Ak’s Cafe

Crab cake is super Ono! My kids love her French fries and the Kona mud ice cream pie is the best. Staff is friendly. The only reason why I didn’t give a 5 is because of the small serving portion.

Very cute place with a unique feel. Food wasn’t as tasty as we had hoped it would be tough.

Went here recently after several years of not returning. The former owner was a good cook, but seems the new owners don’t have the same experience. The food was okay, nothing to brag about, but the portions were extremely small for the price. We were the only table in there, right after they opened for lunch that day, and the service was okay. Something seemed lacking, though, and the waitress seemed to be in a rush. When we got our food, wow!, half the portions of what other places give. The taste was nothing spectacular and we couldn’t wait to leave. Unfortunately, we will not be back. As for the chef being a former resort chef, not sure what that means. Not all resort chefs are good, and the really good ones usually are retained, for a lot of money. Seemed like normal cooking to me.

Excellent food, using local ingredients by a former Four Seasons Chef. Small local café with excellent prices (less the $ 40 for two with drinks) and a very friendly owner/​chef. Doesn’t get much better then this!

Good food, good price, good service. And it’s healthy eating too.

The food here is excellent! I had the Ono with capers special and it was easily as good as the Ono I had at Merrimans. My wife had the crab cakes and says they are the best she’s ever had. I had to agree since we traded and we both felt she won the food choice contest. We had the purple sweet potatoes which were very tasty. The staff was very attentive and friendly. The only downside is the portion size which was a bit small.

The food was good, nothing that made it very special though. The portions were a lot smaller than I expected. The entrée itself was very small, but the sides were even smaller. I had the special of the day: Mahi with herb butter sauce. It’s a very local spot!
I was still hungry after we ate!

Went here the other day. It was pretty empty. A few locals. The service was super friendly. Didn’t have to wait too long for our food. The chef used to work for a fancy hotel, but is now on her own (they’ll let you know that).
The food was good. The crab cakes are exceptional. The rice was good. The parmesan fries were great. The turkey club was one of the best I’ve had. The chocolate lava cake was small, but the ice cream was delicious.
I will be coming back here on a regular basis. It’s probably one of the better places to eat in Wailuku.

I wanted to take my mom out somewhere nice this year for her birthday. I noticed this place getting good reviews, so I told myself we’ll give it a shot.
We ordered the special (baked ono with a lemon and caper sauce) for my mom, fried chicken for my brother, roast pork for my dad, I had the pot roast, and we had crab cakes for pupus.
I’m not too sure how our sides got mixed up like they did. My brother was supposed to have rice and a green salad and I ordered mine with fries and veggies. For some reason we both ended up with a scoop of rice each and some fries.
The crab cake was pretty good. My dad and I particularly enjoyed it.
Other than that, my mom said the sauce on her ono lacked flavor. My dad’s roast pork and my pot roast were both on the cold side. My brother didn’t complain about his fried chicken, but he’s Down’s and wouldn’t say much unless it was really bad, so it was at least acceptable.
The service was kinda slow. My mom had to flag the waitress down and ask for napkins a few times before we got them. We needed more because the waitress that served our water spilled a glass on my brother’s lap.
All in all, the price was about right for what we got. I also keep telling myself, «Well it’s a Tuesday night,» but honestly, if you want more business, you need to bring your A game every night just in case you win over some life long customers.
Unfortunately, that probably won’t be my family.

Fish taco’s in Wailuku — served a bit differently than people would expect (in a hard taco shell not a soft tortilla) but definitely tasty!
I always tell myself that I’m going to try something different and then I’m asked what i’d like to order and always order the fish taco’s, with a side a roasted veggies and garlic fries.
Great menu, friendly and easygoing staff, clean bathrooms! It’s too bad A.K.‘s isn’t open on the weekends!

AK’s Café is the find of the entire island. Better than Mama’s Fish House she is a former Ritz Carleton chef, who opened her own space.
Fish Tacos were excellent, the best example I’ve ever had.
Crab Cakes were straight from her ancestral home on the east coast of the mainland, and were true Maryland.
95% of everything we tried was perfectly executed! Make sure to tell her to put brown sugar and butter on the purple sweet potatoes.

Chef Elaine is the best! The food is awesome!

The grilled chicken w/​Thai chili sauce is Ono with the Parmesan garlic fries. The key lime tart is super Ono as well as the crab cakes. Prices are Great! Go early to get parking. Staff is very friendly.

Elaine Nakashima is a trained chef, something she doesn’t boast about but just taste her wonderful food and you will know it. You will always have a beautiful meal at AK’s from the melt-​in-​your mouth pot roast to the chicken linguine with pesto sauce, to her famous crab cakes. Just the right ambiance for a relaxing dinner that you couldn’t have made yourself. Everything is prepared to perfection with her sauces to die for and home made soup that your mother never could have made. Prime rib on Friday nights are such a treat. A bonus – her meals are not only delicious but very reasonable as well. We are so lucky to have a neighborhood restaurant with such a talented chef. Ron Kualalau plays on Friday nights. Beautiful voice, cute guy, quite a treat. Sometimes short staffed but friends can help. She caters too!

Creative menu, fresh and delicious food, the owner waited on us and was super friendly. Definitely a nice break from the tourist trap restaurants near our resort.
I had her popular crab cakes and had to fight with my toddler for them. My mom had grilled ono with a fresh tasty cucumber relish. And don’t miss her homemade Ice cream pie! Our plates were clean!

Service was slow. The waitress brought us drinks and then left to service the rest of the tables instead of taking our order right then. My iced tea tasted like it was going sour. And my cheeseburger left a garlic powder taste on my tongue all day. Also not kid friendly, especially due to the slow service. Cook was too busy smoozing with barflies.

I’ve been hearing good things about AK’s so when we saw a sign saying Buy 1 Entrée, Get the 2^nd Half Off, we decided to stop by for dinner on a Friday evening. The very small parking lot was full so we parked along the side of the road a further up Lower Main. When we got into the restaurant, it was packed, but there was an empty table for two right next to the small bar. We stood there for a few minutes, waiting to be helped, as the two waitresses walked back and forth with orders. Finally, we were seated but weren’t given menus so we sat there for another few minutes before they were given to us.
We looked over the menu and finally decided on the crab cakes with sweet potato fries and a green salad, and the pot roast with rice and sauteed vegetables. The waitress asked if I would like the salad before dinner and I said yes, thinking it would be served to me within five minutes. It was probably over ten minutes when it was finally served to me. Boy, was it small. Since it was a side that came with the entrée, I didn’t have to pay extra for it but if I had to pay the regular $ 3, I would be slightly disappointed. The papaya seed dressing was very delicious though, and we made very short work of the salad.
It took another fifteen to twenty minutes for our entrees to come out from the kitchen. The first thing I noticed were purple sweet potato rounds on my plate. I was expecting orange sweet potato fries so I asked the waitress if they were the fries and they indeed were. I would call them sweet potato chips instead of fries. But they were nice and crispy. The two crab cakes were very good, with lots of crab in them, nicely crisp outside, with just a hint of heat (spice). It came with a papaya buerre blanc sauce but it was so thin, I couldn’t really taste it.
The pot roast was moist and tender and the gravy accented it very well. We just wished there was more gravy. But we asked the waitress for more gravy and it was brought to our table promptly. The sauteed veggies (carrots, snow peas, green beans, asparagus) were yummy but we would have liked them cooked a little more, as the carrots were still very crunchy.
We didn’t have room for dessert but noticed they had red velvet cake and tiramisu, $ 4 each. We did see another table ordering them, and they looked quite small. Probably not worth $ 4, especially since you can buy a whole red velvet cake at Costco for $ 10!
Other observations about AK’s. There was live entertainment — a Hawaiian/​Contemporary Hawaiian singer/​guitar player that was very nice but we think it would’ve been too loud for us if we had sat right next to the speakers. There was a large group — about 16 taking up a large portion of the restaurant and we were lucky that we only had the two of us. If we had any more, we wouldn’t have been able to eat there, as every single other table was full and no one left for a while. There is a five seat bar but it looks like it was taken by regulars.
All in all, a nice dinner, but the service could be improved. While the waitresses were very friendly, they were overworked, as there was only two of them to handle the whole restaurant. The entrees were delicious but I don’t think I’d pay full price for them, especially in this time of saving money and being frugal while eating out.

I’ll be honest… I wasn’t expecting much when my friend took me out to dinner here. Its not the nicest part of town and I thought the food wouldn’t be nice either. I was SO wrong! Inside the restaurant was very clean and nicely decorated. Amazing art on the walls! Everything we ate was delicious. My friend had fish and I had Chicken Linguine with basil Pesto and they were both great! the portions were large! The drinks were expensive ($ 9 martinis). For two of us it was over $ 100… which is why they get one star off. Its location could be better and I would expect a little bit more in terms of atmosphere if they are charging that much. Overall… its a GREAT find and I will definitely be going back!

We went here for dinner on our first night on Maui which was also Valentine’s Day. We were blown away with how nice everyone at AK’s was. We called ahead to get directions while we were on the road. Someone who works there gave us directions and stayed on the phone with us until we found it. The staff was so nice once we arrived as well. There was a guy playing guitar and singing, which made it very romantic. The décor is classy and comfortable. It’s much cooler on the inside than it looks from the outside.
As for the food, overall, we loved it. We started with the crab cakes, which were mild in flavor, but delicious and fresh tasting. I had the ono, which was a bit dry and on the bland side, but I enjoyed it anyway. Because it was Valentine’s Day, the restaurant gave us complimentary dessert — four types of cake. Yum! On the way out, the staff offered us roses to take home.
We really enjoyed our meal here. Amazingly friendly staff, fresh, well prepared food, pretty good prices.

Friday afternoon I flew into Maui, and the wife and I wanted to take our friends out to a nice dinner. Marty and Eileen had discovered AK’s Café for a lunch, then had dinner there. We wandered in about 6PM and were seated at a nice table.
Friday and Saturday nights there is live entertainment. Ray was playing the guitar and singing — and he was really good. Ray’s girlfriend showed up and sang a couple of numbers with him. A young lady friend of his danced a hula to a traditional Hawaiian song while we ate our dinner. The entertainment was great. I bought Ray’s CD to add to my collection.
They have a great menu of specialty martinis and cocktails that are really unusual and very good. I was the DD so I’d didn’t imbibe, but Eileen had a Lemon Drop martini and it was outstanding.
The food was very reasonable and quite delicious. I had the rib-​eye steak, my wife had the seafood linguini with asian sauce. Eileen had the chicken pesto linguini and Marty had prime rib. He asked if they had a end-​cut — and they did! Everyone was very pleased with the quality and portion sizes.
Dinner, drinks and dessert for four and a generous tip — out the door for $ 110.00. This is a little gem of a place on Maui — well worth the effort needed to find it.
It feels like a local place that the general tourist crowd hasn’t discovered yet. The owner stops by the table to chat, and she keeps an eye on everything that goes on in the restaurant — and makes sure everything works!
I’d have given them 5 stars, but the chairs were not as comfortable as I thought they should be. Picky, maybe, but I like to linger after dinner without my backside aching …
UPDATE: We’re informed that Friday nights are hopping at AK’s, but Saturday nights are a bit slower — for now. It’s only a matter to time before this place gets discovered.