously we got a lot of food the chicken was my favorite each way

The huli huli chicken so yummy and moist the flavor was sweet

We left the sandwich for last and I was skeptical of mac salad it seemed unholdable - this is a sandwich that will make a mess the macaroni will fall out your hands will be sticky... Youll think wow im pretty full and now I have this chicken sandwich lets get it out of the way

The first bite left me in a happy place - if youre a foodie youll know the pleasure and dopamine of something sweet and spicy and crunchy and so incredible. We saved the best for last.

AND

The mac salad on top is no gimic! The sweet subtle cool mac salad calmed down the heat from the kimchi butter and provided relieve and variety in texture! Truth be told its the reason I came back the next day.

Now to overshare I came with a friend after a very long relationship ended and it provided me so much comfort and a delicious distraction from my life.

I LOVE ALOHA HAWAIIAN CHICKEN AND HOPE YALL STICK AROUND ❤️🔥

TLDR: GET THE KIMCHI BUTTER...