The inside of place is pretty dark but decorated very modern – cool lighting, lots of glass, a fancy sushi bar, fancy wine racks, dark modern tables and chairs, and black napkins. Like I said, it’s dark. The menu is even super dark.
I scanned the menu trying to figure out what I was hungry for. The menu has a lot of items on it, but weirdly, none of them looked really appealing to me. I always find 5 things on a menu I have to decide between, but that wasn’t the case here. I’m not sure if it was the menu’s fault or my fault. I’ll blame the menu, since clearly, I’M not faulty. There are pastas and pizzas and sandwiches and appetizers and entrees and sushi and a section to combine two small plate items into one meal (actually a really good idea). Originally, I was leaning towards one of the steaks, since it’s a “grill” after all. But when I saw the price, I just didn’t want to pay $30+ for a lunch. Heck, I wasn’t even sure if I had that much in my wallet. I narrowed it down to macadamia nut chicken or a big burger. The waiter helped me decide on the Big Kahuna Burger – to which I added bacon, duh.
We got caught up on life and jobs with everyone when I realized I had been sitting there a while. About 35 minutes, in fact. Yikes. They brought out our food and one person’s order was messed up (so she had to wait even longer to eat and then got to eat about three bites before we all had to leave). Two other people got sushi and had to wolf it down to make it back to work in time for a meeting. My burger looked really good, so I wasn’t going to have an issue with this meal, or so I thought.
The burger was pretty dry. I was really happy with the portion size – a ¾ pound burger with a slice of swiss and a slice of cheddar, shredded lettuce and tomato, and of course, two strips of bacon. I bit into it and expected a mouth wateringly juicy flavor and got nothing. It was pretty drab – actually this tasted like *I* grilled this since I’m a terrible grill master. This thing was a pretty big let down. The fries were just alright and there weren’t that many of them. I’m not even a fry person and I was surprised how few there were. From the sound of things around the table, people were pretty similar in their opinions that it was pretty expensive and a big let down. I was mostly surprised by the lack of things on the menu that were appealing to me – that never happens. I think if work people decide to go back here for something, I’ll go back, but I don’t think I’ll volunteer to set up a lunch here. Bummer, I had such high hopes for this place.
[Note: I DID go back and give this place a second try. Click here for the follow up review.
Top 5 things about Kona Grill
1. Really nice décor/atmosphere
2. Plenty of parking
3. Good idea for pick-2 combo small plates
4. There is lots of seafood on the menu, if you’re into that
5. There are some interesting flavor combinations here (macadamia nut chicken tacos?)
Bottom 5 things
1. Big Kahuna Burger
2. Speed
3. Small side portions
4. Heard the sushi was less than stellar
5. Pricey
www.konagrill.com
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