Shakas Hawaiian Flavors

I came here on a Monday night for a basketball game and the restaurant did not seem too busy. Our server, Matthew, was really nice and attentive; he occasionally checked in on us to see if we needed anything.
I’ve always wanted to try the Loco Moco Plate so I got that. I felt like it was decent, nothing spectacular. I personally did not like the beef patty, but liked the over medium egg. The Garlic Fries were good, loved the aioli sauce on it. My brother and I also shared a snow cone, it’s so good with ice cream!
There is ample parking; there is a new parking structure on First St. near the restaurant’s entrance.
Overall, customer service was great and food was decent. I would recommend Shakas if you ever needed to watch a game because they have a lot of TVs, and they have a great Happy Hour menu.

Been going to Shakas for well over 4yrs now and they NEVER disappoint!
NORA behind the bar is one of the BEST in town!
Not to mention the made-​to-​order Sriracha Wings and Sampler Platter compliments her Mixologist skilled concoctions!!!
Great place for get-​togethers or to catch a game with perfectly placed big screen TVs ALL OVER the place! Happy Hour ALL WEEK.
A definite Alhambra must-​do!!!

Food and service is great! Great place to chill since they also have a bar. I come here with my girlfriend and/​or friends before and they all love it! I’ve watched a few boxing and NBA games there

Really one of my go to spots for happy hour and if there are any sporting events going on. nice staff and decent food. really like the shaka plate and the garlic edamame. drinks are really reasonable too! everything is never less than decent and it’s great for large parties

so nostalgic, not this one but the one on garvey however i was craving this and i was near this one on main. had to get the shakas plate and it was yet again amazingly good, chicken and beef good, the mac salad was good, the salad was so good and that spam yummm
i do miss the chicken on bones, i think it has a different taste when its off the bone, overall great food
waited a bit at the cashier due to how busy they were though.

So I realized this the only other Hawiian food place I’ve been to besides L&L. What?! So I had no other reference besides there.
So my friend and I found parking in the structure rift next to it. Free and convenient! For drink I wanted a Stella beer but there seemed to be a lot of confusion with our waiter and he gave me cider and even got my friend the wrong drink. It was a new year so I decided to let the mistake go.
I ordered the chicken katsu. Yes I know, very basic. When my food arrived there wasn’t any sauce which is crucial to a katsu plate! Waiter gave me two different sauces to try. Go with the normal one, the bbq sauce I tried was too strong for the chicken.
I love macaroni salad but when I compare it to L&L, I actually preferred L&L more. But there plate did include a green salad so that made me happy.
Overall food was great and although there were some mishaps with our server, they were overall very attentive and super nice so I give them a silver Star! (This is still very good)

I generally like Hawaiian food. It’s usually quick, comforting and in my opinion it’s really hard to mess up. I know a lot of people seem to enjoy Shakas but I didn’t really enjoy the food here all that much. It didn’t taste as good as the other Hawaiian places I’ve eaten at before and it was more expensive also. The good side of Shakas is that they have a full bar and from what I could see, a pretty impressive happy hour menu. Oh and they also serve shaved ice which is a plus!
We came here for lunch and ordered the 442^nd Combo and the Shaka Plate. The 442^nd plate comes with your choice of 2 protein, steamed rice, and steamed vegetables. I chose their Galbi (short ribs) and their Mochico Chicken at the server’s recommendation. My boyfriend’s Shaka Plate came with teriyaki beef, sesame chicken wings, rice, spam musubi, Chinese chicken salad, and macaroni salad. We also ordered an additional side of spam musubi since we heard some good things about it. Things here were a hit and miss. The galbi was marinated properly but the met was just too fatty. The teriyaki steak was way too dry even though the flavor was good. Mochico Chicken which is usually a favorite of mine was over the top sweet. The same with the spam musubi. I only took one bite of it because it was ridiculously sweet and the rice to spam ratio was way off. A BIG miss for sure.
On top of the mediocre food, service was extremely slow. Our food took a very long time to come out and it was expensive. I would rather go elsewhere to get my Hawaiian food fix for sure and wouldn’t necessarily recommend Shakas unless you were desperate for Hawaiian food. ²⁄₅

Parking: The best place to park is on the parking structure on First street. Don’t even bother trying to find parking on the street. There are plenty of parking spots in the structure and it is FREE.
Service: Our server was a sweet Asian girl who was very attentive and friendly. She constantly came back to ask if everything was okay and if there was anything else we needed. Cons: We didn’t get any refills of water and It took a while to get our food.
Food:
— Shaka plate: Teriyaki beef (tough, dry and chewy), sesame chicken pieces (a bit over cooked and on the tougher side), 1 spam musubi cut into two pieces (rice was mushy but the flavor was good), Chinese chicken salad (delicious — I’ll elaborate more below), and macaroni salad (delicious with the perfect consistency and flavor)
— Chinese Chicken Salad — Fresh romaine lettuce with thin slices of chicken breasts, topped with wonton skins and homemade dressing. Their homemade dressing is delicious with the perfect amount of sweetness. I add this dressing to everything! You must order this!
Atmosphere — Nice place to go to watch a sport event with many TV’s and a bar and alcohol. There are also many tables to sit at as well.
Overall: I’d definitely come back here for their Chinese Chicken Salad and macaroni salad!

All you need to know about this place is to get the Shakas plate!
This place is like a Ono or L&L on steroids.
Huge portions, great flavor and consistent each and every time.
Great place to hangout with friends or coworkers during lunch or happy hour or even dinner. The staff is very friendly and attentive as well.

This place has the best staff. All the servers and bar staff are super friendly and are great to talk to. The restaurant is really cool too. They have re-​decorated in the last year or so and now they have big screen TV’s everywhere. I love hanging out here to watch a game or ordering food for take out.
My favorite plate here is the 442 Combo. I love the Chicken Katsu and Chicken Teryaki. The Tsukemono is delicious and always really fresh. Every Time I have come in with family they always rave about the macaroni salad. This is a must try.

If you ever get on an airplane, don’t bring anything Shaka related with you or else TSA will definitely stop you… because this place is DA BOMB!
Bad jokes aside…
I really enjoyed my experience here. This place is everything you want it to be. It can be family oriented or it can be a sports bar. There is a bar area where you can watch sports on multiple televisions around the place, along with a secondary kind of bar length table just a step away, and then their moderately sized dining area. They serve delicious hawaiian food and happy hour is definitely the time to go. They have draught beer along with cocktails. They have a large HH menu so choosing what to get was extra hard. A couple things we got included the edamame, the spam musubi, the tostadas, and the shaka plate. They were all delicious and we devoured it. We ended the night there with a small (which was still pretty big) shaved ice with boyseberry and watermelon flavor and ice cream in the middle with red bean and condensed milk on top. #heaven.
Above all, the service was top notch. People always coming over to ask if we needed anything. Wonderful!
I will for sure be back with friends for either happy hour or to watch a game here! Thanks Shaka for helping us start our night off right!

Went in for lunch today and got my favorite mochiko chicken plate. The outside layer of the chicken is hard and inside is chewey. The plate comes with rice, macaroni salad, and boiled veggies (cabbage, broccoli, carrots). This is my favorite dish to get at shakas along with the Hawaiian Sun guava nectar drink. The chicken flavor is delicious and so are their macaroni salad.
FYI: If you’re a sports fan this is a good place to go. They have a bar with 6 tvs always set to games or sports news. Today they had 6 different NFL games on.
Delicious food and good place to watch sports games! Parking structure located across the street.

Went here on a hot Sunday for shave ice. We were meeting another family and they were late and the staff was very cool. Service was good here that day. As for the shave ice, it was good. The ice wasn’t as finely shaved as what I’ve had at places in Hawaii but it’s plenty good enough. I was splitting a large with someone else and that thing is huge. Add the ice cream and it’s a meal.
If you’re on the east side, this is a good option for your shave ice fix.

My best friend and I ended up going to Shakas Hawaiian Flavors for lunch on Monday and it definitely did not disappoint. The atmosphere looked chill and made me wanna «hang loose», especially with the nicely decorated statue that greets you and gives out that Hawaiian vibe. Furthermore, there was a wall full of stacked spam cans, which I thought was amazing considering that spam is so popular in Hawaii and I love spam in general!
I ordered the shaka plate, which I didn’t knew how large the portions would be until I saw the plate in front of my face. No wonder it was quite expensive! It consisted of teriyaki steak, sesame chicken, spam musubi, rice, macaroni salad, and chicken salad. All of the food tasted delicious, especially the spam musubi because it tasted juicy with the right amount of sauce inside. Since we came during lunch, it wasn’t so crowded. However, I will come back next time for happy hour (3 – 7 PM) and try out the menu and drinks there.
Overall, great hawaiian food and friendly service make Shakas that awesome for everyone.
By the way, there is free parking at the structure nearby for 4 hours.

Great balance of fun, food, music, and friends. Not too pricey not too expensive. Service is great, menu is delicious. Try the pork and cabbage. There’s s parking garage close. Cool décor. Cool music/​reggae. And sports on the bad TVs. Will be coming back!!! Oh, did I mention he happy hour is great?

I had been going to the orginal location near the 60 freeway since way back but I never got around to eating at the Main St one until recently. We went on a Saturday night around 8:30pm. We seated ourselves right away. It’s a big space with a bar and plenty of tv screens showing sports. A gentleman took our drink orders first and I’m use to having Hawaiian iced tea at local food joints. He wasnt sure if they had that and had to go check. That was weird. He said they didnt so I ordered a soda. When it was time to order our entrees I went with a combination of mochiko chicken and kalua pork. I asked for double chinese chicken salad instead of having a scoop of mac salad. When I was about to give my menu back to the waitress, I noticed the the canned Hawaiian Sun drink flavors they had. They had the green tea with lychee. It is the BEST flavor. I ordered 2 cans right away just for myself. It’s so good.
The plate was good. The kalua pork was good. It was a little bit like kalua cabbage but there wasnt too much cabbage in the mix. It had a good smoked flavor. The mochiko chicken was good but a little tough to eat. Good flavor but was expecting it to be more tender. The double chinese chicken salad i asked for? It was 1 side of the salad and a side of steamed veggies. I was so hungry I didnt send it back. I dont know why there was a misunderstanding. Everyone knows about Shaka’s salad. It’s famous. That’s why I wanted a double helping of it.
Service was decent except for the examples I mentioned. The manager was super cool. He came by and talked to us for a little while and made sure we were good. I would go back again and give it another try. Shaka Plate this time. The tried & true.

Shakas is a fun place for the family and friends! Good for a few friends or average group (less than 8). The food was really good! The service was a bit slow, but it was decent enough. The portions are large and the prices are fair. It was my first trying spam musubi and I was pleasantly surprised. I did not think I would like it since I’ve had a bad experience with spam, ha… Anyway i can’t wait to come back to try their fried spam musubi… i know I’ll feel guilty after but oh well! I bet it’s freaking delicious! Guilty pleasure here i come!
Ordered:
— Shaka plate.
This seems like a good plate to order! Especially if you’re torn with choosing what to get. It comes with teriyaki steak, sesame chicken, spam musubi (drool…), rice, macaroni salad, and chicken salad! Yum!
— Chicken Katsu.
Deep fried white chicken breast with breaded crust. Comes with a scoop of rice, vegetables… and a huge portion of this sauce which reminds me of Japanese curry sauce. Yummy. I really liked this dish. The breaded chicken was crispy and the sauce was delicious with it.
Carb and calorie overload! So much rice, macaroni (with plenty of mayo), spam, and most foods are fried… The food tastes great though. I will definitely be back to try their other dishes and fried spam musubi.

Shakas Sampler ($ 9.95)
This is great to share. It comes with spam musubi, sesame chicken, and beef skewers. I think the best thing at Shakas is their sesame chicken. So much flavor and super juicy.
Soft Tacos ($ 2 — Kalbi)
These are two dollars per taco. Not worth it. The tacos are okay, but there are better things on the menu. Pass and get something else.
Chinese Chicken Salad ($ 8.95)
This is an enormous bowl of lettuce and some other ingredients, and they call it a Chinese chicken salad. I guess. Again, not worth it.
I usually get the Shaka Plate, which is around $ 12. A little pricey, but you get so much food. Enough for you to save some and take it for lunch the next day.

I’m not just giving this place 5 stars because I love Hawaiian people…
I’m giving 5 stars because this place is da bombbbb! Been here several times for lunch and at night for happy hour and for several bday parties. Every time, we were so well taken care of.
Staff is super attentive, friendly and kind alwayssss (not just sometimes).
Food is so good! I’ve tried almost everything (don’t judge) and their happy hour prices are so good!!! They’ve got a bar section and large TVs to watch the games.
I love that there’s a parking structure just across the street which is so convenient, also.
Overall experience is ¹⁰⁄₁₀!

I usually go to the Shakas in Monterey Park. I have been to this Alhambra one a few times, but it’s the parking situation that turns me off. Hopefully the parking structure that’s being built across the street will be more accommodating. The small lots are usually filled, and they charge quite a bit just to park. The lots are very tight as other cars might bump into you while they’re parking. Yes, my bumper!
Anyhow, this location is nice. You can either order as you walk in if it’s to go, or you may sit around the bar or the tables. I believe sitting at the bar, you’ll have the bartender taking your order and serving you. That’s where we sat to eat and drink while we watched the basketball game on TV. Our waitress was very cool! Good service, and keeps checking up on us.
I have tried their teriyaki chicken, teriyaki beef, loco moco, kalua pork, and their spam musubi. Everything here I must say is good. My favorite is the locol moco because the ground beef patty is served with a fried egg on top, and the gravy is delicious! Sometimes the chicken and the beef can be a bit on the dry side. Especially the chicken… so I don’t really that as much. The kalua pork is shredded pork meat served with rice, and that could be a bit on the oily side. But it’s still good. My other favorite is their side order of spam musubi. It’s basically white rice and a piece of spam wrapped in seaweed. Yummy! It is the spam that makes it so addicting.
Almost every item ordered is served with rice, a macaroni salad, pickled cabbage, and the main course of meat chosen.
After all the years of going to Shakas, they always have served good food. You cannot go wrong, and the their prices are decent.