Rigo Hawaii is a great new Spanish/Italian restaurant located in the old Genki Sushi Kapahulu location. While the outside of the building looks the same, the renovations they made inside are INCREDIBLE. It’s a gorgeous restaurant and I am glad to report that although I went to this restaurant in it’s early days, we had a great time! We got seated in a very nice table (this never happens to me!), the food and service was great and I’m excited to share this with you! Quick tips:
Parking: Currently, parking is valet for $5.00. I scored the last street parking fronting the restaurant, what a great start to the evening!
Bathroom: JAPANESE TOILETS. Do I need to say more? Have a great bi-det (get it?).
seasonal fruit, orange juice, cranberry juice & red wine
I was super excited to see that they have a cocktail menu! Their website only lists wines and I don’t drink that…well I don’t know how to appreciate them just yet. Was super excited to see sangria on the menu but I was’t a fan of their sangria. Could be a bit sweeter and it had a bit of sour cream cheese taste? Weird right? Maybe that’s just me but I tasted something off!
romaine wedge with creamy homemade caesar dressing, croutons and black sesame tuile
Check out this salad. Fancy right? Well. Not a big fan of having to cut the leaves myself, haha. Yes, lazy plays a part in this but also because as I was trying to cut the leaves, the dressing was flying all over the place. I ended up just eating the whole leaves bite by bite on my fork. You see the black chunks all over? I thought it was something burnt but it’s not! It’s the black sesame tuile and it tasted nicely caramelized. What a nice surprise! The salad was pretty enjoyable.
out of the oven! garlic and parmesan bread for your starter, salad or soup!
Well, this place does not have complimentary bread. Sorry folks. We ordered this bread, it was alright. Four slices which we used to dip into our appetizer so I think I would have preferred some plain white bread…
prawn fried with italian parsley butter
Look, these prawns are just swimming in butter. Can you go wrong? No. Did we want some (free?) plain bread to dip in the sauce? Yes. Great appetizer.
rum, mint, lime, soda & sweet sherry
Redemption! After I finished my sangria, I went for my next go-to drink, a mojito. Can I just say? This was a great mojito, one of the best I’ve had! So glad I could find a good drink!
manila clams, kauai shrimp, squid, carnaroli rice and seafood stock
This is one of their signature dishes and almost every table was getting it! This dish does take a while to cook so order it if you are not in a rush. I feel like we waited for about 20-30 minutes for it. The appetizers came out quick but the wait for this one dragged on a bit. The dish tasted good but I gotta say, the portion (especially the rice) was too little. I think the waiter said this can be a shared entree. No, I don’t think so – unless you guys are sharing more than one entree!
homemade fresh spaghetti with pancetta, onion, fresh cream, egg yolk, pepper, garlic, olive oil and portobello fritto
Pretty good dish, not a fan of rich cream based pastas usually but this was a nice choice for the evening. The portobello fritto was a nice contrast. You know what I would have loved? Maybe just a touch of truffle. I’m just a sucker for truffle.
homemade creamy tiramisu made with coffee and mascapone cheese
This was a surprising dish for me. I’m not usually a fan of tiramisu but something about the pictures I saw online made me want to get this. I gotta say, while it’s not my favorite dessert, this was pretty good! I think I would have liked more mascapone cheese mixed in with the cream filling. Strong coffee flavor! If you like tiramisu, you will like this dessert!
everything sounded nice
Yes, you should try now that you’re home!
Wow!
Yes!