Bluefin Otoro
Nobu Lanai

Nobu Lanai

One Manele Bay Road, Lanai City I-96763, United States, LANAI CITY

Sushi • Asian • Seafood • Japanese


"WARNING: DO NOT TRUST FOUR SEASONS!! Like most, I have to have a pretty strong experience to be motivated to write a review. You can check my other review from years ago, it was incredibly positive. This should give you a frame of reference for how poor my experience has been with my Nobu experience at the Four Seasons. Here 's the full story I have been dating my girlfriend for about a year, and I wanted to celebrate her birthday with her in a special way for our first time together. Her favorite restaurant is Nobu. We also had picked out a few travel destinations, and Hawaii was on that list. Perfect. Let 's go to the one in Lana 'i. I made the reservation at Nobu and called to confirm it was good before even booking the tickets to Hawaii (we live in California). I even called the restaurant a week before our flight took off to confirm our reservation was good. We were all set . Lana 'i is a nice island, but certainly unless you 're going to the Four Seasons (and I 'm not operating on that budget), it probably doesn 't make sense to stay for more than a day. We stayed there three nights with the belief that our Nobu reservation was on a Friday night, and then we 'd leave on the ferry the next morning to go Maui. Upon arrival in Lana 'i, our shuttle driver informed us that only people staying at the Four Seasons were permitted on their grounds (and since Nobu is on Four Seasons turf, no one could go there). We called now for the THIRD TIME to confirm, and the day before our dinner, they said they would be canceling our reservation. The reason was for the past 3 4 weeks, they had changed their policy to only have Four Seasons guests on campus. That 's fine, but why didn 't anyone tell me in advance? We could have made other accommodations, and certainly staying in Lana 'i for 3 nights would have been the principal one of them. Given enough advance notice, we may have chosen a different travel destination completely. With only a day in advance of the first birthday of hers we were sharing together, my girlfriend and I were now limited to about 4 restaurants in downtown Lana 'i (most of which were already at capacity for the night). I asked what they could do to correct their error. They had no idea. I then followed up with them asking for a dinner at Nobu to be taken care of by Four Seasons. They countered by offering a bottle of champagne, and then later offering a dinner at the Four Seasons (no alcohol). Both of those I refused, because again, my girlfriend was looking to go to Nobu, NOT the Four Seasons. I have followed up multiple times with multiple people and have not received a response for weeks. Just flat out ignored. So much for their famous customer service . TLDR: Booked a trip to Lana 'i just to go to Nobu and they canceled our reservation the day before our dinner. Girlfriend 's birthday was effectively ruined. Do not trust them, they will not honor your reservations nor try to rectify the problem."

Tara Japanese Cuisine

Tara Japanese Cuisine

251-09 Northern Blvd, 11362, Little Neck, United States

Sushi • Salads • Seafood • Asiatic


"First of all, if you want to make a reservation (especially for weekend dinner), make sure CALL to reserve a table. We used google and then they could not find our reservation. They should just turn off the function on Google or Yelp reservation. Just saw other reviewer had the same problem. Therefore, the first impression was unwelcoming. We luckily sat down before the restaurant became full later of the evening. We quickly ordered hot sake to start the night, but the hostess brought us a jar of sake bathing in ice. I was so shocked and this made my face wrinkled up though the hostess immediately apologized and fixed it. We ordered 16 course omakase set $138, 1 sushi set $42, 1 sashimi set $42. Overall appetizers for omakase is creative and pretty, and fish is so fresh. You can taste two Hokkaido uni dish, one in the starter and one on sushi. It is really worthy of the price. I'd give 5 stars for the omakase. Sushi and sashimi sets are both good and fresh, but they come with low quality of wasabi that looks like green food coloring mashed stuff. The ambiance is casual and warm. The manager engaged with every table, such as giving complimentary beer or making Gin tonic with Roku gin, my favorite and the best gin from my perspective. It is a nice touch. Everything went well until paying the bill. They charged extra 4% credit card service alongside tax regular 18% of service. We were clueless about cash payments preferred here. However we only had $100 in the wallet. Tips for you who want to try:1. Call the phone line to make a reservation 2. Order omakase so you can have real wasabi3. Bring enough cash"