Bistro Yokohama

Due to auntie’s illness this business has closed and unfortunately so… thank you for many years of good Japanese food and hospitality…

So sad. This restaurant was run by a husband and wife. The wife was the waitress, and she developed a terminal illness, yet she went to work up until near the very end. After her passing, the husband closed up and returned to Japan to be near family.
So, now I understand some of the recent poor reviews they got. What emotions they must have been going through those last months. Rest in peace Obasan, and I wish your remaining family well.

Small portion but very tasty dishes.
Some menues are not available.
Ramen only available during lunch

A cute little japanese place in downtown Kona, at first it seems that you have to sit traditional style but there’s a big hole in the center of the table, so don’t be afraid to sit in the back.
The Butterfish is damn delicious, probably the best thing they have on the menu. It was a bit sweet but that was to be expected. If you get the dinner special, you get a small salad, a glass of sake and ice cream for a few dollars more than the cost of the butterfish.
The opakapaka was not bad, but pale in comparison to the butterfish.
The tonkatsu was dry and disgusting, don’t get it.
Good service, nice staff, nice décor.

Thanks to Unilocalers who led us here! It’s in the back of a mall past Sushi Shiono with plenty of parking in the back. We went at 8 pm on a Thursday, and there was only one other table there.
However, we trusted in our fellow Unilocalers and got a table. We both ordered the $ 30 dinner special, which allows you to choose any of the dinner entrees along with a glass of plum wine (strangely served in a martini glass), small bowl of string beans with sesame seeds, Japanese pickles, miso soup, and ice cream. Since the butterfish entrée is $ 23 by itself, we figured that the $ 30 special would be worth it, and it was! The butterfish (a.k.a. black cod) melted in our mouths as promised by previous reviews. I wasn’t sure what to do with the pile of mayo served with it, so I just ignored it.
We also got the sashimi dinner entrée since we were in the mood for sashimi. We received 5 pieces of hamachi, 2 salmon, 3 tuna, and 3 squid. The fish was fresh although the salmon was served between lemon slices and was «cooked» by the lemon acid, giving the fish a different texture than what you expect when getting sashimi.
We thought we didn’t have room for ice cream, but it turns out that we did. The green tea ice cream was creamy and rich. We really wanted to try the coffee ice cream but were warned that it did have a good bit of caffeine in it, and we didn’t want to be up all night.
The service was prompt, laid back and friendly. I wish our waitress would have taken some of our empty side dishes as they were still on our table when we were eating our ice cream.
Overall, great value for the area.

First off I would like to say, «Mahalo for da’ aloha Unilocal reviews» of this spot. Took my family there for dinner due to the outstanding Unilocal reviews. The service, food, & price were EXCELLENT!!! We loved it so much, we went back on our last night for a pre-​flight dinner. We’ll definitely be back!
** The location is in the middle of the Alii Drive corridor. You can’t see the place from Alii Drive, since the location is in the rear of a shopping complex. There is a sign but you might miss it (as we initially did) since it’s mixed up along with all the other businesses. There is FREE ample parking in the rear.
As many of the reviewers stated, there is an absolutely delish dinner special which includes glass of plum wine, salad, string bean appetizer, miso soup, choice of a dinner entrée, and choice of ice cream desert for $ 30!!! I got the opakapaka (sp?) as my dinner entrée… awesome!

Wow yummy deliciousness! You have to hunt a bit to find the place off the main street, but its well worth it.
They have a set menu with miso soup (good), salad (average), cold veggies (very good), a glass of wine (yay wine!), and a main course… heaven. (oh and a scoop of ice cream for good measure thats actually pretty yummy!). You get all this for 30 bucks… woo hoo!
The famous dish is the opakakapaka. Yeah not sure if I spelled it right but its fantastic. It is steamed with a heaping pile of green onions and ginger and a perfectly seasoned sauce. The butterfish is also incredible. Grilled and lightly marinated it melts in your mouth.
The owners are Japanese and arent the most english savvy but yet they have hired charming locals to wait on you and our server was super friendly.
Highly recommend the place particularly for the value!

When one is on vacation and has to contemplate where they should dine when on vacation, what does one do? Oh, go on their trusty smart phone and pull up the Unilocal app. After all, why bother troubling the hotel concierge when you have a data plan and a wealth of knowledge at your fingertips?
Well a friend and I decided that we were going to have Japanese for dinner and after deciding on a place in my head that I had been to, I began to second guess myself. After all, it has been a while since I last dined there and my Unilocal reputation crumbled around locals previously when I mentioned the establishment. So, I hopped on my phone and came across this little gem… Bistro Yokohama. After some careful driving and hunting we found this restaurant to be a pleasant delight and were quite impressed by its offering.
The menu features a good array of local style Japanese food that showcases the local ingredients with some traditional cooking methods. The dishes are served izakaya style (plates to be shared) or individually. The hamachi sashimi that was on special when I went was quite well done. The fish was fresh and flavorful while being expertly cut. The sushi was well done and beautifully crafted.
I chose to dine on the opakapaka which was a dish that caught me off guard. It was a good sized fish and once you get past the dangers of the bones that are on the fish, you are treated with the reward of a very well done dish. The opakapaka is beautifully cleaned and carefully steamed Its then topped with a healthy layer of green onions and ginger which would at first glance turn you off with thoughts of having to cringe at the bite of the ginger and dealing with the breath of onions. Yet both didn’t happen. Instead I was treated with a careful balance of flavors complemented by shoyu (soy sauce) that made me want to lick the plate clean.
Service can be on the slower side, so plan to order quickly when you get there. There appears to be only one server for the restaurant and I can imagine that can become slower on busier nights. However, the wait is definitely worth it and the staff were incredibly friendly and helpful.
The ambiance is casual and unpretentious. Simply put, it is local. I saw tourists and locals alike merging seamlessly in this little oasis on Alii drive in what can best be described as tourist territory. Definitely worth all the troubles and you end up with one of the best meals I’ve had on the island.

Best food I had on the Big Island. Located inside a mall on Alii Drive. Wish they do more to improve the ambiance. Thanks to
all the tellers tip, we got the miso glazed butterfish which was sooo amazing! Allowing us to appreciate why it is called the BUTTERfish. Sooo good.
Also got the special Akapapaka which was also amazingly good. We used up all of the sauce with our rice.
Not the cheapest the entrée runs around $ 20 and they do serve alcohol. Service was good we came around 8.45 and they were patient enough to let us take our time to order. It seems like they now hire an English speaking waitress so you can ask all you want about the menu.

On our honeymoon in Hawaii, and while we did splurge a little bit on fancy shmancy restaurants, I don’t think that really has any effect on my disappointment in this restaurant, but as the rating said. Wasn’t disgusting, but meh. I’ve had better.
First thing you should know is that when you just intend to go to this place, know that there is parking in the back. Don’t drive to the pay-​per-​park. It’s not worth it.
The butter fish was something that my wife ordered. I should have gotten it too. People on Unilocal were saying it was awesome and after I took a bite out of it, I would have to agree. If I had gotten the butterfish, I think I might actually have rated this 4 stars.
However; I was the one that got the steak. The steak was sad, dry, and fatty. a third of the entire thing was basically chewy and gross. The vegetables were difficult to swallow, and I seriously needed to eat them with either the fish my wife ordered or with my steak. Very bitter.
The ambiance was that of what you’d expect out of a typical small business sushi joint [with no sushi bar] But the place was quiet, so quiet that you can’t help but eavesdrop on other people’s conversation. I’m pretty sure they guy sitting behind us was some sort of pimp. «How do you feel about a nurse outfit» haha.
Altogether, the restaurant wasn’t bad by any means. But the steak really didn’t do it for me :(

Get the butterfish… you won’t regret it! It tasted buttery with a teriyaki flavor. We also got the Opakapaka which had a delicious sauce that we kept putting on our rice. We got the dinner special $ 30 per person, which included Plum wine, miso soup, some Japanese vegetables, 2 main entrees and dessert.
Very friendly owners (older Japanese lady and her husband). It was sad because they are in the back of the mall and everyone seemed to go to other places but not this one. We went on a Sat night around dinner time and it was only us and one other couple. If you are in Kona, you should check this place out.

Its ok Japanese food. And honestly when compared to the price, I don’t think its good at all.
But hey, I’m from Japan and I live and work in LA where they have good Japanese food for cheap.
I guess for Kona, you can’t complain.

Delicious dinner — yummy opakapaka fish with ginger and green onions. Good miso soup. Good rice ball with a small bit of fish inside.
Tucked away towards the north-​east corner of the shopping complex — if you’re on Ali’i drive, walk north to Lava Java, then turn right and walk straight in.

Great food + sweet host. I love the place
we started off the meal with tomato salad (our waitress recommended it). It was good but it was way over priced ($ 7: photo updated). we ordered miso mackerel. it was an appetizer which i think the portion was big enough to be an entrée in itself. I was surprised with this sweet taste miso dish but it was good. I love our steam fish entrée. The fish was fresh and very well seasoned. it’s similar to Chinese steam fish. but given that Yokohama cuisine is always influenced by Chinese, i’m completely in it!

Mizu onegaishimasu? Haha I love the cute and sweet Japanese lady that works here. She let’s me practice my Japanese =) The $ 20 butterfish here is amazing. Sweet, sticky, and smooth. I would suggest the $ 29 dinner course special which includes sunomono, appetizer, choice of main dish, and ice cream. Go for the kona coffee. mMmm I can taste and see the crushed coffee bean pieces in it.
They let me order the butterfish for lunch too even though it’s not listed on the lunch menu.
The last time I saw zashiki seating was in LA so this was a nice change. This is the type of seating where you sit on the floor. You need to take off your shoes before stepping onto the platform. Watch out if you’re wearing stilettos. It is somewhat Americanized because they have a drop down area under the table for your legs. Traditional ones don’t and you can just cross your legs.
Plenty of parking in the back, no need to park in the lot down the street.

Good Japanese food in a convenient tourist location with lots of nearby parking lots.
The steamed opakapaka with green onion and ginger was fantastic.
Service was good.

Butterfish smoother than Brown’s at the Fairmont. The most generous opakapaka. The freshest eel, and thick slices of sashimi.
Bistro Yokohama was the most heavenly, unexpected, and delightful meal on the Big Island.
7pm on a Monday night. A sad-​eyed Japanese lady and elderly gentleman stared at us from the empty restaurant. We hesitated to enter despite good Unilocal reviews. Thank goodness when locals came and filled two tables in five minutes.
Our hostess offered us a table immediately, and promptly filled our orders. Every bite of our melt-​in-​your-​mouth butterfish, broth-​cooked opakapaka, lean but super hot pork katsu, and thick, fresh eel with Japanese rice and miso were cooked to perfection. See the pics!
Prices were reasonable (around $ 15/​dish). The only caveat is that parking was difficult to find, though there is a lot behind the restaurant complex that houses Bistro Yokohama.
Tourists all fall for the pricier sushi trap a few doors down, when authentic Japanese food await at the #1 find during our Big Island visit.
Don’t be deterred if this place is empty, as its location at the end of the strip mall has less foot traffic. And if you’re sitting there, exponentially more diners will join for the perfect meal. Definitely hope to come again!

We wanted great japanese with local flare and we found it! Everything was impeccable from the service, to the food and sake. Seems like a family establishment run for friends. Our server was super sweet and helpful. She suggested the most delicious entrée: opakapaka — red snapper steamed in soy with ginger and scallions. It was part of the pre fixe that came with miso, salad, dessert and a drink. Rounded out the meal with some nigiri and tasty spicy garlic shrimp.
Will go back and you should too. Only surprise was the complete lack of crowd. We had the place to ourselves while every tourist trap is crowded, noisy and unoriginal.

This was our first meal on the island after driving around town trying to find a place to stay in because we were not happy with the reservations that we made before hand.
We came in starving! Luckily we were the only customers at the time so the food came out pretty quick. Even though we were pretty hungry we thought the food was okay.
We ordered the chicken katsu that was fried with onion and eggs over rice. My bf ordered the regular chicken fried with eggs and onion over rice. The sauce that was with it tasted pretty sweet. Overall, nothing stood out from our meal. If you’d like something fast and easy to eat then this would be a good choice!
We probably should have tried what they were more known for, which is their opakapaka.

I almost don’t want to review this place because it was just so nice and empty and peaceful and the food was fabulous.
The people who own and work at this restaurant are super nice Japanese people, and the place has very cute clean décor. It was just us (non-​Japanese) and another Japanese couple in the restaurant. The service was very prompt and one of the owners came out to chat with the Japanese couple in Japanese, so it seems like a nicer, not quite but almost slightly upscale place to visit if you’re a Japanese person travelling.
Given others’ recommendations, we tried the dinner special with misoyaki butterfish and the opakapaka. We weren’t feeling super adventurous because most of our food on this trip had been mediocre to downright bad and we just wanted to have a nice meal for our last day there.
The little tomato salad in ponzu with some sort of pickled onion was one of my favorite parts. The fish was so fresh it was amazing. Opakapaka was a little oily, but since it’s Chinese-​inspired like Stephen said earlier, that’s somewhat to be expected (Chinese food is often about infusing the flavors of food into oils by cooking hot and fast), and it was delicious nonetheless.
Recommendation: If you’re in Hawaii with some romantic partner who loves authentic Japanese food (someone who knows there’s more to Japanese food than teriyaki and sushi rolls), take them here. I really, really doubt you’ll be disappointed.
On the off chance that I’m back in Kailua traveling sometime, I’ll be coming back here, otherwise I’ll always remember it fondly.