The Beach House

We were at the beach house for Valentine’s day,
Fabulous food and service,
I can’t thank jay enough for a great evening.
He let us sit relax and enjoy the view and our drinks.
Great dinner with appetizers and fresh catch of the day.

Beautiful sunset. Make reservations early and wear sunscreen. The view was great but it was sweltering at the table. The food was average. Service was swift. But the ambiance can’t be beat. A beautiful venue for a special occasion.

Just had Valentine’s Day dinner there. It also happened to be our 40^th Anniversary.
We had had a reservation for more than a month. Showed up a half hour early expecting to hang out at the bar. Instead, I was shoehorned immediately into a bad table, slammed against a raised bar wall above while my wife ducked into the ladies room. When she later asked to be given better seating, there were empty tables, the waitress replied that those were for people with reservations… Duh? Also, they had assured me that they were going to escort her to our table, instead she was stuck waiting 15 minutes… She’d checked the bar area and was puzzled as to where I was…
The slow cooked pork appetizer disappointed. It tasted bland. The wife loved her ahi Caesar’s salad, 4 generous seared ahi portions. I had a great lamb sirloin — she had a disappointing «Valentine’s Day Special» seafood medley with 5 medium-​small pieces of shrimp, 2 large scallops which she gave to me (that’s love) and a cold and thawed small piece of crab leg accompanied with so so risotto — advertised with mushrooms, barely any, used as flavoring. The local kale was the highlight of that dish. Lesson: don’t ever order their «Special.» She felt her mediocre $ 49 «medley» was subsidizing my generous lamb dish at $ 38. Desserts were OK. She had a cocktail. Light on alcohol when she could have used it. Service was inattentive; appetizers arrived well before the drinks.
All in all not a great way to celebrate a 40^th Anniversary. And, folks, Kauai is just not an epicurean heaven so we’re giving up the quest. Stick to farmer’s markets, the Fish Express, the Koloa Fish Market, or the Kauai Pupu Factory. Wife says she hates eating out if the food doesn’t make her heart sing. She enjoyed her Cioppino at Gaylord’s immensely more, though it came out in too shallow a dish and luke warm. At least at Gaylords, there is no bad seating… And, they have the best Mai Tai on the island.
Any other night we would have walked out rather than accept the seating. But it was 8:30 pm on a Sunday; we were captives. Maybe they thought we were tourists like it says on Bubba’s teeshirts? We are not; just new residents who will not be back. This place has aloha in word only.

Classy restaurant/​bar on the water. Great for sunsets. Good service.

Definitely recommend a meal here if you’re in the Poipu/​Koloa area.
(Late December 2015)
5Star view & ambiance: right on the water, awesome sunsets (best time to come but, be sure to make a reso early).
4Star service: friendly, timely & efficient, knowledgeable.
3−4Star food: Wasabi crusted Ono was fantastic! This is a must-​try if you’re here; the lobster tail was mediocre (tough, maybe even previously frozen).
Also came to the bar one evening just for drinks: 5Start view (looks out over restaurant diners from a slightly higher level); 4Star bar service (attentive & friendly bartender); 4Star drinks (decent martini).

The restaurant ambiance was amazing. The food came out timely, and was very filling. The servers were very nice. The attire seemed to be of a business casual type.
However, there was one guest that kept taking flash photography during our meal. It was extremely rude, disruptive, and unprofessional. She could have easily stepped out onto the porch, and snapped all the photos she wanted of the sunset, and wouldn’t have bothered anyone. Instead, she decided to take the photos directly from her seat. This meant her flash kept lighting up the entire room. I asked one of the servers/​water fillers to ask her to stop, and she seemed to stop for a moment, but like any adult behaving like a little child, she kept going with her flash photography. I eventually flagged down our waiter who called the manger over.
Not only did the manager not do anything to stop this disruptive and rude behavior of hers, she said she was welcome to do it. Extremely unprofessional. The manager offered to re seat us (why should we have to move because this woman refuses to act like a grown up?), but the flash photography wouldn’t have been any better seated elsewhere. The manager was extremely unprofessional, and needs to be spoken to by someone higher up the chain. I will never eat at this restaurant again, until some basic manners and respect are shown in a restaurant that has the steep prices, and fancy appeal that this one does. Very disappointing.

Just had dinner here tonight and came straight home to write this review.
I’m giving this place the 2 stars for the following reasons. Without these 2 reasons, this place would get zero stars if that were an option presented to me.
1. The beach front location can’t be beat.
2. One of the best ceviches I’ve had in a restaurant.
Now let’s talk about why I’m annoyed. We decided to come here for our last dinner in Kauai before our flight home tomorrow. We thought we’d treat ourselves to a nice dinner before leaving. I had high expectations for this place.
We came in and went to the front desk and was greeted rather apathetically and they wouldn’t even look me in the eye or my face or the vicinity in which they were speaking to me.
Then we were seated and waited a few minutes until our server Merv or Mervin came to us. He wasn’t friendly and even felt like he wished he wasn’t working… that’s nice. We decided we should order our drinks and appetizers because we had a hunch that he was going to be difficult to flag down. Then when our drinks came we ordered our entrees.
— the complimentary ciabbata buns were overly salty but really fluffy
— the ceviche, previously mentioned, was really good with the taro chips. It wasn’t fishy or overly acidic.
— the beet carpaccio was boring. You could have had that anywhere and not even thought of anywhere tropical. The gorgonzola was overpowering the delicate taste of the beets
— the calamari was thickly cut which was nice. Simply put this wasn’t as good as somewhere else we had on the island so we were disappointed. The panko crust was falling off.
— my marlin entrée felt odd paired with polenta and those onions with tobiko. It simply didn’t work together. The fish was also slightly overcooked and a bit tough.
— the wasabi crusted fish, I’m told, was nice. Everything worked well together. Huge letdown is a big boring scoop of brown rice. No creativity by the chef — like he just gave up and decided to just throw that in there and call it a day.
— the drinks were watered down and quite unpleasant. I didn’t get through ¼ of my drink before I gave up.
Our server was non existent. We were helped by other employees than him. They refilled our waters twice, they brought our bread and other food etc. It was appalling eating in a «nice» restaurant and getting inadequate or simply nonexistent service by our server.
The best part of the evening (when I was already irritated by the lack of service and the mediocrity of everything aside from the ceviche) was when a cockroach decided to just scurry around on the wall within a few inches of me. It dawdled long enough for my partner to ask what that was.
An absolute let down of a dinner. I told my partner I wished we had gone somewhere else for dinner. Definitely not the way I wanted to end this trip. I absolutely hate paying for food I didn’t enjoy, but what I hate more is when it’s supposed to be a nice place. If only I could have undone this restaurant decision and gone somewhere else *sigh*.

The view is really great. Drinks were done really nice. I had the lava flow and mango mama. The Baja fish tacos are awesome if you like the deep fried crunch to them. The beach house burger is quite enormous! You may need to share. I also had the calamari which was a bit burnt however. But the location and view really makes this place.

I had such an amazing dinner here. I came here on the recommendation of a few friends and they did not steer me wrong.
I called to make a reservation for the sunset seating (definitely do that!) and the woman I spoke with was super friendly and made sure that I would be there for sunset (which at this time of the year was a 5:30 seating — early but worth it).
Our waiter came over to get our drink order and never once rushed us to order food. He just allowed us to sit and watch the sunset and enjoy our drinks. He was very helpful with recommendations and was more than happy to repeat the many specials they had that night. I ended up going with the crab crusted monchong and it was yummy. My boyfriend got the lambchops and enjoyed them a lot.
From the service to the view, and of course, the food — this restaurant is a must if you are in the area.

The service was good and they kept the drinks always filled up, but it was so packed and the service was so slow. The view was beautiful and you can watch the sunset as you eat dinner its a shame our sunset was blocked by clouds this evening lol. The waiters and waitresses are very polite and always checked up on us. This place was definitely one of the more upper echelon dining and the food was delicious. Everyone has to try the banana foster because it has a pastrie topped off with ice cream and a caramel at the bottom… Yummm and it is more bang for your buck because it can feed like 4 people. The potatoes on my filet mignon were seasoned perfectly and the steak was excellent.

A beautiful restaurant with an amazing view right on the ocean. We had the best Mai Tai’s in all of Kauai here. We ate here twice in the week we were in Kauai.
The grilled ono with polenta was delicious. We also had a vegan pasta, grilled veggies and both dishes were yummy.
This restaurant was always busy so I suggest you get reservations.

Five Star sunset view.-no question. We ALS had an excellent meal last night while the sunset.
Starter was a fried calamari-​the entire tenicle. Yum.
Drinks were good but the dinner was really really good! We by her ordered ahi but they were prepared differently. I enjoyed the wasabi infused fish with a rice medley and perfectly prepared string beans. My friend had the ahi prepared with a crusted lemon flavor plus polenta.
Both delicious. Will go again

We had a wonderful dinner at The Beach House. Most all of the tables have a great view of the ocean, lava crusted coast line and an incredible sunset.
The place was very crowded and active, but fortunately we had a reservation. I had the Macadamia Nut Butter Sautéed Fresh Hawaiian Catch, which was very good, but it had a very rich (though delicious) sauce. At our table, everyone loved their food. The service was also very good, and we will definitely be back the next time we are in Kauai.
Tip: Make a reservation for dinner just before sunset.