Going to Aulani -- Let's list places to eat

[MinnesotaChill]

Originally Posted by BCV23

We liked Monkeypods enough to have one dinner, one lunch and another carryout dinner.

Another vote for Giovanni's shrimp truck and the malasadas from Leonard's wagon.

We enjoyed an a la carte dinner and lunch at Makahiki. Didn't try the breakfast or dinner buffet there. Two in our family had appetizers at the Oleo Room and we've decided to have a light dinner there next trip. We had dinner and lunch at Ama Ama with mixed reviews. Great service for dinner, terrible service at lunch. Some things we ordered were very good but nothing worth the price at dinner. View was gorgeous, of course. We were surprised how little fish was on the menu at Aulani restaurants in general. Oh, and the breakfast sandwiches at the Oleo Room are quite good.

If you are headed up the North Shore, the food tour people said that Ted's shrimp is even better than Giovanni's AND-you get a free slice of their awesome pie. We got a whole chocolate cream haupia pie that was to die for. We took outback to our villa and ate it all week.

[dianeschlicht]

Yeah, what's with the lack of seafood at the resort? It's one of the reasons we went over to Marriott one night.

[LynnsGirl2027]

We ate the garlic shrimp at Teds and it was amazing. The shrimp was huge (no legs) real butter and shaved parmesan cheese. Yummy! (and it's true that you get a piece of pie for free with the garlic shrimp order).

We ate at MonkeyPod twice, Just Taco's once and Chuck's Steakhouse and Seafood (happy hour $5 mai tai's!), Roy's and Aloha Salads in Kapolei. All good recommendations!

We also spent one day doing Hawaii Food Tours - Hole in the Wall tour. I highly recommend the tour as it takes you to some of the places recommended above around Honolulu (Chinatown for lots of goodies, Liliha Bakery for Coco Puffs, Leonards for Malasada's etc.). The tour guides Matthew and Kiera were fantastic.

[Anal Annie]

Can't wait to try some of these places...I just got a gift card the other day that's good at Roy's...will we need to make reservations there??

[Anal Annie]

Oops! Double post!

[gatorgirl02]

Originally Posted by salemk

I recently came back from Aulani & we did the luau at the Marriott called Fia Fia. Hands down this is the best luau on the island. I thought the food was good. Most reviews would would rate the food from decent to very good which is way better than the food reviews for PC or Gemaine's and even the PCC. What seperates this luau from the other's is the entertainment. The chief is hilarious and is very engaging with the audience. There is some audience participation which leads to some great entertainment. The only drawback is the luau is only on Tuesday night. The show has a great location on the lawn at the Marriott which again is only 2 resorts down. Read the reviews on yelp & what people say about the show is spot on. It might be a little more expensive than the other luau's but it's well worth it so, call the Marriott about 1 month prior to the day you want to go to get a good seat.

Thank you so much for the detailed review! I actually booked about a month ago, since I wanted to have something (and thinking I could cancel if I heard bad things), but seeing as how we will be there next week, I am SUPER excited!

[BCV23]

Originally Posted by MinnesotaChill

If you are headed up the North Shore, the food tour people said that Ted's shrimp is even better than Giovanni's AND-you get a free slice of their awesome pie. We got a whole chocolate cream haupia pie that was to die for. We took outback to our villa and ate it all week.

LOL we stopped at Ted's for desserts to take back to the villa Next time we'll have to try the shrimp there, too. This trip we drove up the East shore in the morning so by the time we got to Giovanni's we were ready for lunch. In addition, two in our family had enjoyed it last trip to Oahu and wanted to go back. Someone posted that Mackey's is very good, too. Or is it Macky's?

Originally Posted by dianeschlicht

Yeah, what's with the lack of seafood at the resort? It's one of the reasons we went over to Marriott one night.

Yes, seafood but even more so just fish. Where's the opah, ona, mahi mahi, etc.? There were some selections but nothing compared to what I expected. I did have good monchong at Ama Ama.

Originally Posted by LynnsGirl2027

We ate at MonkeyPod twice, Just Taco's once and Chuck's Steakhouse and Seafood (happy hour $5 mai tai's!), Roy's and Aloha Salads in Kapolei. All good recommendations!

What did you enjoy from Just Tacos? We had carryout from there one time but I didn't care for mine at all. So unmemorable that I don't recall what it was. I will have to order more wisely next time.

[dianeschlicht]

We ate at Ted's at noon on our way up to PCC yesterday, and it was fantastic! DH had the crab and bacon sandwich, and I had the BBQ spare ribs. Both were amazing! Unfortunately, we didn't have room for the wonderful looking desserts! Oh, and Monkeypod Kitchen was very popular with the 3 of us. We kept trying to think of reasons to eat there. In fact, we cancelled 2 Ama Ama reservations and ended up at Monkeypod's instead. We really enjoyed Makhiki too.

[dianeschlicht]

Saw this cute guy on the sea turtle beach today. They rope off the area when a Monk Seal arrives because they are very endangered. I used my zoom though, and got a couple of really great pictures of him.


We also saw sea turtles in this lagoon 3 times.

Loving the art and decor around Aulani too.

[jforever52]

We just got back. Monkeypod Kitchen lives up to the hype. I would suggest saving room for desert and having their strawberry cream pie. The restaurant also had live music on both nights we were there. My family loved it.

Daiichi Ramen was also a big hit. We had so much food it was a dinner and a lunch for us. We ran into "auntie" from the resort while we were there. She said the locals eat here all the time.

The Marriott next door also has a sushi buffet at their restaurant called Ushio-Tea. It had some really good buffet options and since my DH can eat his weight in sushi it was a good value for us. Just the 2 of us ate there for a valentine's day date.

[Lisacope]

Wanted to share my foodie thoughts since I have benefitted so much from others!

Fri Feb 15: Our flight got in at 2:00pm so we stopped at Safeway on our way to the resort and bought groceries for Breakfast, lunch, drinks, and snacks, yowie, the total was $165!

I hadn't made any dinner plans for this evening in case of travel snafus but I was able to snag a ressie at Monkeypod across the street. This place is convenient and easy for when you haven't made plans but want a decent sit-down meal. The food is pretty good, the prices fair for the area and the service is decent. What a welcome addition to the Ko Olina area! We tried
the pizza, raw bar mixed plate, Beet salad, and the Bulgogi pork tacos

Sat Feb 16: The next morning we got up and drove to the Dole Plantation for Dole Whips, walked around a bit, fed the fish, and bought a
pineapple.Then we drove to the east side of the Island on H3 and then up the coast to visit a few beaches and then back down
to Kaneohe to Fresh Catch. The lady behind the counter was really friendly and encouraged us to try many samples of the poke
which was awesome. They don't just have poke, we also had a great BBQ pork platter and garlic shrimp. We didn't have dinner plans again so went back into Kapolei and ate at PHo808 (Same shopping center as Safeway)
Not the best pho but okay, reasonably priced, quick service

Sun Feb 17th: Sunday night we had a "Date night" and our DD12 had a hamburger and fries from counter service and DH and I went to Roy's at
the Golf Course. Really great food and service, awesome butterfish and sushi, had to have the chocolate souffle. I was impressed with how reasonable the prices were.

Mon Feb 18th: We drove up to the North Shore and visited the beaches there and visited Waimea Falls Park. This is a beautiful
botanical garden ending in the falls which you can swim in if you want. We had dinner reservations in Honolulu but were tired from our excursion so we cancelled them and ended up going to Azul at the Ihilani next door. From my Tripadvisor review: What a shame - this elegant hotel should have a
first class restaurant to match. Azul is set on the edge of a pond filled with Hammerhead sharks and Manta Rays. It's sad that this is the main attraction to eating here. The menu is a tired litany of cliched italian dishes. I had the caprese salad which was nothing more than ordinary beefsteak tomatoes and sliced grocerystore mozzarella. The lobster in the lobster fettucini was mushy and dry, and the sauce was watery and tasteless. My husband's Spaghetti Bolognese was also nothing to write home about - I was fuming when I saw the $230 check at the end of dinner.

Tues Feb 19th: We went on the Hole-in-the-Wall food tour of Honolulu (www.hawaiifoodtours.com) with Matthew Gray and his charming
assistant, Rachael. Be sure and use the zipper lane when coming from Aulani - it will REALLY save alot of time getting to the pick up spot, the Ala Moana Mall. This was really fun - be sure and book in advance, we visited a variety of authentic Hawaiian and asian eateries and chinatown and ended with a visit at Leonard's for Malasadas. Matthew and Rachael did a
wonderful job of entertaining us and providing history and culture information - this is great whether you are a foodie or
not, and these guys are great eating and entertainment resources.

I wasn't sure how we would be feeling about dinner after our tour so I had not made reservations so we ended up at Monkeypod
again, and had poke tacos, pizza, and peppercorn steak. Again, the food and service were reliable.

Wed Feb 20: We went on Wild Side Ecoadventures (SailHawaii.com) Morning Wildlife Cruise which was $115 per person, for 3 hours on water. This is about 40 minutes North in Waimea. We got to do some Whalewatching and snorkle with the Turtles which was fun. One of the tour highlights is
supposed to be getting to swim with the spinner dolphins but the boat was not able to locate any for us to swim with, but it sounds like from reviews that this does not happen often. Our crew did an excellent job and I don't think I have ever had a better experience snorkeling.

This evening we had reservations at Ama Ama. I had made this reservation with trepidation - last year when we were at Aulani we had eaten there and really had not been impressed - What a vast improvement from last year! The menu and food were excellent and the service was great! We had the big-eye Tuna and Sea Asparagus poke, heirloom tomato salad, Hawaiian Snapper,
Grilled Striploin, and the desserts were fantastic!

Thurs Feb 21st: We saved our last night for Nobu in Waikiki - this was the dining highlight of the trip! The food here is awesome, I had the $125 omekase menu which was amazing, and the service was so attentive and friendly - I can't say enough about this restaurant and can't wait to go back!

Fri Feb 22nd: Firday morning we decided to go to the Makahiki Character Buffet which was surprisingly good. As you are waiting to be seated
you have your picture taken with Mickey and then the pictures are available for purchase for $33. The buffet is pretty good with traditional western and Japanese breakfast foods, and really great character interaction - I don't know if it was because the restaurant was not very full but the characters seemed to take alot of time at each table and the "Emcee" who was playing
games with the kids and singing seemed to do a great job.

[Anal Annie]

So this has me wondering which places we can go to without reservations & which ones we can just decide to try on the spur of the moment?! Do Monkeypod Kitchen & Roy's take walk-ins and if so how long are the average waits? We do much better just deciding where we want to go & just going than we do being tied to reservations. And are reservations required for Ama Ama as well? So many places we'll want to try and only 7 nights to try them!

[Lisacope]

Originally Posted by Anal Annie

So this has me wondering which places we can go to without reservations & which ones we can just decide to try on the spur of the moment?! Do Monkeypod Kitchen & Roy's take walk-ins and if so how long are the average waits? We do much better just deciding where we want to go & just going than we do being tied to reservations. And are reservations required for Ama Ama as well? So many places we'll want to try and only 7 nights to try them!

We made reservations for Monkeypod in the afternoon on Friday for Friday even though it was quite busy - I use opentable.com quite a bit. I think you could easily get reservations at Ama Ama on the day you wanted to go there - there were empty tables around us. Not sure about Roy's - maybe you could check the day before? I think the weekdays are a little easier - and if you don't want a sit down place every day then you have alot of CS type places in Kapolei to fall back on.

[erikawolf2004]

Bumping this so it doesn't get lost!

[Susan2771]

Can anyone advise me on whether Roy's is a dressy and elegant restaurant? It will be our 10 year wedding anniversary during our stay at Aulani and I'm trying to find a restaurant near the resort to celebrate with the hubby. We are going to sign our girls up for the Surf's Up with Chip N Dale so we will have 3 hours to be able to fit in dinner and travel time. My husband isn't crazy about the idea of us dining off the resort and leaving the girls. If I can find a restaurant that is close by at least we will be able to focus on celebrating our anniversary for those 3 hours. I was hoping to find a restaurant that is a little bit on the elegant side with great food. It would be nice to dress up just a wee bit for our special night

If not Roy's does anyone have another suggestion for something close to the resort? We've only got the 3 hours to celebrate 10 years of marriage