Mahalo to our sponsor for the complimentary meal. All opinions are my own.
We’ve been fans of Tanaka Ramen & Izakaya ever since they opened their Ala Moana location. Their original Kapolei restaurant was a little too far west for us to visit regularly, so having a more central option made us longtime supporters. So you can imagine our excitement when we spotted the signage for their newest location at Windward Mall a few weeks ago — finally, one of our favorite ramen spots right here in our own neighborhood!
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This new location takes over the former Kikuya space. While we were sad to see Kikuya close, I was also excited to see Tanaka move in. It’s always nice when a restaurant space continues on instead of sitting empty.
One thing we immediately noticed is that this location offers several seating options. In addition to the indoor dining area, there’s also outdoor seating as well as tables along the mall walkway. When we arrived on a Saturday during early dinner hours, the inside seating area was already full, so we had to choose between outside seating or the mall walkway tables. We ended up choosing the outdoor area since it seemed like it would have a little less foot traffic.
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Of course, outdoor dining comes with a few trade-offs. Between the nearby cars and the flies that showed up once the food arrived, it wasn’t the most peaceful setting. Still, we appreciated that they’ve added extra seating options to help accommodate the crowds because this location already seems very popular with the locals
One of the best parts about this Windward Mall location is that they offer the full menu. Some Tanaka locations have more limited offerings, but this one has a huge variety — and even some new items that aren’t available elsewhere, including yakitori sticks.
Honestly, the menu makes it too hard to decide.!They’ve got everything from salads and sashimi to ramen, donburi, curry, fried rice, and appetizers. After a lot of debating, for appetizers we ordered the pork gyoza, crab stick tempura, Brussels sprouts tempura, and a chicken yakitori stick to share.
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For ramen, we tried the Tanaka Rich Garlic and the Spicy Creamy Vegan ramen.
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The son customized his bowl with half-and-half broth, beef sukiyaki, and thick noodles, which made for a pretty impressive-looking bowl when it arrived at the table.
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We also ordered the shrimp fried rice.
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Everything was amazing — seriously, nothing was left behind by the end of the meal. 😄 My personal favorites were the shrimp fried rice and the Rich Garlic ramen.
The ramen came with thick noodles, which I absolutely love because they really hold onto the broth and make each bite extra satisfying.
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We’re so excited to have Tanaka Ramen & Izakaya in Kaneohe now. Between the expanded menu, and convenient location, this spot is definitely going to become part of our regular Windward dining rotation!
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