Kono’s on the Green: Wow (Maui Now)
When you dine at Kono’s on the Green, one word of exclamation comes to mind: wow.
But not always in a good way.
Let’s start with the good wow moments first.
For one, the view is to die for. Situated above the stunning Elleair Golf Course, it’s nothing but lush green grass and water traps as far as the eye can see.
Second, Kono’s is incredibly well-festooned. Whoever did the interior decorating deserves an award, and we completely want to steal the lounge furniture out back.
The third good wow is the prices. It’s often quite reasonable (in Maui terms), which might make you suspicious in such a lovely location. And it should.
We started with dinner.
It was 7 p.m. on a Thursday, but the restaurant was as empty as a church on Monday morning.
We started with the Saffron Seafood Soup ($12). It was incredibly acidy, and by incredibly we mean WOW.
Aesthetically, it was gorgeous: a red so intense it almost seemed unnatural. There were slices of garlic – and even an entire raw clove – and a ton of them.
The menu described fish, mussels, and clams but we received three mussels (which were lovely), one scallop (which was perfectly cooked!), one shrimp, and three Manila clams with sand in them.
The soup itself tasted like watered down, very garlicky marinara. Imagine putting canned tomatoes in the blender and then throwing in 10 or 12 raw garlic clove slices – so basically an entire bulb – and there you go.
The Roasted Beet Salad ($12) sounded so promising. “Red and yellow beets, caramelized walnuts, feta cheese, and citrus sherry vinaigrette.”
Where do we start?
What arrived was a miniscule portion of triangularly cut beets arranged to look like the sun. It seemed like something that would be presented by someone who religiously watches the Food Network but doesn’t actually know how to cook.
The miniscule portion of greens presented was overwhelmed with the flavor of orange juice. They were completely under-seasoned with no discernable dressing. There were also two unnecessary orange segments and a superfluous – and woody – five-inch stalk of thyme tucked in the greens. We know this because it accidentally wound up in our mouths.
There wasn’t enough feta and the walnuts were bitter. Take it or leave it. We suggest you leave it.
The Rack of Lamb ($39) was another “so close, and yet so far” moment. In its defense, the accompanying cherry port wine sauce was lovely, and the portion was truly impressive with nine chops and nine bones counted. Wow!
The downer was the fact that it was raw. Raw like blue. Raw like still screaming.
On the third attempt it was finally cooked medium rare, but wow.
The scalloped potatoes were salty, but well-cooked and adorned with a ridiculous and unnecessary sprig of rosemary the size of a pine tree. The hamakua mushrooms were perfectly prepared.
The Pancetta Wrapped Scallops and Prawn ($26) offered up three beautifully cooked shrimps and scallops, but overall it was a miss.
The seafood comes on a bed of salty mashed potatoes and is covered in a creamy, sundried tomato sauce with a handful of undressed mizuna on the side which we weren’t sure what to do with. It’s just a weird mix.
On a return visit at lunch, it was equally empty. Maybe there’s a golfer sweet spot time, but noon ain’t it.
Still, despite the fact that we were the only other table there, service was sloooooooooow. And by slow, we mean WOW.
The wait staff seems to be infected with a zombie-like lethargy, staring off at the golf course or leaving with your glass of iced tea and never coming back.
Hoping for better luck with the food, we tried to pick items that lend themselves to success.
The Margarita Pizza ($12) turned out to be a bad call. It looked EXACTLY like a cheap frozen grocery store pizza, and the flavor did not help.
The crust was thin, but pale and still quite doughy; kind of like par-baked bread you finish off in the oven at home.
It’s hard to fathom why the pizza was sent out this way but took over half an hour to arrive. Maybe someone was struggling to figure out how to turn on the stove, because it seemed like this might be a first attempt at cooking.
We ate a few slices and gave up.
The Gorgonzola Cheese and Bacon Burger ($12) was sure to be the hit of the meal. When it took 36 minutes to arrive, that was a bit worrisome, especially as we had ordered it medium rare.
It’s kind of difficult to explain what happened there. The ultimate product was cooked to well done but somehow… wet.
It looked like it had been cut in half, but it turned out it simply couldn’t hold itself together in its strangely greasy and watery state.
The bun below was a hopeless mess of mush.
Upon further investigation, there were small bits of onion in the meat and this really strange, wrong flavor. It took me a minute to identify the off taste, but I would bet $1000 there was nutmeg in that burger.
It was reminiscent of meatloaf: meatloaf that sat out in the rain. Wow.
The accompanying sweet potato fries were greasy and lukewarm, but truly the highlight of the meal.
Last up was the Sautéed Shrimp Pasta ($12).
If shrimp dream of one day swimming in a sea of oil, then this is their heaven.
An experiment in simplicity, it presented with just four ingredients – pasta, edamame, red bell pepper, and olive oil – and four and a half shrimp.
The dish was completely and utterly flavorless.
Perhaps if they’d included the almonds, red onion, garlic (steal a couple cloves from the guy who made the seafood soup. Please.), and diced tomatoes mentioned on the menu, it might have been better, but probably not.
Penne pasta is a truly dreadful choice for such an oily presentation, as the hollow pasta pieces store up deluges of oil and dump it out all over your face.
At the end of the day, Kono’s is a golf course clubhouse restaurant and maybe it should just try to be a great one of those? Make a fabulous club sandwich and some fish and chips and please never, ever, ever serve that “burger” ever again. Don’t embellish or get anywhere near the spice rack. Just make a great burger.
This is an intervention.
You have gorgeous views and fabulous ambience, but the food needs to be rethought and reinvented tout de suite. We hope you can pull it off. We’d love to come back and sit on that killer lounge furniture out back.