Was with my adult daughter visiting my sister and her husband who live on Kauai, and tried Bouchon's for dinner on a Monday night. It's in a great location, looks pretty cool and had decent service. However, the food pretty much sucked. I had the Sushi specialty Maki roll they called Vegas Rolls and they were premade like you might get at a supermarket. My daughter had some salmon maki roll that she didn't even finish because it wasn't very good. My sister ordered a fairly expensive (perhaps not by Hawaii standards) Kobe Beef Burger medium rare which came out more like medium well or even well done. It also looked like some preformed frozen beef patty. She also had sweet potato fries with it that were cold and soggy and the oil tasted old. My sister's husband had ribs and chicken (I think) which he said was basically just "okay." It's a shame the food isn't up to par as there seems to be such great potential in the place. Oh yeah and one of the little bowls they give you for soy sauce with your sushi had food stuck to it, which was pretty gross.

My wife and I stopped in to Bouchons Hanalei on our way to Tunnel Beach. They were not busy, and we were seated promptly. We ordered drinks and lunch. Twenty minutes later we noticed two tables that were seated after us had received their food. We asked our waitress about our order, and she told us it would be up soon. Five minutes later she walked past us to a table of 8. One of their meals was the fish and chips I had ordered. We asked her again, and she told us they were there before us. I was about 80% sure they were not. My wife found a photo that I took (we were on vacation) showing their table was still empty when we already had our drinks. I speculate our waitress made a simple mistake and forgot to put our order in. Instead of owning up to her mistake, she denied it. She should have offered to comp our drinks or one of our meals. If she had, this review would be quite different. We waited for 5 more minutes before paying for our drinks and leaving without lunch. Her parting comment was that our food was almost ready.

I have to say that we were not expecting the best service or food, since this is in an extremely tourist-filled area. Our experiences on the north end of the island had not been the best, always rushed and commercial (go to the south of Lihue for a more friendly, local experience). Bouchons was an exception, a very good one. We ordered a California roll, mostly to compare to another one that we had in Kapaa, as an appetizer. To be honest, it was not as big or as full of crab as the other, but it was a very good roll. We wished that we had only ordered from the sushi menu at this point, realizing that it would have been a great experience. People around us had huge rolls delivered, making our mouths water. We ordered from the regular menu, had wraps, fish & chips and ribs & fish. We also ordered drinks, which were great. The martini I had was the best on the island (we stayed over a week, so we had a lot of different experiences with drinks and food) and generous. It did not taste as if it had more juice than alcohol (martinis are not juice drinks, teach that to a few other bartenders on the island, would ya?) and yet it was sweet and tasty. Our waiter was obviously swamped right after we arrived; several large parties came in with us, but he did his best to give us a personalized experience and he did great. I wish I could remember his name because he deserves the praise here. He apologized, but there was no need, we had a great time and he was funny, as well as attentive He only missing that a drink order was up while he was attending to a group of 10 at another table, but a nod from one of us and he was on it, so no complaints. 4 of 5 stars due to a small disappointment with one food item. The fish and chips was not the freshest tasting. For a state that prides itself on fresh seafood, it could have been a little less fishy tasting. That is a small complaint, it was still better than most mainland fish dishes in most states. Price-wise, it would be great to see lower prices for fish dishes, since these fish are caught locally.. but that is an islandwide complaint, not just at Bouchons. For the island, the prices here are similar and I suppose competitive.

Very good Sashimi, Martini, and grilled Ahi.

Friendly staff, beautiful view, great drinks, creative and delicious sushi rolls.