Domo Cafe

I’ve passed by this spot several times and haven’t ever looked at their menu. That was mistake number one. I came here one day by chance and just ordered drinks, which were good, but I still wasn’t compelled to order food so that was mistake number two. I was missing out! The food here is pretty good! Don’t make the same mistake like I did and give them a try.
Today a friend who was visiting from Maui asked me to lunch and luckily my schedule had a last minute change so we were able to meet up. Originally we were going to another restaurant but they were closed till the next day and our other friend recommended Domo Café. Good call Paul C! We both haven’t been there so we just followed the leader and ordered what Paul C ordered.
We all had the spicy ahi and it was good! It was a bunch of cold ahi over a generous portion of warm rice that was covered with furikake. I normally don’t like spicy ahi because it has too much mayo but their spicy ahi was different and I liked how they flavored it. We all washed the meal down with a nice cold cup of lemon tea. It was a good combo. Looking forward to coming back in the future!

Very tasty and fresh poke bowl. We ordered the bentos and almost cannot finish them — really large portion. We also ordered two poke bowls for take out. It’s not expensive and the food is worthy it. Recommend.

Happened to be in Chinatown yesterday and saw this place. The kids looked up the Unilocal reviews and we decided to go in and have lunch. We ordered the sushi set B1 ($ 6.50) and B2 ($ 6.50) along with a spicy ahi poke bowl ($ 7.95) special with an iced lemon tea added for an additional 99 cents. It was way too much food for the three of us so we saved the poke bowl to deliver to my husband for lunch. He said the spicy ahi was actually spicy, so he liked that. He did say there was a lot of rice and he didn’t eat all of it. The kids and I shared the two sets and I enjoyed the flavor of the California roll. The portions were very generous. The sushi rice was a little too mushy for me, but not enough to bother me.
Today, I decided to see if I could order a sushi platter even though it’s New Year’s Eve. They were able to take our order and we picked it up at 4 p.m. We saw other people ordering an avocado smoothie that looked good also. I liked that I saw them putting in real avocado in the smoothie.
Definitely recommend. Affordable, fresh fish, and friendly service.

I stumbled into this little casual restaurant in Chinatown. It’s clean and spacious and even has free wifi — rare attributes for Chinatown.
I got a spicy ahi poke. The ahi was high quality. The sauce is tasty with good amount of fire. The coconut pudding is yummy with silky texture. I didn’t get to try the rest of the menu but I saw other people (look like locals) ordering udon noodles and bubble teas and the food look legit and portion is good.

I found a new favorite resto in Chinatown! Always came here. What I like in this place is that it is clean, the food is soooooo delicious yet not expensive! You can watch the chef prepare your food! The owner are friendly and they know the name of their regular costumers. If you happened to be in chinatown pls do check this place! Highly recommendee

Found this place just walking by. Great prices, large poke bowl 795. Had spicy tuna poke and sushi box. Food was really good. The rice is cooked perfectly.

Near restaurant quality sushi, affordable prices, and very friendly owners — what else can you ask for?
The real star is their poke ($ 13.99/lb), a bit more than what you get from the supermarket but this is made from fresh ahi and well worth it. No stringy pieces or bad cuts at all. It comes in shoyu or spicy.
For sushi platters, I think #2 for $ 35.95 is a good choice, comes with salmon, ahi, california roll, dragon roll, etc. This is almost to $ 10 less than comparable places like Kozo, Aloha Sushi, etc. Suggested that you give them about a day’s notice for big orders.
Their boba drinks (mostly $ 3.95) are pretty good and made from fresh fruits.
Highly recommended!

My family has come here every weekend for over a month straight. We love this place. They’re family owned and customer service is warm and friendly.
Sushi sets and Poke bowls are fresh and delicious. Most of all super affordable! Our favorite orders is the sushi set B which comes with 2 pcs of each garlic ahi, garlic shrimp, garlic salmon and unagi. You can even change the sets to your liking to all salmon and shrimp for example.
Give this place a try! I promise you’ll get hooked!

This cute little place in Chinatown is a definite must try. It’s affordable, fresh and they serve a considerable size. We also had the udon which was very good as well. Can’t wait to come back next time we are in Honolulu!

This is an awesome little place in downtown. The store is clean and the owners are extremely friendly.
Drinks:
I have had the taiwanese milk tea… it’s pretty good. Good tea flavor though it may not be sweet enough for some people.
The plantation iced tea is a bit watery but drinkable.
Food:
Fresh fish! I have had both the spicy ahi and spicy salmon bowls. Good sized portions for the price, and the fish is fresh and delicious. The sauce is a bit heavy, but good with the rice to balance it out. They do layer the furikake so you get a nice mix of the fish, furikake, and rice. Perfection!!!
Going to definitely go back and try some sushi sets and some smoothies. They always have specials so that is worth checking out too.
I would definitely recommend this place! Maybe have some cash handy because sometimes the card reader doesn’t quite work… but there is an atm nearby so no worries there.

Nice, salmon is good, price is reasonable, and has a good variety of tropical drinks.

I ordered the sushi set #1, which had 4 pieces of california and 4 pieces of spicy ahi for $ 6.50. I really liked it. The rice was perfect and the fish was really fresh. I especially liked their spicy tuna. They didn’t put as much mayonnaise as other places. Instead, it had more of a teriyaki sauce to cut the heat. It had that sweet and spicy thing going on, and I don’t even like spicy.
This is probably a family business. The husband and wife duo were extremely friendly. The owner took my order and his wife rang me up. Since this is in Chinatown, no tax. Yay! It took around 10 minutes for me to get my order. There was one person in front of me. As I watched him make the sushi, I could tell he put a lot of care into his products. I didn’t eat in the restaurant and took it to go.
They sell sushi sets, bentos, poke bowls, udon bowls, sushi bowls and bubble drinks. The next time I come back will probably be for a poke bowl. I love those things.

Great place. Good value for nigri — only thing I’ve eaten there the fish is larger and thicker pieces than I’ve had at other places — 9.50 $ (tx included) for 8 pieces.
Good thing to remember is CASH ONLY– even if you forget there is an ATM across the street. Next I will have to try their teas!

Nice little gem in the heart of Chinatown. Everything is made to order so it’s fresh. Try any of the sushi sets. The unagi and spicy tuna are really good. Great selections and variety of fresh fruit and booba drinks available. Only problem is finding parking in Chinatown.

Located in the heart of chinatown, its a bright new joint for casual poke, udon and teri chicken bowls + drinks. Tried the spicy ahi and shoyu ahi poke bowls. Liked the spicy, but loved the shoyu. Also tried a sip of my friends lichee ice tea and that was bomb. For the price, portion and deliciousness, I can see myself becoming a regular here.

Great place in Chinatown near downtown for yummy and inexpensive poke bowls, sushi bentos and udon. They also have boba tea and take cash only. Prices are very reasonable and portions are generous. Aside from ahi and vegetable there is a scarcity of places to get poke bowls for lunch in downtown so this is a welcome addition. Will be back for sure

We received a tip from fellow Unilocaler, Paul C., to come into Chinatown to try the «new kid on the block», Domo Café. This café recently had its Grand Opening and has been running its 15% discount from July 8 through July 15. We have been in Chinatown recently but «automatically» chose to eat dim sum and noodles instead. But, today, we decided to try Paul’s find.
Domo Café is a welcome breath of casual/​takeout Japanese dining in the sea of Southeast Asian and Chinese businesses. Here, for a reasonable price, you can get good made-​to-​order sushi, sashimi, udon and fresh fruit bubble (boba) drinks. The walk-​in café has several seating options that can be configured to accommodate couples or larger parties. Ordering in this clean and bright restaurant is simple… walk up to the cashier, make your selection by menu selection NUMBER, pay and then have a seat. As you’re seated, you can actually watch your meal being prepared through the open kitchen. The restaurant is owned and operated by a Chinese family who said that they learned how to select fresh seafood, cut sashimi and prepare sushi while living in Japan prior to moving to Hawaii. It was interesting to enjoy the pictured menu with descriptions in English while in the background, a television station channel had been preset to a Mandarin news station.
THE FOOD:
–My husband ordered the large spicy tuna bowl priced at $ 7.95 with steamed white rice as a base (alternate choice was udon). The spicy tuna had a mild spicy chile kick, was not overly mayonnaise-​based and was generously portioned. The fish was fresh, clean tasting and had a nice mouthfeel. The steamed white rice didn’t seem to be the typical Calrose short-​grain rice and seemed a bit drier yet fluffy. I don’t know how to describe or explain this, but the rice was like Chinese restaurant textured rather than sushi rice in texture. As he ate through the generous spicy tuna top, he noticed that the rice had a Furikake layer. There was a drizzle of a somewhat sweet teri sauce that he didn’t really care for and found it a bit distracting to the spicy tuna. All, in all, he liked his dish… he ate it all down to the white of the bowl!
–I ordered the Sushi Set # 6 priced at $ 8.50. I couldn’t decide on which dish I really wanted so the sushi set gave me a taste of almost «everything». There were 8 pieces of sushi on the plate: 4 slices of 2″ diameter inside-​out Maki California Roll and 4 Nigiri sushi (one piece each) of garlic ahi, garlic salmon, garlic unagi (eel) and garlic shrimp. The flavors, seared fish doneness and roll technique were spot on. I still have a «problem» with the texture of the rice but, I can look past it as Domo Café leans stronger toward Asian Fusion cuisine. I couldn’t eat all of the sushi as it proved to be too much food so I shared it with my husband who happily obliged.
–We both ordered boba drinks priced at $ 3.95 for 22 oz. What a value as they don’t use powders to flavor these icy drinks. Except for the taro flavor, which they did acknowledge was powder. My coconut boba was like drinking an icy cold liquid haupia and it was packed with nicely cooked boba. The intensely flavored fresh coconut milk flavor was like drinking cream with the occasional pop of boba as a textural contrast. My husband ordered the Mocha coffee boba which would put Starbucks’ mocha Frappuccino to shame. The coffee flavor was smooth like Café du Monde’s café au lait but iced and topped with whipped cream. Both boba drinks were refreshing and flavorful to combat the heat of this Summer day.
Domo Café offered a clean, cool and efficiently run lunch spot. The food is tasty, value priced and would be a nice change of pace from eating Chinese food. As for parking, well, you’re talking about Chinatown so you have to take your chances with either metered street parking or municipal parking lots. Of course, if you live or work in Downtown Honolulu, it would be a nice walk to and from your office.
We’re wishing for Domo Café’s continued success in Chinatown!
#367

In Chinatown most of the food establishments are either Chinese or Vietnamese food. We now have another eatery that offers Japanese food.
Today is the soft opening of Domo Café, which recently took over the space of X-​Way. The layout is just like the previous occupant where it’s very spacious, bright and welcoming.
The menu here is quite extensive from sushi, bento, poke bowl and udon noodles. I had the spicy salmon bowl and it was very flavorful with a nice kick to it. Personally it was a little heavy with the mayonnaise but it complimented the rice well. I also had the salmon sashimi. It was very fresh and marbled nicely. Yummy!
To wash your food down they have fruit smoothies and Boba drinks. I tried their mango smoothie and watermelon smoothie without pearls (because of the unwanted extra calories) and it was just okay. Pureed very fine and the mango flavor was very faint. However, the fruits selection was impressive so many visits are required to sample them all!
They also have some desserts, I tried their mango pudding ($ 2.50) with evaporated milk, which had a strong mango flavor. Also tried their Almond Bar ($ 4.25, package of 6 pieces), which is baked filo dough with almond slices on top. Very crisp with a slight sweetness to it.
There are quite a few tables for you to dine-​in but you can also do take-​out.
Next time you’re looking for something different to eat as lunch or snack in Chinatown there’s a new kid on the block. Reasonable prices with an extensive menu selection.
NOTE:
1) Grand Opening Special 15% off everything — — offer good until July 15, 2015.
2) Free WiFi here.