Uptown Cafe

When I saw the coupon in the newspaper recently, I Unilocaled the place to check it out for sure. With current reviews, I could not have been happier. I had always thought this gem had closed down a few years ago! Apparently so have other folks as when hubby & I dined there last night, few were at the bar and only one other table occupied — on a Saturday night?! Lovely owner confirmed that this is what a lot of folks think. Our loss! But no more: except for Sunday’s, this little hole in the wall gem is gonna be our place to have good home style dishes: ahi belly, pork & squash, chicken soup — all on daily specials or regular menu, yea!

Great neighborhood restaurant with Okinawan, Japanese, Chinese, American and Local Kine Grindz comfort dishes!

A hole in the wall, mauka from lum sai Hong tong Chinese temple, across the street from cultural plaza, you can find this gem hidden along the barren one way street to Vineyard blvd.
Oxtail soup — 4 stars — for around $ 14, the broth was tasty and oxtail was tender. One of the best tasting soup I’ve had.
Pig’s feet soup — 3 stars because the meat was a little gamey. The soup was also delicious, and not oily.
Miso butter fish — 4 stars because the miso was flavorful with the fish.
Service — 5 stars — Although the outside at night can be a deterrence, and it’s partly a bar, the service and food makes up for it. The waitress was very nice and personable. It felt very family oriented and because they noticed a young one with us, they treated him with a scoop of delicious macadamia nut icecream which we ended up sharing. Seems like die-​hard patrons frequent this restaurant because of the quality of food.
Parking is right in front on the street but it feels safer to park in the parking lot in back because it’s lit and the door is open where the cooks are.

Chips were extra crispy. The portion could be better; servings are too small. Not bad though.

from the outside it looks like a dive… The food is pretty good. I had the pigs feet soup, came with and grated ginger.. parking is plentiful in the back, they have karaōke on Tuesday nights. passed a table on my way to the restroom, they had sashimi, steaks, palehu pork chops, looked like a winner

Pretty good lunch spot or happy hour hangout. Good pupus, drinks reasonably priced and karaōke. Decent size parking lot and street parking.

Food was great. It’s a very slow pace kinda place. The bathroom was pretty clean, which is a great sign.

Good and friendly staff. Prices are very reasonable. Chicken wing dings are a must have.

Inexpensive beer, big song selection in karaōke book.
Good Fun with the right crowd.

Went here when another place we were going to go was closed. Surprising parking was good for a weekday 12:00 lunch. My wife was kind of hesitant to go here. She’s been to College Walk once with me some years ago so was bracing herself.
Surprising when we walked in the door the restaurant was packed. Bad sign was that most people didn’t have their food yet. They were so full the table we got was in the bar side.
They have a pretty good selection of food here. Not a huge menu but something for everyone. I was tempted by the udon with shrimp temura but passed. I chose the fried chicken. My wife couldn’t decide between the fried noodles which is their specialty or the short rib stew. She asked the waitress what the short rib stew was and she said it was like beef stew.
I got miso soup with mine and my wife got mac salad. About 20 minutes after we ordered they came to tell us there was no mac salad so my wife changed to miso soup. In about 20 more minutes they came out with the 2 miso soups. That’s 40 mintues now. The soup was at least really good. it had a lot of flavor. The seaweed in it seemed over cooked and was falling apart but it was still good.
Our food didn’t arrive for another 10 minutes after we finished our soups. My wifes was a shallow bowl of stew. For the time it took to get to her I think they may have just made it. It wasn’t very impressive for $ 12. I tasted it and it was very salty. My fried chicken was 8 pieces of fried party wings. at least mine was only $ 9. But for that price I expected more. It was just run of the the mill flour mixture coated wings fried up. If I knew they were only going to be party wings I would not have ordered them.
Maybe if it was the afternoon and I was enjoying a cold beer while waiting for my food I would have been okay but 50 minutes for our food to arrive is kind of ridiculous. At least they had tv’s for you to watch. Too bad it was like 6 of them all blaring with different shows on them. I might have to think twice about coming here again but will read into other comments to see if there may be a dish worthy of trying. I might have to find another guinea pig though as my wife probably won’t come back.

if you know what to order, the food is really good. service is mleh. depends on your waitress and the day of the week, really.
love all the pau hana patrons here. always curious to try the happy hour pupus, but haven’t got a chance yet.
best things on the menu? spare rib soup or oxtail soup; the spare rib soup is good period. if you’re a kam bowl fan, you should know the oxtail soup has a different flavor– not my favorite, but anywhere you can get oxtail soup for under $ 10 is worth noting.
the udon is good, and both the steak and kal bi have excellent flavor but can be a little tough and may have significant bits of fat attached.
good prices, staff is nice (sometimes slow), but overall a nice change in pace from zippy’s which is the next block over.

Went there today (Friday) for lunch a few minutes after lunch service started at 11am… promptly served… still quite empty… received our toss salad starters within a few minutes of ordering then followed less than a minute later by our entrees.
I had the roast pork, while my eating companion had the meat loaf (after I bragged about it to him). He was NOT impressed… okay, so it depends on the individual, I should know that…
The gravy on the entrée I ordered was not what i thought… perhaps others will like it for it had a light, not heavy taste which locals like (me especially), and I didn’t like it today… not something I would take again, it was ‘bland’ tasting… it didn’t impress me…
They even take AMEREX credit cards!
We had a good time, in and out within 45 minutes! Service was quite prompt and there was a security guard looking over the parking lot area in back (which I never saw during my last review which was on a Saturday early afternoon).

Hidden in the ghetto is a little place called Uptown Café. Yes, blink your eyes while driving down the ¹⁄₈^th mile of road from Kukui to Vineyard and you’ll miss this! It’s located in this grayish building which amazingly has this parking lot at the back of it.
I’ve heard the food here is good, but this venture involved a microphone and some stale Cheetos haha (what can you say when it’s $free.99?). Karaōke is the game and all the patrons of the bar this night were here to entertain!
We went with a group of 8 and took up two booths, but no worries had plenty of room. The place is fairly large and to my imagination shaped like an L since the bathrooms were all the way on the other end of the place. The atmosphere is typical to that of a normal local Karaōke bar and you had your typical Karaōke patrons. The moment I stepped in I heard all that I needed to hear (off key and off tempo) so it was time to show some of the good stuff… well that didn’t happen. Apparently, you really waaaaiiiiitttt for your song to play. But I was the slow poke in putting in a song while some of my pals were able to get a couple in. What I do really like about the Karaōke are the song selections. The songs they carry are pretty up to date and for the most part have what you want to sing (or at least you’ll find something you’ll want to sing). It’s a $ 1/​song and they also have Japanese music (one popular selection, Shima Uta by The Boom).
The service was really good at first and tapered down towards the later hour and I couldn’t figure it out. However, the lady who served us was really nice and could really sing her tunes :) We got some free pupu snacks like popcorn and Cheetos, but the puffy Cheetos were stale… The beers however were coming on a nice flow allowing for good conversation and fun jokes.
If you really want to just chill and sing, this could be a place fo you!

This would be your typical hole in the wall, local food joint. The kind where you don’t recommend to your friends from the mainland because it’s not the cleanest or most popular place, but the food here is pretty good. For the price, they give large portions of food. I ate the chicken katsu. The katsu is breaded just right, not too heavy and very crispy. The katsu sauce is very tasty with a good tangy BBQ flavor.

Good casual local food.
It’s very homey.
I feel like I am eating at my auntie’s place, every time I visit this place.
Reasonable price for food and beers.