This page is for archiving comments from 2007 for Ohana Hawaiian BBQ.
2007-10-30 02:09:28 A thoroughly disappointing non-option for vegetarians, unless smoothies count as a meal for you. —AlexMandel
2007-10-30 08:47:37 Their chicken katsu is pretty good, and you get a lot of meat. But, the average price of most meals including tax reaches $7.00 flat. I guess this isn't too pricey on its own, but it's not cheap. —JustinBaker
2007-10-30 10:32:57 They have one by my house in Monterey Park and it's usually packed at lunch time. I love their volcano chicken. —CarlosOverstreet
2007-10-30 15:18:47 The food is so-so, and there seems to be a problem with flies buzzing around the place. —MichaelMurray
2007-10-30 17:23:05 Volcano chicken is amazing. I found it throughly enjoyable and better than Teriyaki Express —EmilyTung
2007-11-01 23:51:01 Just tried the volcano chicken from the Davis location yesterday. Maybe it was because there was a long line, but it seemed like I had smaller portions than at other locations and the volcano sauce was cold and came in a seperate cup that I had to pour on the chicken. At other locations, they pour warm sauce over the chicken katsu. I'll try another plate before I decide to pass judgement. —CarlosOverstreet
2007-11-04 09:56:45 i wish they had the "mini-meals".. other hawaiian bbq places offer smaller portions of the meals for about half the price.. i can usually never finish a full meal and would get the mini meal.. but they dont offer it =/ —shawtee
2007-11-04 21:26:15 The food is pretty good. Go with three other people and get the family meal for 25 dollars. It's a whole lot of food for the price. —TamDo
2007-11-07 12:26:01 dude this place blows ass man bring back the teriyaki express dawg ohana is ass garbge t-rex for life smoke weed —ohanadildos
2007-11-07 13:35:43 This place sucks! I hope I can hold down the food long enough to add my comment. All I had was some deep fried, nasty, breaded, meat-like substance with a sickeningly sweet sauce. The steamed rice was easily the best part of the meal. Never again! —CraigP
2007-11-07 14:53:07 Ordered the chicken katsu because it was recommended to me by a friend. I threw it out after a couple pieces...and I'm not even picky! It was greasy, fatty, and made me feel ill. I normally don't post negative comments about restaurants because I know everyone has different tastes, but eating here made me nauseated for the rest of the day. It was SO terrible. Just so horrendously terrible. Oh! and since when do hawaiians forego veggies?? Macaroni salad, rice and fried chicken??—even KFC offers you a corn on the cob option! —JillWeinstein
2007-11-08 15:47:39 I agree with Jill this place blows n shady as well. Dman chicken karage is nasty. Also there's this tall guy made a smoothie and when he put it on the counter he spilled the whole thing,not ONLY THAT, he scope the smoothie back into the cup, and then stalled for a while. and pour it back into the blender and blend it and gave it back to my friend. he thought we didn't see, but we just pretend not to see n see wat that guy would do.... man, and their food are just mediocre as well, n its hella expensive
2007-11-08 16:19:08 Initially I had high hopes for Ohana BBQ coming to town. I thought that it would at least have more variety than Terriyaki Express. But I was completely disspointed with their food and their service. At least at Terriyaki Express before, they had nice managers that were friendly, even though their food didn't have that much variety. But Ohana BBQ has variety, but all of the food is the same. It's dry, some of my beef was burnt. I thought that there was at least some sort of vegetables inside, but all i got was some macroni salad. After eating a few bites, i couldn't take it anymore. Everything was just meat meat and more meat. And the meat wasn't very good either. I'd rather go to the korean restaurant downtown, at least their meat has some sort of flavor and it's not so dry. I miss Terriyaki Express...Ohana is another example of a big franchise company that has taken away the smaller owner restaurant atmosphere and serves food so mechanical and so tasteless. In reference to the last guy's comment about that tall shady guy working there, i can attest to what happened. I too saw him spill the smoothie all over the counter, and then used his bare hands to swipe the smoothie back into the cup. He hesitated and stood there staring off into space wondering what he should do, and then he decided to give that away to a customer. How much does a smoothie cost? he did it front of everyone. That's so nasty!! I think this happened like the first day or 2 they opened. —sarahnewman
2007-11-08 17:30:16 not terrible but pretty close. The food was not tasty at all. The pound of food bowls are basically a pound of rice. And when i went there was about 50 flies in the room. Teryaki express never seemed to have such a fly problem. Just plain nasty. —MattHh
2007-11-11 12:10:07 Contrary to most, I like Ohana so far. I order the Kalua Pork and its good. Prices could be lower, but usually Hawaiian food places are on the higher end. We just wish they had Teriyaki Chicken on the menu. On a funny side note, when we went there for the first time my boyfriend asked if they had Kalua Pork and the worker said, "No . . but we have Kalua Pig." —MissL
- That is funny. "Kalua pig" is what the locals in Hawaii usually call it, maybe he was from Hawaii...to local ears, "kalua pork" might sound a bit like calling a cheeseburger a "hamburger sandwich with cheese" haha. —DukeMcAdow
2007-11-11 13:29:45 i wish they had vegetarian options!! —JessicaRockwell
2007-11-16 13:00:44 I was pretty disappointed with this place, however, this was the first time I had hawaiian bbq. I might just not like the type of food entirely. —GregMediati
2007-11-18 00:54:06 Eating here is a nice alternative to eating food at the Old Teahouse. BUT, I think it's safe to say that alot of people are just not as satisfied with this place as they were with Teriyaki Express (the previous tenant). Just think about this: For $7 you can get a plate of bbq chicken with no sauce, two small scoops of rice and macaroni salad with Ohana; For $5.25 you used to get a plate of bbq chicken with a lot of tasty sauce, a serving of rice equivalent to two full sized rice bowls, a salad and an orange wedge with Teriyaki Express. —PatrickSing
2007-11-18 00:54:54 Oh and I also forgot to mention: Now you wait 5-10 minutes to get your food with Ohana; used to be you waited 1-2 minutes to get your food with Teriyaki Express. —PatrickSing
Why you even comparing dis wit Teriyaki Express??? Dis NOT japanese food. It's Hawaiian! Get it straight! A 5-10 minute wait is noting, especially wen you stay getting freshly made stuff! - BT
2007-11-18 11:15:31 pretty lame excuse for a hawaiian bbq place. its probably the worst ohanas i ever ate at. L&Ls should have moved in instead. —DonaldJaye
2007-11-18 11:23:50 Let me tell you, my supervisor bought me lunch here and I got MONSTROUSLY ILL! It may have been because of the bulk production (we catered) or something else, but I got major food poisoning! BEWARE! —ArianeMetz
2007-11-18 13:25:41 Seriously bland food. There was a lot of it but it did cost 7 bucks so I would expect it to. The macaroni salad was a pleasant surprise at first but then the sauce turned out to pretty much just be some mayo. The thing that really sealed it for me is that I am getting my "for here" meal in a Styrofoam box. One of my favorite parts of TE was that it was a fast food place that gave you your meal in a real bowl that was washed, not thrown away. It really annoys me when people waste pointlessly like this. If the food was amazing maybe I would change my mind but it didn't impress so I doubt I will ever come back here. —CraigFergus
2007-11-18 21:06:18 craigfergus,
EVERY hawaiian bbq place serves their meal like that. —DonaldJaye
then so much for that style of food-CF
2007-11-18 21:12:34 I prefer L&L but it is far away- there is one in Fairfield and one in Sacramento. —KenichiSan
- There are actually several in Sac, some of which are listed on the Hawaiian Barbecue page. I'm on the fence between Ohana and L&L. My staple is the chicken katsu, and the past few times at L&L it's been pretty dry, whereas at this Ohana it was wonderful. Still, local beats driving out any day. I do have to back to check if they have the mochiko chicken here; don't remember seeing it on the menu. —KevinChin
- There is an L&L by the Ikea in West Sac. which is pretty close by if you have access to a car. ScarlettYing
2007-11-19 13:40:49 Horrible. Do not order BBQ Chicken - it's a stringy gristly mess. —TamBell
2007-11-19 17:37:49 Their food is so-so. Shady looking place, but then again, some of the shadiest places in the world have wonderful food... This Ohana location lacks flavor. The BBQ Chicken is scantly marinated and the macaronni salad has less flavor than the rice. 3 out of 5 stars. —CarlosOverstreet
2007-11-20 17:27:53 Ono Teriyaki is waaay better (check my profile for more info!) —ArianeMetz
2007-11-26 22:04:35 No offense to those veggie diet people, but what does "BBQ" entail? If you go to a place that has that as a store title, expect MEAT. Not all places offer a veggie menu. People that expect a veggie menu to be offered at a "BBQ" should go to a fast food place. The food isn't bad, but I'm not a big fan of hawiian food myself because the first time I had some, I had a violent stomach ache and I've never had a liking for hawaiian food since.
The place is new and is doing alot of renovations and getting better as the weeks go by, its getting better bit by bit.
However, if you expect a high class place, you are mistaken as well. Flies will be a problem anywhere because of rain and the cold weather. If you don't believe me, leave open your front door for 30 minutes to an hour and your home will be invested in flies. The place isn't high class, but you've got to admit: get your money's worth even though if you don't like so much meat in a meal.
Just don't go into the new place with high expectations and you're expectations will be met. Shiet, what do you expect when its main competition is Old TeaHouse? —Wamisu
2007-11-26 23:59:26 I went in a few weeks after they opened. I was the only one in there, yet they screwed up a very simple order, and were incredibly confused when I brought it to their attention. I'd ordered the pork bbq dish with gravy, and a fish taco. I got no gravy on my pork, and fried prawns. It took some time to convince the owner/manager of what I'd ordered, even with the receipt. Once he understood the problem, he bitched out the cooks in what sounded like Vietnamese. Food-wise, the pork was dry and flavorless, and all they offered for substitute gravy was some generic teriyaki sauce. The fish taco was terrible - an overly breaded piece of very pungent mystery fish crammed into a dry corn tortilla with some kind of sickeningly sweet "tartar" sauce and some cabbage. This place has potential, but it'll be a long long time before I'll try it again. —ChrisLambertus
2007-12-02 21:29:27 I found that the shrimp taco was decent and I liked the BBQ chicken. For the price it was not half bad —DonGibson
2007-12-08 17:17:45 I'm seriously laughing at all the people complaining about a lack of vegetarian options at a Hawaiian BBQ place. Only in Davis. —SeatonTsai
2007-12-09 02:14:45 This place was terrible. The prices very expensive. I ordered the Hawaiian Roast Pork Combo. The Macaroni salad was warm and had too much mayo. The pork was mushy, greasy, and nasty. Most of what they gave me were huge fat globules which I had to discard — every bite tasted like lard. My friend had the bbq chicken, and it tasted better. I'd avoid this place unless you're very curious or unless you want to shorten your lifespan by a few years. Go to OT next door if you want a rice dish. —CalvinV
2007-12-18 14:39:31 The food isn't bad and the portions are huge. Volcano chicken is by far the best dish. —CameronTracy
2007-12-18 21:40:16 I don't understand why you can't accept greasy and lard-ridden food for what it is. This is a much better replacement than Teriyaki Express (that stuff was seriously sketch) and really hits the spot when you're drunk/high and looking for something nice and fatty. And those of you who think L&L is better than this place is ridiculous. I've eaten both at L&L, Ohana, and Ono and all three restaurants taste the same. —EmilyTung
2007-12-18 22:54:27 all you guys who stay looking fo vegetarian food ... GO SOMEPLACE ELSE! Local kine grindz (fo us island boys) NO MO VEGETABLES! Dis place stay as authentic as you can be fo being ontop da mainland. If you guys no can handle one plate lunch - 2 scoops rice, MEAT, an one scoop mac salad, no even tink of coming to Hawai`i fo visit. You not goin appreciate da culture dea anyways. Fo all of you guys who like da grindz, come ova an try da REAL TING! I know, some of you guys goin say, "Ho, no listen to Tenn cuz he no can even talk good english" but at least I stay from da islands an know wat local kine food supposed fo taste like. You guys from da mainland have no clue! Ohana folks, tanks fo coming hea! Yo curry katsu is real ONO! Tanks fo bringing a small piece of home to us local boys up hea on da mainland. —BrandonTenn
