Yakitori Hachibei Is Launching a $40 Happy Hour Omakase
The grilled skewer specialist from Kyushu is debuting a lighter omakase on July 2 in Chinatown.
Photo: Melissa Chang
Many people who love yakitori are familiar with Hachibei, which has been a mainstay on Hotel Street in Chinatown for seven years. It’s part of a chain of 10 restaurants in Japan, but this Hawai‘i branch was recently acquired by the Westman Group, which owns other restaurants in town like Kaimukī Shokudo and Búho Cocina y Cantina.
If you didn’t know about the acquisition, you probably wouldn’t notice a difference in the price, quality or service. But subtle changes are coming, which is good news for diners.
Hachibei offers à la carte orders as well as an $80 omakase with about 15 items—some of them skewers, some prepared dishes—and goma (sesame) pudding for dessert. The omakase’s appetizer plate features some of my favorite bites from Kaimukī Shokudo, like their sweet potato salad and hamachi carpaccio. I love getting the best of both worlds in one spot. But for someone like me, the omakase is a lot, so I’d be better off with à la carte.
Photo: Melissa Chang
Just before this month’s Chinatown blackouts, however, Westman COO Ryan Ko announced a new happy hour omakase at Hachibei starting on July 2. From 3:30 to 5 p.m., a nine-course omakase for just $40 will include hamachi carpaccio, nagaimo ohitashi (mountain yam), local corn karaage, Okinawan sweet potato salad and five skewers—chicken breast with yuzu kosho, gizzards, tsukune or chicken meatball, pork belly and sukiyaki. The sukiyaki is one of my favorites, as it’s thinly sliced beef wrapped around chrysanthemum and enoki mushrooms, then you dip it in a beaten raw egg yolk.
Photo: Melissa Chang
If you want to order anything from the à la carte menu during happy hour, you still can do that as well.
SEE ALSO: Hawai‘i’s Senior Yakitori Master Has Opened His Own Restaurant
Photo: Melissa Chang
Whether you’re there for happy hour or not, I recommend you get a cocktail to go with your meal. Hey, you’re supporting Chinatown, right? Hachibei offers beer, sake, shochu and cocktails, but I’m especially impressed with some of their unique chuhai, or shochu highballs. One of the most popular is the mint honey lemon chuhai ($13.90), which I’ve never seen anywhere else in the world. I’ve also never seen the fresh-pressed tomato lemon chuhai ($10.90) but wasn’t brave enough to try it yet. You can also get “normal” ones like fresh-pressed lemon chuhai, oolong hai and ryokucha (green tea) hai.
Yakitori Hachibei is open from 5 to 11 p.m. daily. Starting July 2, they’ll be open from 5 to 10 p.m. daily, and happy hour will be from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Parking is available on nearby streets or in municipal parking structures, the nearest of which are the Smith-Beretania and Chinatown Gateway garages.
20 N. Hotel St., (808) 369-0088, hachibei.com, @yakitorihachibei_hawaii
