Doraku Waikiki

Great ambiance for a 3rd floor restaurant. Beautiful place and tasty food.

Three stars because it is wildly overpriced for the portions and quality. There are several other less expensive places that match their quality of food and beat their portions with a much larger variety of sushi rolls.

I visited for dinner when they weren’t busy and was seated quickly.

Staff will push up-selling you, but is attentive, if only mildly polite.

Good service, Japanese Izakaya in Waikiki.

Very lively popular place to be during the happy hour. There’s happy hour menu but you can order from dinner menu as well.

Tofu poke was disappointing as tofu tasted too fermented stage and condiments were not freakish. We had to ask them to take it back.

Other than that, it is a good casual place to be before heading off to watch the sunset.

Went in after work with some coworkers. It was a party of six. We had to wait about ten minutes for a table, which wasn't bad. When we were seated, is when the experience started going south. They sat us at a table that was too small. It was about a 4'ft x 2'ft table for our group. It shouldn't have been more than four people at the table. We received half of our menus, even though they knew we were a party of six. Got our menus and met our waiter. While he was nice, he just didn't seem polished as a server. I believe the first thing he should have noticed was that our table was too small. Our drinks came out very staggered. Some of us sat with nothing, while the rest waited on us to get our drinks. Deliver all of the drinks together. Our food items came out the same way. Some of us sat there with nothing while our coworkers enjoyed their food. Even if it takes having 2-3 staff members to help deliver, bring it all together. My neighbor ordered a fried rice dish. It came out on a hot skillet, and a server prepared it at the table for him. Nice right? Not at a small table. This server was stirring the rice and eggs on the hot skillet. Then he started adding the soy sauce. As he's adding the soy, he says "low sodium", as he pours it low, then "high sodium" as he raises this cup of soy high at the table. What he's oblivious to, is that the soy sauce at that height splashes. I have small dots of soy sauce on my white shirt because of him. Just another inexperienced employee at this restaurant. It might come across as I'm nitpicking, I'm not. In my many years of dining experience, you have a level of expectations when it comes to Asian dining. Especially when they have items on the menu as high as $200+.
Overall, this place needs some tuning. Staff needs to use situational awareness when it comes to customer's needs. Try using some empathy. Put yourself in others shoes. Management needs to train them up. Don't think you can just put your restaurant on autopilot. The restaurant has potential, but doesn't make my "want to come back list" until they get this turned around. Prices, aren't bad, but you have to give the service that allows people to feel comfortable paying it. Thank the customers for coming in. Don't have some of your hostess staff standing at the entrance on their cell phones.

Surprisingly reasonably priced and good quality sushi right in the heart of the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center. On the third floor - there is an escalator that goes straight to it. The chirashi sushi was $20 and well made. Service is friendly and the place is large enough for big groups. Doraku also serves non-sushi Japanese dishes so there’s something for everyone. Despite this the sushi was surprisingly above average.

Top notch sashimi! Very fresh and melts in your mouth without a fishy taste. It does run a little on the expensive side but the quality of the fish makes it worth it to me. Atmosphere was okay. It felt like it was missing something at the sushi bar. It might've been better if I could've been able to see what the sushi chefs were doing since when sitting at the bar.