Makahiki is a restaurant that is located on the first floor of the Disney Aulani resort. The restaurant actually serves breakfast and dinner at 2 different times, so this review will be for the dinner portion. Unlike breakfast, there was less of a crowd for dinner, so we were able to walk in with our reservations very quickly. We were seated in the outdoor section under the covered patio around 5:00 PM, which was when the sun started setting. Absolutely stunning.
Ambiance & Service
The night was pretty serene and calm, and the service itself was homely and similar to diner type service. As mentioned in the breakfast review, there is the same Hawaiian flair with a noticeable darker chill ambiance of some live Hawaiian relaxing music playing as well.
This three course $74 dinner comes with 1 starter, 1 entree, and 1 dessert.
Food
The Strawberry Guava Island Cooler ($9 - left) came with strawberry, guava, and house-made lemonade topped with Sprite. It was a bit on the sweeter side, and I misjudged the sweetness combination of all that together.
The Passion Colada ($9 - right) came with cream of coconut and pineapple juice blended with liliko’i (Passion Fruit). This was decent in that it tasted like a virgin pina colada with some passion fruit syrup.
The bread rolls were fairly no frill and typical. They were very soft with a subtle sweetness to it.
The Roasted Tomato Soup was a starter and came with hamakua tomatoes, basil, evoo, and sourdough fontina melt. The soup had a nice tartness to it along with that tomato sweetness.
The Caesar Salad was a starter and came with hearts of romaine, herbed croutons, house-made caesar dressing, and reggiano parmesan. The romaine lettuce hearts were crispy and fresh, and everything was pretty light and typical of a Caesar salad.
The 8 oz Prime Filet Mignon was an entree and came with smashed marble potatoes, broccolini, shallot confit, bordelaise sauce, and bleu cheese butter. The filet mignon was cooked perfectly medium rare and had a nice taste to it. I wasn’t too big of a fan of the bordelaise sauce because it was overly sweet for me.
The Shrimp and Fettucine was an entree and came with garlic shrimp, asparagus, garlic tomato cream sauce, and pecorino romano. The flavors of this were a bit overly accented by the tomato cream sauce and pecorino cheese. I wish it was just a tad lighter. The fettuccine was cooked perfectly al dente, and they give a hefty amount. I was pretty full by the end.
The Warm Chocolate Toffee Brownie was dessert and came with brownie brittle and vanilla ice cream. The brownie was very delicious. We couldn’t finish this, so we took it with us back to the hotel room. It was still good for the next few days.
The Roasted Pineapple Cobbler was dessert and came with macadamia nut cinnamon streusel and haupia gelato. The pineapple cobbler reminded me a bit of a mini “apple” pie. I quite liked it, and it tasted good as a leftover a few days later.
The Kona Coffee Cheesecake was dessert and came with oreo cookie crust, whipped cream, and toffee sauce. We were full already, so we took this to go. When I tried this at the airport, I did not taste much of the coffee. I definitely liked the other 2 desserts much better.
Final Verdict
Makahiki, for dinner, was overall pretty good and very enjoyable for a resort restaurant. Do note that you are partly paying for the convenience and view aspect of it, so it might be higher priced for some.
Yelp Jabs
Appetizer/Salad: I got the caesar salad and it wasn’t anything too special. Just your typical caesar salad on romaine with 4 stale croutons.
I can’t imagine the croutons necessarily being stale (i.e. completely devoid of any flavor). They tasted like croutons. They might want to read up on where croutons can come from. Here’s a hint: stale bread.
For as expensive the price of the resort is you would think the food would be good
There is simply too many times where the resort food is not comparable to the price of the resort. Either this Yelper is devoid of enough travel or has inflated their expectations.
Revisions
- Apr 30, 2023 - Initial revision.