This is going to be a mixed review... I came here on two occasions, and the difference was night and day! The first time I came here I absolutely loved it. I came on a Friday night when they were doing the performace. They offer special combos on the nights they have performances, from a limited menu. We got the taro chips with pineapple salsa, which was really tasty. They also had a nice drink selection, with some good tropical blends. I had a stir fry type plate with beef which I really liked but could not finish. Their egg rolls were also good, but different from the typical egg roll. My friend got the mahi mahi dish, which he also liked. The atmosphere was cool with Moai statues (made of plastic) lots of palm trees and other Hawaiian accents, but not as cool as it looked online. The show was ok, they took a different perspective than I was expecting, but still pretty funny. It was not accurate to the Hawaiian culture like I was assuming it would be, but the performers did a good job. The service was ok, but I was not very impressed with our server, she was not terribly sociable or outgoing.
As for my second trip here... well... it was so bad, it was funny. It was the last night that the groupon was good, and they said to expect delays. Ok, understandble. But the atmosphere was completely different this time. Crowded, but very quiet and unlively. I don't mind having to wait for food to be made, and I understand when servers have multiple tables to attend to, but we sat over 30 minutes without meeting our server, without getting a drink order, just... sitting there. And it's not like we saw a server checking on the other tables either, I had rather come to believe it was a myth that there even was a server. I came with my mom this time and was raving about my last trip. Boy did I look foolish. We ordered drinks and did not see her for another 20 minutes. And we were ready to order then, but she walked away before we could. I couldn't remember what I had ordered previously, so I described what I had, and she told me there was nothing like that on the menu... Ok, big help. Not. Finally when she returned from the depths of the kichen, where she had been spending most of the evening thus far, we placed our orders. As I looked around, I noticed that this was the case for all the diners. A young couple had left the place laughing about how bad the experience was. A family to the side had a crying child, no surprise, seeing as how they had probably been there for the better part of two hours. Finally after another half hour goes by the food finally comes. I find out the server put in the wrong dish... I wanted the beef version but recieved chicken. I don't eat chicken, at all. She explained that they often give servers the wrong plates for the wrong tables, so she would see if this was the case (classy). Alas, they had made the wrong dish, and it would be an astronomical amount of time to replace it. I was not about to spend another agonizing hour wasting my life away here, so my mom and I traded. She had a vegetable dish with breaded shrimp. I was barely able to eat it because it was so disgusting. The shrimp was the greasy, chinese takeout heart atack in-a-box type of shrimp, yet it was twice the price. Overall, it was a horrible trip. Awful service, awful meal, and even though they completely screwed up my food, I had a groupon, so no room for discount.
If there is anything I have learned, if I ever went back, it would only be a night they were doing a performance. But even then, the service is mediocre. The food was much better the first trip, but be warned, it is more expensive than it is worth. I don't mind spending more money if the food and place is worth the trip, but in this case, that is not the case. read more