Ohana House

I read about Ohana House on Unilocal.I was looking for a glutin free restaurant to take my wife. So we ended up here with our sons and their girl friends. Had a fantastic time. The Poke Nachos were a big hit as well as the spam fried rice. Everything was good, and we will go back again. The chef was very attentive to my wife’s glutin free requirements.

Very Yummy food! Think Hawaiian food freshened up. The short ribs are great! They also have a selection of fried rices that are delicious. Ohana House is a bit overpriced but the quality of the food is better then average. The atmosphere is a contemporary surf vibe. Ohana House is definitely worth checking out!

We have been here at least 5 times now because the food is absolutely delicious!
3.5 stars overall rating.
Highly recommended:
— Kalua Pork & Pineapple Fried Rice (my boyfriend orders it every time)
— Shoyu & Ginger Glazed Kalbi Short Ribs (out of this world! And I’m not much of a red meat eater at all)
— Furikake Garlic Fries (really amazing when eaten right away — but has a tendency to get soft and soggy within 5 min.)
— Crab, Bacon & Chorizo Fried Rice (also good but not quite as good as the Kalua pork one)
— Ahi Poke Nachos (definitely good, but not quite as amazing as most people on Unilocal seems to think it is)
So-​So:
— Teriyaki Chicken & Broccoli Fried Brown Rice
Do not Recommend:
— Spicy Red Chili Shrimp & Noodles (Mostly pasta with just a few pieces of shrimp. Not horrible but IMHO not really worth it.)
The reason for the 3 stars is that the service can be really slow and basically a hit or miss. Sometimes we have had to wait up to ½ hour before any food shows up! And it wasn’t even crowded! Or they’d serve the fries (appetizer) all at the same time with the main dish. Servers are usually friendly though, no issues there.
Also, we’ve noticed that the dishes themselves are slightly dropping in quality over time… I guess mainly with the rice. For instance, the consistency of the rice in Kalua Pork and Pineapple Fried Rice (we’ve ordered 5 times now) has gotten slightly on the softer, overcooked side compared with the first time. As for the Shoyu & Ginger Glazed Kalbi Short Ribs (we’ve ordered 4 times now), they used to use sticky rice for the rice pilaf, which is super yummy, and now it’s regular white rice.
Parking in the area can also be tricky to find. Kind of a pain actually. This and unpredictable wait/​service is the main reason we do not go more often.

Yummy food… no…SUPER yummy food!
I had the fish tacos which are served with flat bread. At first I thought «What the heck, that sounds terrible». Believe me, they are FAR from «terrible». The fish was super fresh and the portions are huge. The tacos were soooo good… in my opinion anyway. I know some peeps will get on here and bash this place. They will say «I know REAL Hawaiian food and this ain’t it». Well, I’ve been to Hawaii more than a few times in my life and I’ve had real Hawaiian food and yes, I think this is good food. Maybe not REAL Hawaiian, but it tastes GOOD!
My hubs had a chicken bowl of some sort that he said was good. He didn’t like his rice but I liked my rice fine.
The décor is cute, the floor looks like the ocean. There are a few TVs to watch and limited outdoor seating. The waitress we had was a sweetheart and quick and fast.
Oh yes, I will come here again!

This place is A-​May-​Zing!!! The food is fresh, healthy, and I love the beachy vibe. Our server Andrea was super friendly and offered some great suggestions as this was our first time there. She even comp’ed our dessert!
They have TVs on the wall if you want to come with friends for sports, or you can sit with your honey like I did and enjoy the awesome food. Huge portions, great deals for first-​timers, lots of drinks to choose from. Must try the Crab, Bacon and Chorizo Fried Rice. I think I died and went to heaven with that dish, and the Kalua Pig Lettuce Tostadas were a great start to the evening. Top it off with one of their Kona beers in a mason jar glass!!!
Definitely planning on returning to this little hidden gem right near the Fun Zone.

Ahi tuna poke nachos makes the perfect light and delicious snack on a beautiful sunny day in Balboa beach.

Very very slow service.
Please boss increase the number of your personnal to reduce the waste time

I don’t like to leave negative reviews since the server was friendly and all but unfortunately, everything here was way too sweet for my taste buds. I am from Hawaii so I was excited to see this restaurant when I was in the area.
Hawaiian beer on tap is great~ however everything I ordered was way too sweet.
Guess I had too high of an expectation since I am from Hawaii and go back to Hawaii often for some good poke and Hawaiian grinds.
You can try it and see for yourself tho if it suits your taste buds~

One of those little spots you need to go to.
First of all when I saw the name I’m thinking straight Hawaiin food. When I was looking at the menu, «None of these sound Hawaiian.» So, I go on Unilocal and find the Ahi Nachos are a must here. The nachos are not chips, but fried wontons so it’s not as bad for you I guess. Haha. There is avocado, tomato, goat cheese, and rice on the bottom of it all. Delicious. I also sign up for the mobile text and my offer is a free appetizer! Winning! The portions are huge, but in a non-​salad healthy way. As the appertizer I got the Honolulu Fish Market Salad which has fresh avocado, mango, tomato, and has three fish skwers to top it off.
I can’t complain about the service, but the food is top notch and something complete different.

Came here after reading about the ahi poke nachos and they did not disappoint!
–Ahi Poke Nachos (served over rice with won ton chips): loved the won ton chips (thin, crispy, light), poke itself was fresh and delicious and not at all spicy (hallelujah!), serving size was good and enough for me to eat alone for lunch
–Fish Tacos: I thought the tacos were just okay, flat bread was interesting choice for the shell and seemed a little soggy to me, grilled fish was yummy
–Garlic Fries: totally disappointed me, fries were very soft/​borderline soggy, garlic wasn’t very prominent
–Pineapple Cake: PERFECTION!, pineapple taste was not too strong, tasted like a warm buttery bread pudding with vanilla ice cream… so delish!
Interior’s very nice with dark wood and open layout. TV’s were playing college football (Go Bruins!).
Prices are definitely a bit high, but considering it’s Newport that’s expected.
Final note though is that the service was notably slow. We were the only ones in the restaurant for lunch, yet it took quite a long time for our food and dessert to arrive.

My girlfriends and I had dinner at Ohana’s last night and it was one of the best dining experiences I’ve ever had! They have a great beer selection, I highly recommend the Wailua or Big Wave by Kona. Yuuuummmy! =)
Our server Nick was the best of the best! Attentive, engaging, and relaxed under pressure. It was my friends birthday and we mentioned that to Nick when we introduced ourselves. After we finished our entrees we were pleasantly surprised with a pineapple turnover cake. How thoughtful!
I will definitely be back here soon!

Recently decided to give this place a shot, and we were not disappointed.
My girlfriend and I shared Ahi Poke Nachos, Pig Tostada, and Garlic Fries. This place was fantastic.
We can’t wait to go back and try some more! Well worth dealing with Newport parking, haha.

For a Saturday afternoon, the business was quite bad, only 2 parties with a total of 6 people. I got the Kalbi beef dish. I think the fun part of eating kalbi beef is taking the meat off the bone. However, I was served a regular marinated beef with rice dish. It was flavorful but nothing I couldn’t make. It did taste good but it didn’t taste like Korean Kalbi beef so I was disappointed. I’m not sure if the wait for the food was long since I was quite hungry and wanted to eat right away. But with only 2 parties, I was expecting the food to come out faster. My table waited about 20 minutes before all our dishes came out.
The décor of the restaurant was nice and had a Hawaiian theme. They use pineapples as centerpieces which I found creative and cute. Our waitress was friendly and responsive.
The only reason I gave it ²⁄₅ stars was bc of the food. There’s nothing special about it overall.

Delicious little place on the Balboa Peninsula! Get the furikake garlic fries, the kalua pork and pineapple fried rice and the pineapple upside-​down cake. Then wash it all down with guava juice.
Very cute, unassuming little restaurant with wonderfully friendly service! It’s a fantastic place away from the touristy area of Balboa.

First of all, the place was really hard to find. That should have tipped me off right away, but sometimes hole-​in-​the wall places turn out to be 5-​stars, so I decided to give this place a shot. When we got there, service was reeeeaaaalllllyyyyyy slow, considering we were only 1 out of 2 sets of customers there (another factor that should have tipped me off!).
We ordered the sashimi appetizer, but all it was was just 10 pieces of tuna, and they left out the ginger, wasabi, and daikon radish mentioned in the menu. I went to ask the waitress about the missing items and she brings back the wasabi, no radish (forgot to ask about the ginger). When I asked about the radish, she mentions they haven’t had any in a long time. I suggested: «If that’s the case, then you should change what it says on the menu because otherwise it’s very misleading.»
Next, we ordered our main dishes. I asked for the eggplant soba noodles, but they were out of something, they wouldn’t tell me what. So I got the curry chicken salad wrap. It was good, but would have been even better without all the rice filler (which was white, instead of brown), and as a salad instead of the wrap (too much starch… eesh!) There were items missing from my wrap, too, such as golden raisins and green apple.
Hubby ordered the ahi poke tuna nachos, which came with goat cheese instead of the feta promised in the menu. Hubby liked immensely, but felt the dish would have been better with the feta. When we asked waitress about the cheese, she stated, «Oh yeah, sometimes we like to change things up a bit.» Thoughts running through our minds: «Um, really? Or did you guys run out of feta, too? Seems like you’re out of a lot of things today! It would have been nice to have gotten a notice or something if you were gonna switch things up!»
At the end of our terrible experience, they charged us the wrong amount for the nachos: $ 15 instead of $ 14. When I walked up to the waitresses and asked them about the discrepancy, they blamed it on the old menus. Needless to say, we will never be coming back here again – ever!

Service wasn’t bad, but definitely slower than it should’ve been given the number of guests and size of the restaurant. Maybe you have to go in with that laid back, Hawaiian state of mind?
And don’t expect to have much of a conversation with your dining partner. The concrete floor and walls provide no sound deadening whatsoever.
BUT…the food was delish! The Honolulu Fish Market Salad is beautifully plated to WOW upon arrival, and the flavors were unique and fresh. Hubby enjoyed his fish tacos, too.
I’ll definitely be back to try some of the other dishes. :-)

It was my roommate’s last night in the area so we decided to venture off for some food. Was going for something more festive and memorable but then I came across the Poke Nachos photo and began drooling before I could even help it. Living with two poke lovers, I had to show them — sure enough we abandoned all other plans and decided to try it out.
It was our lucky night and we got parking right in front of the restaurant. After six so we did not have to feed the meter, yayay! Came inside and the restaurant had a very hawaiian theme, it was like I stepped inside a small restaurant in Hawaii, it was cute. We were allowed to sit wherever we wanted and the server was really nice.
We decided to get the Poke Nachos, The Spicy Red Chili Shrimp and Noodles and the Grilled Fresh Catch with Mango and Avocado Relish.
The Poke Nachos were delish! It was fresh and flavorful, I loved that they used fried wonton wrappers for chips and it was chunky and filling. I wish that it didn’t come with the rice, but I guess you can just opt to not eat it lol.
The Spicy Red Chili Shrimp and Noodles I did not like. It sounded way better than it looked and tasted. Portions were pretty generous but honestly ordering this was a mistake. It was spicy and sour, not really a combination that I particularly liked. Would NOT order this ever again.
The Grilled Fresh Catch with Mango and Avocado Relish was pretty good, flavorful but I’m not a big fan of mangoes so I did not really enjoy it as much as my roommates. They said this was their favorite dish though! More of an entrée for yourself rather than to be shared. But we still managed to do it, so you can too lol.
Even though I give this a three star now, I definitely want to go back to try all the other things on the menu. The khalua pork tacos sound great and so does the fried rice. Maybe I just didn’t order the right thing the first time around.
Service was kind of slow and we waited quite a while for our food. But other than that, they were quite nice. My friend ended up getting a gigantic soft serve ice cream from the Fun Zone after dinner and since it was basically half her size, it started to melt as we were walking to the car. She came inside the restaurant after and asked for a cup and a hefty handful of napkins and there were no hesitation on the staff’s part. They were really nice seemed more amused than annoyed (as some stores would be).

I found a Groupon for this place, as well as one for paddleboarding at the Balboa Fun Zone which is about a block away. So me and the boyfriend planned to come here for lunch and then try paddleboarding afterwards. I forgot how sucktastic the parking is in this area. We circled around for almost an hour. Fed up, I called Ohana to ask if they knew of any parking spots that we may have missed. They said they can’t help me there, and good luck. Ok… fine.
So yeah, after an hour of looking for parking, we finally found one. But we had to park halfway in the red zone because everyone parks likes a douche, leaving smartcar sized spaces between cars. It was a bit of a walk too. Once we finally got here, it was closed!!! It said they opened at 11am, and it was 1pm. I was pretty pissed because I literally just talked to these people 15 minutes ago, and it didn’t occur to them to tell me that they weren’t even open when I mentioned we’re circling around looking for parking. An employee saw us and told us they’d open in about 30 minutes. We were starving and pretty annoyed so we just grabbed something quick to eat nearby and decided to come back afterwards. I’m really glad we did because we walked by again around 2:30pm and they still weren’t open.
Since our day was thrown off because of unforeseen events, we came back at a weird time (4pm) when no one else was here. I got the sweet shoyu BBQ short rib sandwich with the furikake garlic fries ($ 11), and the boyfriend got Kimo’s fried rice ($ 9). He also got a root beer that he claims was the best root beer because it’s very thick and syrupy. I liked my entrée. The sandwich was pretty tasty but I found the meat to be tough and kind of painful at times to chew (I have TMJ). The fries were excellent too. The perfect amount of garlic since they infuse it in garlic oil instead of putting huge chunks of them in there. I wasn’t a fan of the fried rice though. While it sounded great on paper, it was a paprika covered nightmare. The BF didn’t seem to mind it though, but it was kind of funky tasting.
The servers were nice and friendly, but sometimes a little too attentive (I guess because there was no one else there). When we got our food, they asked us right after our first bite, «Is it amazing or what??». I hate questions like that, they freak me out. I probably won’t be back again, not because it sucked or anything, but this location is not at all car-​friendly.

Balboa has some great little gems if you know where to look and Ohana House could very well be another one of them. Tucked in right around the corner from the BI Ferry, Ohana House is inviting and warm, with outside tables as well as a large interior seating area with TV’s playing surf videos, and some bar style seating as well as a few cool booths.
Food wise they call themselves «Pacific Rim meets Pacific Coast.» I had the Crab, Bacon, & Chorizo Fried Rice ($ 14). I didn’t get a whole lot of the crab taste, partially because of the spice level, but what I did get was a LOT of bacon, and a lot of chorizo, which was fantastic. Lots of fresh veg on top, a buttery and full flavored rice, and did I say a LOT of bacon? Fantastic work here.
I am not quite sure how I feel about the price point yet. I ordered at the counter and then it was brought out to me. Not quite sure if this is going to be billed as a sit down restaurant, or a wahoo’s style, order at the counter type deal. My first thought was that everything was a bit too expensive, but then again, we are in Newport.
Overall my food was fantastic, and I’m excited to try out some of their other dishes!
4 Stars.

Poke nachos are so darn good. The only bad thing was that we only had one serving of the nachos. My BF and I stopped in for a small snack, but both of us were loving the nachos.
So, my suggestion is to not share just one plate of the poke nachos, try two or another item from the menu.
I am so happy Ohana House opened here!