An all-day-long, all-you-can-eat salad bar, original-recipe hotcakes, nearly 24-hour service, and a mix of local favorites and international dishes has kept Oki Diner in the Lihu’e restaurant business for six years. Being next to McDonald’s along Kuhio Highway forced restaurant
An all-day-long, all-you-can-eat salad bar, original-recipe hotcakes, nearly 24-hour service, and a mix of local favorites and international dishes has kept Oki Diner in the Lihu’e restaurant business for six years.
Being next to McDonald’s along Kuhio Highway forced restaurant owners Barbara and Ken Oki to be innovative to survive.
The sixth anniversary celebration comes with a chance for patrons to pull a winning ticket from the Anniversary Gift Box, with everyone winning a prize, and prizes including the restaurant’s signature triple combo (fried noodles with choice of two entrees), ribeye steak, breakfast special (two pancakes, two eggs and choice of meat), free sodas, and more.
Complete meals start at $6.95, and other innovations include the picture menu, which allows the youngest customers to just point to whatever they’d like to eat, if they don’t know the menu items by name.
Special dishes that have won the restaurant a solid local following include the fried-rice breakfast, original-recipe hotcakes, loco moco, oxtail soup, deep-fried teriyaki chicken, garlic shrimp, kalua pig, Neal’s special chicken, roast pork with mushroom gravy, saimin, won ton min, kalbi short ribs, the triple combo, and a new favorite, steak and stuffed calamari.
Other offerings include omelets and steak and eggs for breakfast, burgers and other sandwiches, fries, noodles (including Hong Kong-style cake noodles) and desserts, stir-fry bowls, Hawaiian plate (lau lau, kalua pig and teri beef), a bento box lunch (under $4), the salad bar available from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays, and a salad bar and entree combination for under $10.
Over the past few years, Oki Diner’s owners and chefs have put much energy into creating specialties and upgrading the flavor and presentation of its meals, said Barbara Oki.
The picture-menu came back from a Tokyo trip the Okis took, and works also for visitors who are not familiar with names of certain local dishes, Barbara Oki said.
Breakfast is served all day long, with pancake dishes offering the restaurant’s own coconut-macadamia nut syrup. Complete meals are available from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Meals include salad, chips and salsa, corn bread and dessert.
For more information, please call 245-5899.
