Izakaya Naru Honolulu

It was our favorite Japanese izakaya place when we first came to Honolulu in 2021, so this time we went back. Very authentic Japanese izakaya experience. The food along with the highballs and the Awamori drinks were great! Recommend the quill eggs, hamachi carpaccio, & the chicken karaage. A bit loud and crowded, although you can think of it as a part of the experience as well :)

One of my favorite dinner spots in Honolulu. Reservations are needed at this time. We ordered several items from the specials and standard menu. From the current specials menu, I recommend the spicy bamboo shoots and simmered beef tongue rice. The portion sizes for several of the items were much larger than I expected, but I’d still recommend ordering around 3 dishes per person so that you can sample more items. Other items I enjoyed: sukiyaki pizza and soba with tofu (broth was SO good).

Was a bad experience on the guy in the front. We don’t know how good the food is because we left before ordering. He was yelling at us around 70dB volume because he claimed we have more people than the seats they had. He could just have politely asked us to leave because of lacking in vacancies. He does not look Asian. We had a few kids under 10 and they were scared and asked why he did that. The female server was fine. She actually told us in the beginning that it’s fine to sit on different two tables, but he is maybe higher than her and can override her opinion. He may be in a bad mood, but you can see another review one week before mine saying the similar thing. It’s a pity that we wanted to try their dishes and spent 30 minutes to come, but we already feel bad and not in the mood. I believe their food has to be good or they will go out of business very soon. They need some training for the customer services. It’s not acceptable if they claim to be Japanese restaurant. It’s fine you don’t take my advices because we will never come anyways. This reviews is for other customers to be prepared to stay low in case being in this embarrassing situation.

*Reservations Only!* Had a fantastic time in this izakaya. It's small and loud and makes the experience very exciting. Their draft beer (Orion) is served in chilled mugs and the Okinawan lime highball was refreshing. We had the beef tongue, quail eggs, chicken skin, aburi (seared mackerel), and a few more that weren't pictured. All their food is nicely shareable with friends and was delicious.