Bar Koko & Persian Restaurant

We were visiting Hawaii from Los Angeles and found this exceptional Persian restaurant with super high-quality food. The customer service was excellence. My children and the family devoured every dish. I highly recommend this restaurant..We tried a variety of dishes, and everything was great!

The food was awesome but the service was a little slow and constantly required me to repeat what we were requesting; I think there may a slight language barrier. Let me elaborate a bit:Starting with the food, it tasted amazing and was very authentic to the region got which it comes from, the Middle East/Mediterranean cuisine. For appetizers, I ordered the Cucumber Dip, Pita Bread and the Tandoori Naan Bread, it all tasted so amazing! And for dinner, I ordered 2 Combination Kebob dishes (combo of beef kabob and chicken kabob), one for my Aunt and one for me. Let me tell it did not disappoint, the presentation, portion size and the flavors were fantastic! Even my Aunt, the finicky eater that she is, loved the flavors and textures of everything she tried!Now on about the restaurant setting, unfortunately, this is where things dipped a bit. In my opinion, the restaurant is not located in the best location at the corner of Piikoi and Young streets, however, the upside is that there is tons of 'paid' parking in the back and on the side of the restaurant. Also as a note, the restaurant is connected to a "hookah lounge (as defined by Wikipedia: "A hookah lounge (also called a shisha bar or den, especially in Britain and parts of Canada, or a hookah bar) is an establishment where patrons share shisha (flavoured tobacco) from a communal hookah or from one placed at each table or a bar") and it seems that the specific draw is more for the hookah lounge patrons. I say that because there is a hallway that connects the lounge to the restaurant/bar/restroom areas and there seems to be way more activity and service offered in the lounge than in the very small, cramped and pushed up against the far wall dining area just opposite the extensively stocked full bar (that is, literally, the full length of the restaurant itself.Regarding the service, also unfortunately, there seems to be a slight language barrier that our server did not quite understand what we were asking for and thus, completely ignored our repeated requests for Naan Bread. What he did bring us was Pita Bread, of which was already delivered to us alongside the Cucumber Dip which comes with Pita Bread already. When I asked our server about the Naan Bread for a 3rd time, he then pointed to the Pita Bread and walked off, a bit frustrating but the food somewhat made up for the lack of service! Also, he never returned to check on us or offer any else, I had to flag down the lady behind the bar to get more water!I would love to give this restaurant a 5-star rating but because of the service issues and the crampiness of the restaurant can only give it a 4-star rating or my personal 4-Shaka rating!

When I lived in San Francisco and dated a Persian boyfriend I used to eat kebab koobideh every week - it was my favorite comfort food. It has been seven agonizing years since my last plate of kebab koobideh. This Uber eats delivery was EVERYTHING! Perfect fluffy saffron rice. Super fresh salad, a perfectly roasted tomato and of course large moist satisfying skewers of beef wrapped perfectly in foil away from the rice for delivery. It was delivered from 8 miles away and still arrived piping hot in less than 25 minutes. I greedily gobbled down the whole plate in 5 minutes - too excited and hungry to savor anything. I ordered an extra skewer of beef in case the portion sizes weren't enough - but even at my hungriest I wasn't able to eat more than 2 skewers. My eyes are always bigger than my stomach. For reference I feel like the skewers are like 2 hamburger patties worth of beef each. Shown below are before and after pics of my first Bar Koko Uber eats delivery. It certainly won't be the last. Thanks for exceeding all expectations and making my Hawaiian koobideh dreams come true!

Food has small portions to price. We ordered lots of extra so we would be full. Family owned l love that. Been there many times as I love Persian food and this is the only one I know in Hawaii. So I try to support there local business. I hope the kabob isn't frozen?!? Usually great once seems frozen. I know many people from LA didn't care for the food. It's because there is so many amazing Persian food there. It's hard to find and get some ingredients in Hawaii! I know some Persian people here small community this is it or Greek( not the same) or nothing. Please support them and open more Persian restaurants !!! Hawaii is ready. Take for example Istanbul I love how the sister will add saffron and zereshk when I bring it.

Aloha . This is a small middle eastern restaurant in the corner of a hookah shop. The food is not that good so I will recommend to try other places. The service is ok but not fast since few people work there. The parking is available behind the restaurant.

First time ordering from this restaurant and the food was exceptional! The appetizers, the combo kabob, and the chicken stew were incredibly flavorful and the portions were generous. The staff took great care to pack the order well so it stayed fresh when we brought it home. Friendly and efficient staff and cute, clean place. Highly recommend!

Amazing food! Best Persian food in Hawai'i! Will go back! Great atmosphere and fast service! Highly recommended!

Food was spectacular- had vegan eggplant. The naan wasn't like normal tandoori oven naan was more like pita - delicious.. Everything was beyond fresh!!! Rice fresh w touch of saffron. The Persian Salad I paid a lil extra to replace traditional salad w this it's was fresh crunchy etc. lovely flavor felt like I was eating in nyc .I will be back definitely with friends. Great space and vibe polite staff. I so enjoyed the fresh flavorful food . The people around me were enjoying the meat dishes.Parking in back / meter $4 it takes cards. And there a $3 service charge for using a card.

I had no idea there was a Persian restaurant in Hawaii! We decided to visit on evening when we were in the area for drinks.We got the naan and hummus, stuffed grape leaves, cucumber salad, eggplant stew and beef and lamb sandwich. Everything was tasty but I especially liked the eggplant stew. The rice inside the stuffed grape leaves was kind of wet/mushy for my taste. Portions were a little small for the prices.We were the only ones in the restaurant so service was fine.I'm not sure if there is parking, we parked on the street in the metered stalls.

There is lots of parking.The portion for the shawarma was smaller than an authentic shawarma; there was only cabbage and the tzatziki sauce but I will agree the tzatziki sauce made that dish. For $12 on Oahu I guess you can say it was decent.The beef stew was deceiving did not look like the picture of course and that's due to the lack of potato fries. I'm all for different cultures and their cuisines so for this dish it's sour and if you're not used to beef stew being sour then might not want to get this.The best dish was the lamb kebab.Drink menu is minimal.There is a mandatory service fee so do what you want with that info.3 stars due to the quality of food matching the price. It is affordable and you get the affordable quality.