If you want local/Japanese vibes AND gourmet cuisine, this is the spot. I can't believe I've never eaten here for all the years I've lived in Hilo. The exterior doesn't look like much, but the inside is spacious, bright and clean. Great for family style, with local music playing, and friendly and efficient servers. The most impressive part is the quality, taste, presentation, and variety of items on the menu. The prices are astounding--as if they never believed in inflation. Nothing pretentious about this place--just feel the love and pride in their food. Super grateful for this spot in Hilo. This is gonna be my weekly date night.
The food tastes good, I like the Kōrean chicken salad.Itʻs the best
Great ramen experience: very generous portions and great taste. Super friendly service - we felt welcomed, enjoyed food and would definitely come back again and again!!!
They NEVER answer their phone for takeout orders. Don't get me wrong their food is delicious but why they think that makes them holy then thou to not cater to their takeout customers is ridiculous. This was not always the case, they did use to answer their phone but since the owner got sick and recently passed away the ones now in charge don't find the need to have to answer the phone I guess. Yes we live on a small island and know all the business! When you go inside to place your takeout order and question why they don't answer, their response is they're busy. Although there's been times where I call from the parking lot, get no answer, walk in and the place is literally empty, while the wait staff is filling condiment containers. Their whole attitude about not feeling the need to answer their phone and have good customer service is a huge turn off, good food or not.
So happy to dine-in at Kenichi...been so long!They made some nice updates, looks great!
Always fresh, generous portions, efficient service & local style friendly service. My all time favorite place for delicious comfort food AND one of few places to serve onolicious grilled saba.OMG GOOD❣
I must have had a bad experience because this restaurant had 4.5 stars. I asked the hostess if they had gluten free noodles and at first she said no but quickly corrected herself and told me they do have soba noodles. However, when I tried to order my ramen with soba noodles my server told me I cannot substitute the noodles. And we went back and forth for longer than necessary on why they could not do this and it was never clear to me why they wouldn’t use the soba noodles in the to tonkotsu broth. So I got my to tonkotsu ramen with no ramen. I also chose to add braised pork belly but what I got was 2 slices of cold cuts in my way too salty bowl of broth. I really didn’t think you could mess up a bowl of ramen but they sure did.
Great value, family friendly, asian fusion dishes. Sizzling ribeye comes out smoking hot. Would have loved to have known beforehand there was no beer or sake menu.
They do not answer the phone . We drove down to place a takeout order and was told the wait will be about an hour. We agreed on the wait time, placed our order and was told we would get a call. We left and came back an hour later to be told it would be another 15 minutes. The 15 minutes turned into 60 minutes...WE WAITED TWO HOURS FOR OUR TAKEOUT!!! And what made it worst, while standing outside we saw people walking in without reservations, being seated, getting their food and leaving before us. We were not the only people waiting for two hours for our takeout. So the frustration was shared amongst a bunch of us as we compared our order times. Then we saw that some people either got a free dessert or had their entire meal comp. By the time we got our food it was 8pm and our meal was not comp. We got two slices of dessert. We wondered if it was because our meal was $100 and they didn't want to lose any more money. My gripe with the desserts is that I'm on a keto diet and can't eat it. We drove home to find the steaks were over cooked, dried and not seasoned. We ended up tossing those. On past occasions when we sat in to dine, we experienced poor customer service by some of the waitresses and their attitudes were as if they could care less if we ever came back or not. The food is mediocre to begin with. NOT WORTH THE WAIT!
Incredible food, and wonderful service. We ordered the boneless Korean chicken and were incredibly impressed with the flavor, it was delicious. Our waiter Aaron was attentive, kind, and honest in his recommendations. Will definitely be eating here again!