I’m on a Yelp missions to find the best Japanese Food in Hawaii. This self generated quest has sent me to Ojiya on Kapiolani and It was pretty good.

The parking left a little to be desired but I don’t count that against them because being a former resident of Washington DC, Manhattan and Tokyo

most good places don’t have parking at all. Maybe it will teach us to car pool more in the islands.

Ok the staff (Yuuki) was super friendly and very helpful with making suggestions for us and based on my questions he picked out Otokoyama Sake for me which was killer so that was a great start.

I ordered some Yakitori Skewers to test the waters because there are thousands of street vendors that sell these in Japan everywhere; furthermore, if a dude with a cart welded to a bike can make good skewers a fully staff restaurant had better be able to. I chose from their great selection one of each kinds of chicken sauce and salt as well as a grilled onion with teriyaki sauce. They were all of what I expected, winners.

For entree I selected the Buta Hire Katsu Teishoku (Dinner Set) and it was awesome. The rice was good, the veggies were cook properly and the Tonkatsu (Japanese deep-fried pork) was stellar.

I’m defiantly going back because there is so much more to try here. On My “Doc Rock Taste Like Japan Scale” I’ll give the a 8.5 out 10; however, I think it is more because of the base ingredients available here in the islands. If you’ve ever tasted produce in Japan or Korea for that matter you know what I mean.

As far as the people who did not like Ojiya I would say Japanese food has a wide range of taste and variety based on prefecture (Niigata in this case) and family recipes handed down by the chefs. A lot of place here in the states have had there flavors modified to match western palettes so when you compare food you may get big differences in taste on the same basic dish. Ojiya is pretty traditional flavors and it may not match the expectations of someone who frequents Local-Japanese establishments.

Eh never mind Just try it again

#Aloha