Kanpai Bar and Grill

Hawaiin pigeon :
Ho! used to have one of da best onolicious braised short rib loco moco on da island! Ovah deah heard that the chef dem no mo… maybe da kine keep the recipes! Not! No mo get da kine braised short rib? Kitchen is kinda junk now. They still get choke tv for da games. From now no need come go for football with no mo’ notting air con and junk food.
Translation :
Hey Kanpai used to have one of the best tasting braised short rib loco moco dishes on the island! I heard that the chef and his staff all left… maybe Kanpai kept some of his recipes! Unfortunately they did not. They do not even serve a braised short rib loco moco anymore? My loco moco with an overcooked beef patty and coagulated gravy was awful. Actually everything I saw did not look that appetizing. They still have lots of televisions for each game which is a plus. I came for Sunday football, but it was way too hot without air conditioning. I would come back if they had good food, but otherwise I can get a cold beer and a tv almost anywhere.
Loco Moco: A local Hawaiin favorite. Traditionally a beef patty on rice, brown gravy topped with 2 eggs. Great anytime during the day.

Kanpai! I think this means Cheers or something. Kanpai is great. The TVs are strategically placed so that you can watch many games at once. They serve late night food and breakfast buffet during football.
Sunday morning football is good here. They open in time for the start of the early games and have the TVs clearly marked so you know which one will be showing the game you want to watch. The breakfast buffet is ok, I would prefer a more traditional breakfast made to order. My only grip about watching football there is that it’s freezing cold. I have to wear layers just to be comfortable. Not sure why they don’t open the garage doors in the morning.
The service is very good. Parking is decent with a few spots in the back. Biggest grip is the bathrooms are upstairs and shared with the sushi place next door. By the second drink I’m really looking for the elevator.
They do take reservations for big parties, which makes it a good place to get together in groups. Regular food is very good, I suggest the steak and the garlic chicken; but i also like the kim chee fried rice.
Kanpai!

The food is OK here. They offer $ 5 food items during happy hour. Our group ordered all of the $ 5 items. Nothing really stood out and I never got second helpings of those items. Their pizza needs work – start with a better crust. From the regular menu, we ordered the kim chee poke and their nachos with beef. I think I might start a list of fave nachos spots. The Kanpai nachos are not bad – our crew ate it all… There are constantly daily specials.
The 4 stars is because of the friendly and helpful staff. I like Amanda – cute and offers awesome service. The bartenders are super cool too! The owner can usually be found at the bar, but she doesn’t appear to engage the customers.
Bar is spacious with TVs all over. A great spot for watching sports! Not many spots on Oahu are better for sports…

After volunteering at the Goodwill Goes Glam! sale at the Blaisdell, a bunch of us decided to grab a bite at Kanpai. It was the only place we could think of that was in the area, could accomodate 15 – 20 people, would be open and might not totally suck. Can we say VOID IN THE RESTAURANT LANDSCAPE? When I told folks we were going to Kanpai, across the board I got a «Huh? Where’s that?» (insert weird look). I hadn’t been there in at least two years, so it wasn’t surprising that it had faded into the back of the minds of my fellow Unilocalers.
We found street parking and grabbed seats on the lanai. It was about 1:30 pm so Kanpai was not very busy and I think we caught them a bit off guard. Translation: We didn’t think it was going to be busy so we only have one person working. The bartender became our waitress and took our orders.
ME: «What’s the best thing on the menu? What should I order?»
BARTENDER: «I hate when people ask that question. It’s not like I’m going to say, don’t order that it sucks.» (laughs)
ME: «Uhhhh okay. But seriously, what’s good here?»
And then he decided to leave and give me more time to blankly stare at my menu. It’s not that I can’t make up my mind, but most of the reviews were pretty old and I’m someone who doesn’t want to order sucky food. And biz owners, you do not want me writing a review about your sucky food on Unilocal,right? Help a Unilocaler out!
In the end I decided to order the honey BBQ wings, pork chops with onions and fried rice. I would have ordered the kim chee fried rice, but they were out of kim chee. My wings came out pretty quickly and were just what I needed! They weren’t over cooked and had a generous amount of sauce slathered all over them. If I was a chicken wing, this is how I would want to leave this world!
The rest of our food however, did not come so quickly. In fact, it did not arrive until we asked our server where it was and found out that it had inadvertently been given to the other side of the table in some weird food mix-​up. They fired up our order but we ended up taking it home at the end of our visit because we had to go to another event. I blame YOU Thomas O! But it’s okay because my pork chop made for really good leftovers the next day.
Our bartender asked if we wanted anything else and I replied…
ME: «A knock knock joke!»
BARTENDER: «Oh I got one. You go first.»
ME: «Knock knock!»
BARTENDER: «Who’s there?»
ME: «Oh son of a…»
(Everyone at our table laughs)

I’ve been to Kanpai lots of times, but only during late night hours. The other day was my first time there during their 4−7pm happy hour. I was having dinner with my aunty and their happy hours deals were pretty affordable.
Ended up having onolicious garlic furikake chicken, chilled tofu, and edamame, along with some rum and cokes. I would definitely order those same dishes again, especially since all the food came out to less than $ 15. Woot!
My only hang up is always the parking. Although there’s the lot behind the building, there’s rarely ever parking when I try to go there. Boo :(

Lately, Kanpai has been our go to spot for last minute get togethers. The dart boards occupy the boys, which let’s us girls gossip and catch up with each other. It gets crowded on the weekends, but tables usually free up in less than half an hour. My friends and I usually order fried rice and furikake garlic chicken, which is good enough to satisfy our late night food cravings. Service is generally ok, but we usually order our drinks from the bar to get them fast.

I meet up some classmates high school for some HH and pupus one night. I never been here before but friends was telling me that the food good, good selection of beer, and cool little place too hang out.
Dam never think I would be following my cuz review on Unilocal.Yay Traci! The parking not agree MORE it flat out suxs! Say less then ten spots so lucked out found one first time around. You can park across the street and walk over if the lot is full. I went HH the place was not that packed so could have conversation, catch up, and relax good time good friends. The restaurant is small so when it gets packed sure pretty loud and not the best place too catch up with friends.
The food was good! It four of us so ordered four pupus. The two stood out for me was the Kim Chee Steak with friend egg of top. Kim chee, steak, and fried egg some of the three best things in life. It comes on sizzling platter like fajita so great knowing that everything going too stay hot and juicy! Three items but compliment each other perfect!
The pork chops another winnah. It breaded with panko crust and serves with sauted onions on top. It fried too perfection on the outside, moist on the inside, onions nice touch, and dip it with some ketchup. Side street Inn pork chops got some competition. I would be psyched with either one.

Kanpai is one of those bars that never really gets old. It makes for a great meeting place bc of its central location. It’s also pretty big, so great for larger parties and get-​togethers.
One thing that I used to go here for was the food. However, I’ve recently noticed the decline in quality and presentation. :(I still love the pork chops x 100 though. The crispy and crunchy exterior is hard to forget. It’s something that will keep me coming back again and again, even if it does look slapped together or just thrown on the plate. The crunch gets me every time.
Kim Chee Fried Rice:
Shoyu Ahi Poke:
Restrooms are upstairs, which is both dangerous (for drunkards) and slightly inconvenient. But, at least there’s more than one stall! Not the cleanest, either… But if you gotta go, you gotta go.
Service is usually very consistent and attentive. They have pretty cute (girl) servers for the most part, so even if there’s an eff-​up, it’s really hard to be/​remain upset. LOL.
I find that it’s pretty dangerous to drink here. You’ll more than likely bump into a few people you know who will send way too many shots your way. Believe me. It’s happened one too many times before. I barely made it to the next spot!
Unilocal 365 — #311/​365

I’ve only been here once. It was mega crowded due to a UFC fight being broadcasted, but how cool is that? Beers, good food and live UFC!
Fortunately, my friends and I found a table. They ordered the kali-​bi with kim chee on a sizzling platter. It came with the kim chee and an egg sizzling on the platter. Weird with the egg thing, but it was tasty! I had the saimin with kal-​bi. Tasted great and the addition of kal-​bi instead of another meat such as Spam in the saimin broth was creative, in my opinion!
There is a wide selection of beers for a local bar. I minused one star for these reasons — crappy parking. Very limited space and if you must… you have to illegally park across the street at Sports Authority and pray that your car doesn’t get towed. Also, the bathrooms are upstairs. So, after drinking beers and having a bladder the size of a kidney bean, I felt like I was on the Stairmaster™ the whole night. The hallway to the bathroom also looks creepy and seedy.
Otherwise, great place to have food, appetizers, drinks and good friends.

I came here for some grub and drinks one night with some friends. It was definitely crowded, thus we were eagerly spying on people to try to grab a table that was opening up. One of the awesome servers came by and graciously helped us get a table together! Though it did take a while for the table to be set up, after we sat down, nobody waited on us! We asked for menus and for a waiter/​waitress, but eventually one of my friends went to grab menus for our table and it was nearly 20 minutes before someone paid attention to us. It took so long for service that we missed all the happy hour deals… not cool, kanpai, not cool.
Food wise, we ordered the garlic chicken, yakisoba, fried rice and garlic fries. The food was delicious and yummy with the beer.
Overall, pretty good food, pretty chill environment… service is hit or miss though. I think i’ll stay away for awhile, just because of the service experience.

I am definitely a BIG FAN!
Its a great place to hang out with your friends and have some drinks. I dont know how the menu goes. But I am stuffed right now.
We had this fried chicken, grilled chicken and kim chee fried rice. It was the best. Sooo good! My favorite is the appetizer fried chicken. I cant describe the flavor but the chicken reminded me of Karaage Chicken with sushi roll sauces. Thats how I would describe it. It was soooo good. The grilled chicken was made just right. The chicken meat was not too dry and very moist. SO SO SO good.
Gave the waitress a big tip. She refilled my drinks and also kept giving us clean utensils. The food was soo good, I was in the mood to give a good tip.

It was the evening of the Elton John concert and we were searching for a place to have a pre-​concert dinner. Asahi Grill and California Beach Rock n Roll Sushi were both packed. So we walked into Kanpai and at first it looked like we could easily get a table, until we realized that all of the empty tables had «reserved» signs on it. But, we flagged down one of the waitresses and she was nice enough to search for an open table for us and grab us some chairs. She gets an «A» for effort!
Unfortunately, the food did not score as well as our waitress did.
Fried Rice — bland. Needed shoyu
Pork Chops — decent, but nothing special. Lacked taste as well.
Kal Bi — very tasty and tender, but the portion was really small.
Fried lumpia — these were the best thing we ordered. Served piping hot! Woohoo
The worst part was the drunk man sitting on the table next to us who started to pound his knife in the table because the waitress didn’t come back with his change. and then he threw the knife on the ground. One of the employees came by to talk to the guy, but did not kick him out. I think he was even served another beer after that. Why? I would have thrown his a** out. He could have seriously hurt someone.

This is a good place to come right after work for a nice relaxing atmosphere. They have good food and carry a lot of different beers (both domestic and foreign).
Few reasons WHY Kanpai doesn’t get 5 stars is because service isn’t their strongest suit. You have to wait for a long while before a server comes to you and another long wait for your drinks/​food to come AND another long wait for your server to check on you to see if you’re low on water/​booze.
Although this place is a good hangout it is definitely not a place to go if you’re looking for a place with some good service.

Kanpai is one of my group’s backup watering holes that always seems like a good idea and usually never disappoints.
They recently updated their menus and boosted their selection. Long gone are those index cards attached to metal rings. Hale-​luuu! The servings are great for groups; planny for share wit everybady.
We normally order the 12 oz Garlic Herb Steak/​Ribeye cooked medium among 3 – 4 people and it’s perfection! The meat is very tender and perfectly flavored with their concoction of garlic sauce, herbs, french fried onions and served on a bed of sauteed onions and mushrooms.
It doesn’t come with rice but I would actually have this with mashed potatoes. I know this is Kanpai and not Cheers but hear me out. It would almost be like Steak Diane except the sweet pan demi gloss is replaced with garlic herb juice. Sound like a plan? Well somebody better bring some take out mash from Kincaid’s down the street because it’s on!
If that’s too much of a stretch, ordering a basket of garlic fries does the trick. They’re crinkle cut (my least favorite) but their starchiness is more than made up with the amount of garlic permeating these spuds.
Recently, I ordered the Fried Mac N Cheese thinking it was going to be just like Cheesecake Factory… Don’t do it. I was totally wrong. Often replicated, never duplicated is the saying I think. After having a couple, Nicole K. and I unloaded them on David C.‘s plate while he was away.
Now to wash it all down. Drink specials are pretty good, like Nicole mentioned… they have $ 3 Buds until they run out… That may soon change as the state plans to raise its can/​bottle fees.
Hope to make a UYE here… seems like a pretty good place for one. Kanpai!

I will be coming here EVERY time I’m in Hawaii. AND I recommend this place to EVERYONE!!! We came here with 20 people on a Friday afternoon — service was excellent and the food was AMAZING. Everyone loved everything they got. I can’t even recommend a single dish because everything was so awesome!
Portions are generous, ingredients are fresh and yummy, and the service was great!
I can’t wait to come here again!

Service was great. The guy that served us was really nice and always kept refilling my fruit punch, yumm!
The food was ehhhh… I’ve tasted way better.
Then after, I heard that the owners changed to come other place/​restaurant and took their really good chefs/​cooks with them and thats why the food isn’t so great anymore (as so they say).
I had a loco moco, it was decent :) I have no complaints on the loco moco. The nachos could have been better though.

This is actually the 2^nd time I’ve been here. The first time it was pau hana so it was very busy and loud. We had to jockey for a table and seats, plus I was pregnant so I couldn’t drink alcohol and my food palette limited. Thus, didn’t really enjoy myself at that time.
Fast foward a year and half to last night, a Weds, 10pm, came here with a big post grad group and ordered a bunch of food/​drinks. Not pregnant and queasy, I have to say the food was very good and plentiful, not bad for the prices. I really enjoyed the rib-​eye and pork chops. The blackened ahi was pretty good too as was the garlic fries. Other notables were the bacon wrapped shrimp and kal-​bi.
It wasn’t busy prior to our group coming in (and our group did make up a significant portion of the crowd) however, the service was very slow! Not sure why, as there was at least 3 waitresses there. And our waitress was kind of frazzled as she was hesitant to make separate tabs understandable-​big group, but our request seemed to freak her out. And she took someone’s credit card for a tab but didn’t take their order AND didn’t come back! Someone had to go back into the kitchen and order. She was truly absent for most of the night, again for reasons unknown except for poor service. Other waitresses attempted to step in and help us but it was already the end of the meal. This reason alone is why I’m holding back 1 star. My recap:
Pros:
–Free parking, lots of street parking
–Good food and portions; I personally like their food better than Side Street (I know sacriligious to say that in Oahu) and it’s cheaper.
–Reasonable prices
–Easy atmosphere
–Lots of space (if not pau hana or some major sports game)
Cons:
–Inconsistent (or non-​existent in our case) service this night. Could be because we were a big group??? I don’t know giving them a benefit of the doubt, but I’ve been to other places with big groups and had servers who were PROPER.

A popular spot for groups and beer lovers, but it’s not a place I would regularly frequent for drinks. I’ve been here a few times and their mixed drinks are always on the weak side. I’ve noticed it being especially weak on Mondays (it’s happy hour all day/​night). I’d like to taste the actual vodka in my vodka/​soda.
On a couple occasions, my friend Lil and I had left the place without even a slightest buzz: we both had at least 5 – 6 vodka sodas and 2 chilled vodkas each… yep.
On the plus side, their Braised Short Ribs Loco Moco and Kim Chee Rib Eye Steaks are delicious!
Unfortunately, we happened to have a going-​away drink-​fest on a night where they ran out of food! It was the original kitchen guys’ last night working, so they didn’t have enough food in the kitchen (waitress mentioned something about them only bringing in a limited amount of produce since they were closing down). A lot of the tasty menu items were not avail (fried chicken gizzards, poke, pork chops and ahi belly).
Here’s what we were left with:
SPICY GARLIC CHICKEN $ 8:
Should be renamed «Korean-​Style Fried Chicken.» It was a bit soggy and has always been too sweet for my taste, yet I keep ordering it hoping it would be different the next time around. There’s nothing «spicy» about it but it goes good with alcohol, lol.
KIM CHEE RIB EYE STEAK (12 oz for $ 17, 16oz for $ 23):
Our 16 oz portion came out sizzling hot and topped off with a good amount of tasty kim chee. The 2 sunnyside-​up eggs was a nice touch even though one arrived broken (yolk was cooked out onto the hot plate).
FYI: The steaks continue to cook on the hot plate, so order your preferred doneness wisely. My friend Jon wanted it «bloody rare» but some pieces came out med rare to med well. I prefer med rare so it was perfect!
FRIED RICE $ 8:
Another dish that arrived with 2 eggs, nice! I call this the «kitchen sink fried rice» because it was packed with so many things. The mixture of chopped veggies, bacon, spam and portuguese sausage makes this a filling dish.

Haven’t been here for a while but when the fiancé mentioned coming here for lunch since we’d be in the area I said «hell ya!»
When we walked in it was moderately crowded with people watching ESPN. We sat ourselves at a booth (which was awesome because on both ends there was a flat screen so no matter where you sat you could see the game) and decided to order the pan fried ahi belly again and the kimchee rib eye steak with an overeasy egg. At first we were going to go with this other rib eye steak that had garlic chips and some other things on top, but when we spoke to the server she said the one we wanted was good but she liked the kimchee rib eye better because when you pop the egg it falls into the sizzling platter and cooks it. I was SOLD!
The food came out in 10 minutes or so. The ahi belly still came with three pieces and it was still as amazing as when I first got it. Then for the show stopper, the steak! What a perfect merge of flavors with the steak, kimchee on top, and then the egg on top of that, which really does ooze down onto the sizzling platter and cook it. It was great. I was fighting the fiancé off for more pieces.
I like that a restaurant, over time, is still as consistently good as when it first opened. From the get go their food was awesome, the kitchen didn’t need any time to get out the kinks because there were none. I will definitely try to come back more often.

Well going on a Saturday I figured oh okay it’s going to be crowded and service was going to be barely existent, Well that was not the case on the service, the service was excellent the two waitresses were always coming around checking up on us, now that’s a change and even though yes they were crowded I couldn’t complain about the service.
Well we ordered up a storm and our selections of Garlic Chicken, Tofu, Crispy Chicken Gizzards, and The slow Braised Short Rib Loco Moco came pretty quickly for a crowded bar.
Even our beers were appearing before even finishing our train of thought after ordering.
My Wife and her cousins were downing several kinds of shots which seemed to get back in so short of a time that it seemed almost like the waitress just got to the bar and just picked them up I couldn’t believe it.
I have to say the Service on my first visit was very impressive, even to the point of the our main guest of honor who came in from California got his favorite drink brought to him as soon as he got to the table the bartender remembered him from before at a different bar he used to frequent.
Well now on to the food I was so impressed by the service which never happens to me at a bar and to top it off the food was great!
Although the food is a bit better at Side Street the Service more than made up for it. The Slow braised Short Rib Loco Moco was very tender
and flavorful and was great, only thing I would have changed is my ordering of it I should have gotten sunny side up on the egg instead of easy over My mistake.
I typically like to get Chicken Gizzards much to the disdain of my wife who always cringes when I order that and tells me that’s ALL yours!
Although true to what it says Crispy Chicken Gizzards the crispy comes from the batter it is deep fried in. I thought that the batter was a little much towards the end but initially it was pretty good with the Chili sauce it came with.
Okay Everybody’s favorite the Garlic Chicken was pretty much a hit with everyone and kept disappearing so I barely got a few pieces on our numerous bowls.
The Chicken was tender not overcooked and the garlic was not overpowering like some places although I like it a little strong it was good.
There were so much dishes that I was getting full but of course I had to get a few pieces of the Pork Chops and the Ahi Belly
the Pork Chops were juicy and covered in a load of onions not bad, the Ahi Belly though was nice and fatty tasted excellent.
Okay should I even have to mention the Tofu well it is uh tofu from one of the tofu factories on the island, well I should at least mention the toppings which was a generous pile of grated ginger and sprinkled heavily with furukaki they weren’t being tight here.
Let’s get on to the Parking, it is a small lot that is filled very early so almost forget that. but like most people they just park on the street or at Sports Authority across the street.
I have to say it was a pretty good experience and the night went great.
I hope that the next time we come here it is as good of a experience as our first.