Beach house at the Moana surfrider Hotel – Waikiki restaurant reviews

So, we went to the new restaurant at the Moana Surfer rider called the Beachhouse. In the past, we had stopped in for dessert before and enjoyed sitting inside because they have some comfortable couches as well as chairs. The atmosphere is lovely and the hotel did a very nice job designing this dining room in keeping with the existing architecture. It is a wonderful space and I have to say in this rare instance, it is more pleasant to sit inside than outside.

On this visit, my date and I arrived for dinner. The reservations were made at the last minute, but they did have room for us. On this evening, there were several large parties and the restaurant was a little crowded, but not uncomfortably so. Later, one party seemed to get progressively noisier as the evening wore on and they did become a bother, but I think this is perhaps not a common experience. Our table had a couch on one side and chairs on the other, so for comfort sake, we chose to sit next to each other.

Our waiter came to take our order. We both ordered the fillet Mignon. Their steaks are advertised as being grass fed and raised by an Amish group for the restaurant. Health concerns aside, grass fed beef does tend to be not as tender as corn fed. My date ordered french fries and I ordered steamed asparagus. The wine we had wanted was not available and the waiter had said that they had not had the wine in a very long time and, even mused, that he did not know why it was still on the menu. He had made another suggestion that was acceptable.  I am not a wine connoisseur, so I can not comment further, but I did enjoy it.

The elderly gentleman who brought our bread and butter was very friendly, but his serving skills were awkward. He came by several times during the dinner to assist the server and bus dishes and was always pleasantly friendly, but definitely lacked the skill of a properly trained server.

We had to wait quite a long time time for our dinner; more than what is acceptable. When it was time for our dinner to be served, we suddenly had a waitress, rather than the original waiter that we had. She was polite, but her voice did not project at all and both my date and I could not understand half of what she was saying. Then, there was the coughing. She kept coughing, clearing her throat and was obviously ill. It is shocking that a restaurant would actually allow a food service person to work who was sick. I am sure this was part of the reason she had difficulty in projecting her voice, but even now, I am surprised the restaurant allowed her to service patrons. Her skills in serving were poor. I believe I have had better service at the Wailana Coffee shop and, we would not have had a bill in excess of $100 dining there. When the meal came, it was plunked in front of us, 24 hour diner style, and the ketchup for the fries was served in one of those little room service, Heinz ketchup bottles, with the plastic still on the bottle….not in a nice dish as one would expect.

The main course was mediocre at beast. The steaks were not anything wonderful and I have had much better ones at Ruth Chris. The asparagus with hollandaise sauce was as expected, but the hollandaise was not fresh. It was clearly out of a bottle and poured into a dish. Even though my date absolutely loves french fries, these were so unbelievably greasy that he could not finish them. The steaks also had some sort of unidentifiable green vegetable, that may have been a sort of sea salad, but was not tasty.

During our meal, one of the larger parties in the dining room grew progressively louder as stated earlier. The patrons were getting up constantly and walking around. And because of the size of their party, they required many waitstaff to serve them. The waitstaff would stand off to the side, next to our table, to wait for when they were needed. They would talk and laugh loudly (this is the waitstaff. mind you) and at one point, a large waiter actually put his hand on OUR table and rested there, while talking to his colleges, loudly. We were utterly shocked at this lack of professionalism. This is not tolerated at ANY restaurant and certainly not a restaurant that supposedly falls under the category of ‘fine dining’.

Shocked at the service and utter lack of professionalism, my date asked to see the manager after our meal. The assistant manger came over while we were eating our meal, did not introduce himself, and started asking questions about what our complaint was. After establishing who he was, my date briefly told him of the loud servers, the server leaning on our table, the ill waitress, the ketchup bottle and the greasy fries, but then said he wanted to discuss it AFTER dinner as was stated previously.  The assistant manger left his card.

Then, being quite comfortable on our couch and thinking that things could not possibly get worse, we decided to order dessert. I ordered coffee and my date ordered the cheesecake balls and a cappuccino.  Despite being Illy brand, my coffee was terrible.  I am not sure what they did to it.  My date’s cappuccino arrived well after my coffee and the cappuccino had spilled all over the cup and into the saucer and was delivered with a, “Sorry”, but surprisingly, was still plunked down in front of my date. He sent it back. Still later, the cheesecake balls arrived and were frozen solid and therefore inedible. During dessert, interrupting our meal again,  the assistant manger came over to check how everything  was. We both complained again about the lack of professionalism and the food, becoming quite irritated at the continued intrusion. Then, the manager came over to ask us how everything was. My date had to go through everything with him. The assistant manager asked for my date’s email address to discuss the matter further. And then, they offered to not charge us for the cappuccino.  Ridiculous!

We could not wait to leave at this point. We were completely aghast at how we were treated. And, furthermore, we were shocked that they did not offer to credit our entire meal. We did not tip.  Clearly the manager just wants to talk about the incidents, but does not want to actually do anything for his restaurant patrons.  During the course of our discussion with the two managers, we told both of them that we lived on the island and came to Waikiki regularly, but there was no attempt at trying to right the wrong or encourage us to come again.  The lack of profressionalism obviously starts at the top.  I would have had a much more enjoyable evening if we had gone to Waialana Coffee shop for a grilled cheese sandwich, at least they know how to treat a customer.

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