What an adventure this one was. I can tell you that Kona Grill was not our first choice. In fact, it was not planned at all. Our actual destination for this weeks Dining with Dad was Sono Wood Fired. We showed up outside Sono and took our customary DWD picture.

Then we grabbed the door handle to go in and realized REAL quick that it was locked! What was going on? It was just after 5pm so they had to be open. Then we looked at the window to the left of the door and saw this taped to the glass:

Ahhh heck. This isn’t going well. Luckily we were at Easton so there were options. I remembered that Kona Grill had reopened after being gone for some time so we headed over there since it was rather close to where we were.

When we walked into the lobby area we immediately picked up on a strong sewage smell. We all kind of looked at each other, all thinking, “what on earth is that smell?” But the restaurant was half full so we thought maybe it was just right there and it wouldn’t be like that where we sat. It wasn’t, which was good but maybe we should have used that as a sign!

We were seated towards the outside of the restaurant, near the glass windows facing the street. As we waited for our server we started looking at the Happy Hour deals since we still had an hour left of those specials. Our server showed up and took our drink order while we still considered our options. We finally decided on the Kona Sliders and Potstickers, which were both $6 options on the menu. While they were both good, we agreed that 3 little potstickers for $6 wasn’t quite worth it. I got a Kona Big Wave draft for $3 which was quite delicious.

After the appetizers were gone, which happened very quickly, our server returned and we ordered. I started by ordering another Kona Big Wave draft and then we gave our order. Being that it was only 5:30, I figured I’d get that one and maybe one more before Happy Hour ended at 6. Unfortunately, I had to flag down the server about 5:50 to ask about my beer that she clearly forgot. I’m not exactly a lush, but sitting 20 minutes without a drink is a bit annoying. Luckily we did get waters at the beginning so I had that.

On to the food choices as that’s what we should be focused on. Chloe kind of surprised me with her choice this week. She typically doesn’t get sandwiches because she hasn’t been into buns. But she recently started eating buns with her hamburgers and maybe this is the start of a new avenue of food choices for her. She decided to go with the fried chicken sandwich. She saw that it had no cheese and it came with pickles which is her favorite sandwich condiment. Unfortunately, she quickly noticed that her sandwich didn’t have ANY pickles on it! I had to flag down someone to get her the pickles that should have come with it. After that however, she did like the sandwich.

It took Alex quite a while to decide. He pointed out that the Fish and Chips was $37. I’m not sure if he was mentioning it because he wanted it or just making note but he thought that was way over priced. He wanted to get the Surf and Turf but the Surf was all shellfish which he’s allergic to. He decided to go with the Miso-Sake Chilean Sea Bass. I could tell from his face that he regretted his choice. He mentioned it was sitting in oil, which it was. I think he tried the bok choy but didn’t care for it, maybe because it was soggy from the oil? He said the fish was good but he had better Sea Bass before.

Luckily my dinner had no issues with it and it was very tasty! I wasn’t sure if Chloe would like her choice so I wanted to get something that I knew she would like in case we needed to switch. I went with the Sweet Chili Glazed Salmon which came with fried rice. After I ordered it Chloe mentioned she was eyeing that but feels like she always gets salmon so wanted to try something different. The salmon was cooked well and the friend rice was delicious. It had edamame in it which I hadn’t seen before.

As we walked out we discussed the overall experience. We all kind of agreed this was a one and done. While the food was ok, the quality didn’t match the prices. Add in mistakes, bad service, and everything else, it wasn’t an experience we would choose to do again. They can’t all be winners I suppose.