Lobster King

Server’s attitude weren’t bad, and she didn’t make us wait for long time BUT…
She recommended lobster and noodle set menu, but it was little pricey so we ordered smaller lobster ONLY.
What she brought seemed very big lobster, and she said she’s going to bring noodle soon which we didn’t order. We told we didn’t order it, but she said we did.
We refused and she soon put dishes away without apology.
The worst thing happened during the payment. She tried to take receipt from us before writing tips, WHICH MEANS SHE TRIED TO WRITE BY HERSELF.
Seems she thought we’re tourists and can rip off from us, however we’re locals and won’t ever come back again.

After reading the comments from other Unilocal reviews, we had lunch at Lobster King. We arrived at 11:30am with my list in hand and was greeted with a friendly wait staff, especially for our waitress, Sonya and entire wait staff. She was most helpful with our selections; total of thirteen (13) dishes (entrees, noodles and side dishes) to choose from. Finally ended up with the Roast Duck (crispy skin & juicy); Sizzling Black Pepper Beef (tender), Seafood Cake Noodle (crispy and enough sauce to cover entire dish) and Sauteed Szechuan Eggplant with Minced Pork. They were ALL cooked to perfection and seasoned just right.
Almost forgot to thank the other reviewer on the heads up on the Kim Chee… EXCELLENT too! It was really, really good that we ordered a container to bring home.
Thanks to the Unilocal reviews, we had a fine dining experience.
Mahalo!

A friend of mine gave me a gift certificate a while back but found it while it was just over a year old by a month. I called to see if I could use it but the lady on the phone said I couldn’t because it’s expired. I did mention that Hawaii State law says it’s food for 2 years but she said no they don’t follow state law, they private business. Okay not a problem then, I’ll go eat someplace else.

Didn’t know it has new owner with some Korean dishes. It was very crowded around 7:30p with many tables of large parties, including several Korean tour groups. Services were slow not the wait staff faults as they were all working very hard doing their best. Food was ok not as good as I remembered, probably won’t go back again. I’ll find another Chinese restaurant for lobsters and seafood dishes.

You don’t treat people like this. That is, if you have any respect for them.
We got there at 6pm and the place was packed. Asked for a table and were not given an estimate on the wait time. Instead, we got a number (4), and told to sit right next to the person in charge of seating people. We were told the wait was short. A moment later, #3 was called, so we expected to be next. But after that, party after party were being seated — we assumed they had reservations. So we waited 15 minutes patiently before asking for an update. Again, we were not given a specific time, but told the wait would be short.
We waited another 30 minutes before asking again, and we were given the same garbage line — just a short wait. We finally split, but not after waiting for 55 minutes! If we had been told the wait would be nearly an hour, we would have left then. So we went to a Korean restaurant across King, got seated immediately and had a great, quick and cheap dinner.
Lobster King spoiled our evening, and just because they wanted to string us along, trying to get every dollar they can. That business model won’t work with me, that’s for sure.

I’ve been dining at Lobster King ever since it opened at the corner of Keeaumoku and King Street, so I am very, very surprised that I haven’t typed up a review for this restaurant (I actually thought I did one).
What separates Lobster King from other Chinese restaurant is it offers a large variety of seafood dishes that you won’t find elsewhere, and many of the seafood selections are fresh from the tank as it has a small seafood store right beside the restaurant. In addition to Chinese cuisine, Lobster King also offers several popular Northern Chinese style Korean dishes that you see at the two nearby restaurants, On Dong and Eastern Paradise. One of the perks of this place is that it has a decently large parking lot that is free.
On this instance, I came with my grandparents for lunch. We ordered:
Roast Duck with Rice ($ 8.95) — The portion was a lot larger than I expected. Over half the oval-​shaped plate was filled with rice with many, many pieces of roast duck. The good pieces too! It was definitely more than a pound of duck. It also came with choy sum. The duck was lean and meaty, and moist and tasty. The skin was thin and semi-​crispy with no fat what-​so-​ever.
Tokyo Pork Chops aka Capital Pork Chops ($ 13.95) — This is my grandfather’s favorite dish. We always order this wherever we go, and this was one of the better ones to date. The pork was very moist, tender, and prepared very well. The sauce was tasty and had the perfect balance between sweet, sour, and savory. It was not overpowering, and had a nice consistency. Another thing I liked about this dish was it came with peas and carrots (frozen variety, of course), and sliced onions. The vegetables really lighten up the dish and cuts into the sourness and richness of this dish.
Jajangmyeon ($ 8.95) — I personally had to order this because of the terrible experience I had at On Dong, which you can read about here:
The main point I made about this dish was I felt a Chinese cook would prepare this dish correctly since it is a Chinese originated dish with Korean flavors, and Lobster King fits the bill. And I was right! The Jajangmyeon is infinitely better here. The sauce had excellent flavor and fragrance. It was filled with mostly minced pork and some cabbage. The noodles were good too! Prepared very well.
The service is all right. The female servers seem to be much friendlier and attentive than the male ones. The food came out pretty quick as well.
Overall, this was a very good experience with good food. I’ve been here many, many times throughout the years (close to 20, perhaps?), and I’ve always had a good experience most of the time. Even after a bad experience, I still return. You can’t go wrong with so many fresh seafood selections on top of an extensive menu.

Just gonna get straight to the point.
We had a reservation for 6:30pm and got there on time only to find out they had no table for us. Instead of letting us know they messed up, the host/​who also looks like he could be the boss told us it would be a ten to fifteen minute wait. Not sure they hold up to the definition of a reservation.
If this guy was a little bit less rude to us I’d probably give them another star.

No thank you.
The Oyster (sashimi) is not clean. I saw a worm on my plate when I just finished eating one. I asked the guy about it, but he didn’t say anything and changed my new plate. Of course I couldn’t eat anything else while my friends didn’t know what happened. This morning, my friend told me he got stomach painful after we left this restaurant. I doubt that the food is not clean that is a reason. I scare this place and never never never come back.

Not much to say but we wanted to order and none of the staff even acknowledged us. We were sitting there for a good 15 minutes and we just decided to take our business elsewhere.
I say if you cannot even retain a customer to even try your food, you shouldn’t even be in business. I don’t think I will ever be coming back just on pure principle.

What to expect…
Expect it to be busy. And knowing this, we only come here when we find ourselves already in town on a weekday after 8:00 p.m. Around this time, we don’t need to wait to be seated for very long (10 minutes tops).
What not to expect…
Do not expect good service. Because they do get pretty busy, they will not always tend to your needs. We once had to ask for our fried rice 3x because the rest of our entrees were already out on our table. Don’t people want their starch out first? I don’t know, but we do.
The food…
We always order the typical chinese dishes — like walnut shrimp, sweet sour pork, or some kind of veggie stir fry. If we’re not feeling fried rice, we would order jajangmyeon. Though I’m giving Lobster King 3 stars, the food is a solid 4 stars, which is what will keep me coming back.

Will start off by saying this place used to be good. I will give them the benefit of the doubt that food was sub-​par because they were busy. But the food took forever. And we were not the only ones complaining. The table next to us were causing a ruckus with the manager. Seems like they waited even longer than we did and they had two little hungry kids.
Seafood chow funn had zero flavor, zero color, zero appeal. Jajangmyun is usually my favorite here. It was salty and if I’m saying it’s salty, it is considered inedible by normal standard. Sad to say we had a ton of leftovers but didn’t bother to pack any of it.
The second star is just cause when I asked they turned down the air con from arctic blizzard cold to comfortable.

Because our expectations were low we gave this place a chance. Our first two dinner choices were either way too busy or closed for a private event.
We waited less than 10 minutes for a table when they were obviously packed. After the servers took turns checking on those of us walking in the door to see whether we wanted take out or a table, eventually they handed each of us each a number scribbled on a torn off little piece of paper. It seemed to us that had they not been paying attention then it would have been up to us as the guests to be honest about who came through the door first. They were so quick about checking on newcomers that my husband didn’t even realize we had been checked on. I had to stop him from interrupting a server to tell him we wanted a table.
It was myself, our 3 month old, and my husband. I asked for a table for 2. Just prior to seating us the woman in charge said I should have asked for a table for 3, however she was assuming I wanted a third chair. I explained that we only wanted two chairs because our baby is still too small for his own seat.
As we followed the woman and meandered through the tight fitting tables where seemingly every seat was occupied, we suddenly came to a halt because our table was not clean. She shouted at a couple of employees with urgency to clean off the table and apologized since we should have to meander back to the front and wait. We didn’t mind. It was a busy place and the service was at maximum speed with the full house in effect. We got to watch many pleasant smelling dishes go out to the tables and had extra time to look at Unilocal photos to help us decide what to order.
Our table was in a corner so once we were seated it was a trek to get to the restroom. Even though it was nearby I had to walk halfway back to the waiting area because of how tightly placed the round tables were in the main seating area. There is only one restroom stall for women and one for men. I went three times because of the necessity for clean hands with a brand new baby. Knock before entering. Two of the times there wasn’t a waiting line for the restroom and the occupant failed to push the door completely shut. I then became the start of the waiting line. At times I saw three women friends go in together because there’s hardly room for 2 people to wait just outside the door.
They ran out of plastic reusable cups and served us water in a red solo cup lol It is what it is and we found it amusing. A hot pot of tea and two tea cups was placed on the table without us even asking for it. My husband asked for a beer on tap and they only serve bottles.
We asked the server for suggestions on sauce choices. Based on recommendation from him we ordered:
— Fresh clams with black bean sauce.
Get a side rice because you’ll want to finish all of the sauce! The clams were tasty fat ones. Spicy slivers of fresh red peppers are everywhere and I ate them all up!
— Fresh steamed oysters add garlic
Literally a heaping pile of minced garlic on top of each oyster. Large oysters. Tasty! Any garlic that fell off I promptly added to my bowl of rice with a little juice from the oyster plate.
— 1lb live Lobster add on for $ 13.95 with salt and pepper
It’s messy. That’s what the basket of spare napkins on the table is for. It is time consuming. It’s tasty! I had fun using my teeth to further crack open the hard to reach leg meat pieces. That was a first for me. Just be brave and bring forth your inner child.
We asked for a side of Kim Chee and rice. We asked again after all of the food came because the server forgot. It was understandable because it was chaos in there. Just be patient and don’t hesitate to raise your hand if you need something. I learned that from my bold and very outgoing Chinese grandmother.
Overall the flavors and the fresh seafood for the total price of the bill was worth it! Under $ 60 for lobster, clams, oysters, side rice, kim chee, a beer and a pot of tea.
We will be back.

A friend of mine told me that the seafood jajangmin was really good here. On Dong was packed and Eastern Paradise is closed on Mondays so I decided to try it here. Big F@(#% mistake. I ended up spending almost $ 40 dollars on the worst bowl of jajangmin and tangsuyuk that I have ever had in my entire life. I couldn’t even finish half of my food and i can eat anything.
There were a couple of huge shrimps in the jajangmin but there was also big chunks of squid and imitation crab which did not taste good with the sauce which was horrible.
The tangsuyuk was not cooked long enough and there was no meat in there and the sauce was bland. Not sweet or sour. It was a big pile of gelatinous batter with no flavor.
I don’t like giving crap reviews but people need to be warned of this place. The service was ok but the place is overpriced and the food is shitty and in my case, inedible. Not a good combination.

Lobster King is always a solid choice when we’re looking for reliable, tasty family style Chinese food.
Their lobster is nice and juicy — not too salty like a lot of places! Also, they have good Jjajangmyeon and we always really like their roast duck, pork eggplant, beef chow fun and walnut shrimp.
It’s usually pretty crowded, especially at dinner time, so allow extra time for service.

Place is a typical Chinese family style restaurant. Many actual Chinese and South East Asian families swear by this place, which is a good thing. So expect the typical raucous atmosphere that naturally occupies the attention of its servers. So based on that there is no reason to be shy, you want something? You get the attention of your server and make it happen… no restaurant wallflowers here, or you’ll naturally think service was poor when it’s really not — they just maintain a different standard than other local places…
The food is very good actually and obviously, as the name implies, they do lobster and seafood well — in a variety of ways like fried, salt and pepper, black bean, garlic, etc. The price is great and you can get a full lobster for as little as $ 12 if you purchase a dinner entrée. So very reasonable!

I am mad for lobster and crab and I eat almost once inevery 2weeks. Even by looking at them I can tell their weight. Of course not exact pound but I know whether they are 1, 2, 3,4 lbs. My hubby and I eat usually 2lbs each. We knew we cant eat 3lbs each. So we ordered 4lbs lobster but when food came. It was only 2lbs. This Korean waitress even brought out a live lobster to the table for us to take pictures and we thought she brought only one of two lobsters but our dish was only served with one lobster of 2 lbs. They cheated us the weight of the lobster and I was very unhappy with their honesty. We basically paid $ 60 for one 2lbs lobster. We were even full at all and had to grab a bite at another place.

The big draw to Lobster King is the ability to add a $ 11.99 lobster to every main dish. You order 4 main dishes, you can add 4 lobsters. Food is meant to be eaten family-​style, whether it is noodles, an entrée, or a vegetable dish.
We tried the Green Beans with Pork, Chicken Chow Funn, Sizzling Oysters, Kau Yuk, Eggplant with Pork, and a Black Bean Lobster and a Ginger-​Garlic Lobster. None of the plates were standouts. All of them had similar flavor profiles, suffered from heavy handed cooking and swam in cornstarch gravy. The saddest part was the Chicken Chow Funn was cold, the noodles hadn’t had long enough in the pan, so they told us they would microwave it for us.
If you do go, they have unusual menu items like sea cucumber and frog, can host large groups and have plenty of parking.

2 stars… could’ve been 5 if it wasn’t for the lady behind the bar. She was a b****. I wonder if «customer service» even exists in her.
First of all, yes I know u guys were busy, I’m happy for that cause the food is awesome and any other waitress or waiter are nice. But she had to ruin it for ALL.
I ordered take out and came to pick it up. I asked the lady if I can have more sauce on the side cause the sauces and the garnishes were not even half way full. And then she tells me. «That’s enough for the food» no b***h I want some more. At least a sauce container full. I told her «I need more» then she makes that noise with her tongue like it’s such a hassle for her to go get a damn sauce and garnishes because it was less than half way full. What kind of customer service is that!!!
On top of that, I thought she came back with at least a container full but nooooooo now she came back with half full of container… oh em gee… what was the point of her going back to the kitchen? So she can give me a pinch more!!! Omg I was furious.
I was so mad that I just left. I would come back because of the others, so hopefully I don’t get her AGAIN. Her customer service was Horrible!!!

Some good Chinese food! Decent portions and tasty. That being said, appalling service. For a while, the good food made up for their lackluster staff. When we couldn’t take dealing with them, we’d only phone in orders for pick up. Now we’re tired of them either getting our orders wrong or the kitchen failing to receive our order at all. The past three times there, they only then started making our order when we showed up — even though we phoned in the order 30minutes earlier.
The food is good, but pack some patience. Three stars because I’m feeling generous.

Sometimes I feel like I’m not much different from Pavlo’s dogs because they salivate at the sound of the ringing bell due to the association of the bell followed by the presence of food. So when lunchtime rolls around, I start to salivate at the mere thought of my favorite food from Lobster King: roast duck on rice. Nom nom nom… Yes, the place is called Lobster King but I go there for their roast duck and a handful of other dishes when l do allow myself to indulge in a Chinese feast.
I am a fan of Lobster King even though some may not be. Disclaimer: I’m in no way related nor affiliated to the restaurant, the owners nor the employees. In addition, I have not received any special treatment nor discounts in the all the previous meals I had from them in past. I tend to go by my taste buds and what I like to eat there so I can’t speak about the entire menu. IMHO, I think LK is a good, solid Chinese restaurant and it’s quite nice to have the addition of some Korean dishes since one of the owner is Korean. LK is normally crowded during lunch and dinner hours and I’ve seen their repeat customers. They must be doing something right to stay in business for the past 4 years.
Whenever I contemplate on the aspect of a good Chinese meal, I’d start thinking about which of these traditional Chinese restaurants I’m going to chow down at: Fook Yuen, Golden Duck, Happy Garden, Ken Fong (bummed it’s closed for good), Little Village, Lobster King or Pak Ke in Kaneohe just to name a few. I will continue to frequent LK simply because I never had any bad food nor bad service from them. LK is still one of my favorite Chinese restaurants for some lunch dishes and specifically, their DUCK. I Love, Love, Love their duck! I knew I was on the right track as soon as I saw their walk-​in duck oven when they first opened the restaurant. The duck is so tasty, so flavorful and so yummy because they marinate the meat so well. You can see them making duck on the premise daily.
Beyond their flavorful duck, I also enjoyed the following menu items: XOXO soup — the broth is delicious, savory and I really liked the taste of dried scallops mixed with the look fun noodles. Then there is house fried rice, it comes out steaming hot and absolutely delicious. The dried beef chow fun is my staple noodle dish I usually make sure I don’t forget to order. The salt and pepper pork chops are good with a nice crispy crust while my to go seafood dish is their clams cooked in black bean sauce. Clams are plump and not overly salty which makes this dish perfect with cooked, long-​grained white rice.
However, I’ve had their lobsters and though I love lobsters, this is not my favorite place to order Chinese style crustaceans. I prefer Fook Yuen’s tastier decapods. Not a fan of their walnut shrimp either. I find it a little too sticky due to the mayo. When it is done right, it should be lightly crispy. Overall, LK is where I enjoyed going for my traditional Chinese meals.
I never had a problem with parking and always found a spot to park whether for lunch or dinner. Some would say their customer service is on the low side, but I have always had good service from the staff. They’ve been very accommodating to me and they usually let me sit in a table other than the one they’ve shown me. The service I received have been attentive and un-«rushed». The Korean lady/​owner is friendly, gracious and smile frequently; she does go out of her way to make you feel welcomed. I wish the Chinese guy/​owner would follow this lead because he can be (and is usually) standoffish.