Noboru Japanese Restaurant

The food and service was excellent! We were seated right away, used Open Table app to reserve ahead. This is definitely a repeat restaurant!

We were seated promptly as there was no wait and was quickly offered water and tea. When we ordered they brought out our teishoku appetizers quickly and the onion salad is actually not as strong as it appears. The miso soup is ok but its not what you should be focusing on after all.
The tempura and the saba were soooo good and the natto maguro was so good. Its not too expensive.

Noboru was our favorite Japanese restaurant until last night. The renovations look awesome, but the service and food is not close to what it was before.
The menu has changed drastically, we can no longer get the wafu steak and sashimi combo that we go there for. The way they prepare the steak is really different. The steak now is just seasoned with basic salt and pepper (I could do that at home) and it doesn’t come out sizzling. Chicken katsu that my 4 year old loves, is no longer on the kids menu so we had to buy a adult portion ($ 10 vs $ 17.95). The New adult chicken katsu portion is the same size as the old keiki portion (1 chicken thigh, rice and salad) The sushi price has also gone up. $ 12 for 3 pieces of nigiri sushi (1ebi & 2tako) The only beer they have on tap is Suntory and they no longer carry the Asahi from Japan.
The new wait staff is very friendly and apologetic, but it almost seems as if they’re untrained or new to food service. They seem to forget that they have people seated outside where we were. We ordered the tempura ice cream and it took almost 30 min. because they forgot to put in the order, then never came back to check on us for another 15 min. So by the time they came back to check on us, we reminded them about the ice cream and only then they put in the order. Our reservations was at 7:00, we never left until 9:15 and the service took so long that our children fell asleep at the table and missed dessert.
I give them 2 stars because I like the new look for the restaurant, but the food and service need some major work. If you ask me, the prices seem a bit greedy especially for the quality and amount

Noboru was great. I was blown away by the quality of the sushi. Had some conversations with one of the chefs. He is originally from Hokkaido, Japan.
The sashimi and sushi that I had here was probably some of the best that I’ve ever had. You can immediately tell the difference. It’s very clean tasting. Complimented well with the sake sampler and Suntory draft beer that I had. Was perfect.
Also had an assorted tempura order. Presentation was beautiful and it was delicious.
One thing I do recommend would be the butterfish. It was unbelievable. Order a side of rice with it as well.
Lastly for dessert, they have Tempura Ice Cream!

Love the food so much and the staff is just as good as the food
The best sushi on the island
It’s worth the trip to windward side

Clean and neat place.
Nice service and quality of Sushi.
Ramen is also good.
Worth for every penny!
Definitely will visit next time.

Very upset with our service today! Came for a company lunch. Called our order in at 12:30 dso it could be ready by the time we got to the restaurant being that our lunch is only an hour long. We work literally right across the street. When we arrived they still haven’t put our order in. We told them repeatedly that we needed to be back in our office by 1:30. It’s 1:56 and we still haven’t received our order. Most of our staff has gone back to the office, needless to say, no lunch for us today! What a disappointment. Don’t think we’ll be coming here for lunch again. Oh, And the restaurant is empty!
We brought our food back to the office and were very displeased with the quality of our meals. The chicken and beef teriyaki had no taste, the tempura was soggy and the veggies in the tempura were raw. The sushi roll was just awful. Needless to say, no one was happy with their order.

First time back since renovations, we love Noboru! So of course I was so excited when my boyfriend turned into the parking lot. Upon entering, layout is different, nice and open, an actual sushi bar with chef! Yay!
That’s where the novelty starts to fade. We are greeted by 1 of 4 front of house staff. She’s nice and seats us, asks if we would like anything to drink, for now we just order water. Few minutes later, one of the other servers comes up and asks for our drink order (a little confused, but re-​order water) mind you we have not been presented a drink menu. A 3^rd server is the one to actually drop our waters. Not to be a pain but our water cups aren’t even filled to a reasonable «top» it looks like we already started drinking it. No.
2^nd server comes back to take our food order. 3 piece salmon nigiri (my fav! $ 4/​piece no biggie) 1 piece uni (for the be $ 7/​piece a little more but still no big deal) and 2 piece tamago ($ 3.50/piece) 2 entrée combo with tonkatsu and tempura.
Sushi comes first, the uni is questionable. Color is off and it’s «deflated» in my perspective. My bf that loves his uni stares at it with some concern but chows down. He was not satisfied with presentation and taste to say the least. Ginger also came out odd, like overly soaked in that sauce. Tamago, I’m new to eating tamago so I can’t really say anything about it it tasted fine no real complaints. But my love, my salmon… why?! You could compare the quality of salmon to genki. Grainy, chewy, fishy. Neither of us were pleased.
We finally decide to order some beer, echigo to share (just to test the waters, we’re not trying to get drunk here!) 2^nd server guy takes that beer order and quickly walks back with said beer, to confirm that is what we ordered, then walks away with said beer it takes him what seems like a while to come back with our beer and glasses. Fine no real big deal. Just what a way to tease us…
Finished with sushi, and no sign of our entrees. Sure it’s tonkatsu and tempura so again, no biggie. When 3^rd server drops the tonkatsu and sides (rice, miso soup, and side onions??) you can clearly notice the tonkatsu is sitting in something moist, maybe the salad dressing… To say the least, the Katsu wasn’t amazing. Can’t forget that 3^rd server asked if we would care for an extra plate since we are obviously sharing, «yes please!» Plate never comes, nor is it ever brought up again.
It took a little extra time and some arguing behind the scenes for us to get our tempura. A tiny shrimp, kabocha, potato, bell pepper, and more onions… okay. Shrimp was so small it’s hard to say there was any meat in there while the veggies seemed to be overly present.
While I honestly hate to make bad reviews, especially when I once loved this place and recommended to so many people. The new management/​owners have lowered standards in food and service quality for the look of the restaurant. It’s going to take some major convincing to get us back there. I am so sorry Noboru…
I will give the 2^nd star because in hopes that they do make changes and make Noboru another great eatery, Kailua desperately needs at least ONE good sushi place.

This place just got new management and revamped their look a bit, but so far I think the food and service was better before the change. The food wasn’t so bad but the service is why this place gets 3 stars. But I’ve also had good experiences there as well so maybe they’re just re-​getting into the hang of things.
For two people our total came to just over $ 100 with beer, sake, pupus, two entrees and dessert, average for Japanese cuisine.

Very disappointed in quality of fish and customer service.
I was part of a lunch group, we phoned prior to our visit to place our order. We were on a short time line– told the gentleman taking our order over the phone we needed to be out by 1330. We phone over an hour prior to our reservation to place food order!
Upon arriving we were informed our order was not ready, in fact, they wouldn’t start the order until we physically walked in and were seated. Not one of us in our party were able to eat our preordered meal at the table, we all had to leave prior to lunch being served– leaving one person in our party to take our orders as carry out.
Although the waitress was apologetic– never once did she attempt to make service agreeable! Not a discount, not a meal comp, or acknowledgement of poor customer service.
Food– sashimi was poorly cut and not fresh. The fish was prior frozen and the lower end cuts of the fish. Huge disappointment!
Tempura and chicken teriyaki– veggies were rushed and poorly cooked– raw and full of doughy batter. Chicken was dry, tasteless, very bland.
Salad was a mixture of canned corn, sparse greens and an over kill of sliced onion. Very distasteful.
Miso soup– nice!
Listen, the money you want to spend on sushi– should matter! Please, after your first visit, don’t hate me because I told ya so!!!
This place sucks.