Mama Kwan’s Tiki Bar & Grill

Mama Kwans is a great spot in Kill Devil Hills, NC OBX! Great food, nice staff, and the owner seems to be there every day! The Hawaiian pork plate is my favorite; (the blackened tacos seem to have too much salt) — mixed drinks are fun, collect all the monkey mugs!
Good solo, with friends or with family and kids. Very accommodating
this is our go to spot when we are in the outer banks

I cannot say enough about the fish tacos here. They are the definitely the best in the area if not the whole country. By far the best I have ever had. I love the atmosphere in this place, and the servers are very helpful and friendly. All the food was great here as well as the drinks. We will be back every time we visit the outer banks. This is a great place to stop in and have lunch, I highly recommend eating here.

Great service it’s definitely a seafood place! Do not try their pad Thai it us bland and nothing like the original but their tuna and fish tacos are wonderful! Over alll Its a nice beachy bar! The kids menu isn’t great.

We love Mama Kwan’s. Everything on the menu is good and most of it is excellent. even The Garbage Plate is delicious.
Very loud in season. Long waits in season. But it’s open all year, so try it during the fall or winter instead!

After many years of traveling to the Outer Banks, we finally decided to give Mama Kwan’s a try. I honestly don’t know why we haven’t been here before, but it will get a permanent place on our must-​visit list for future trips to the OBX.
My husband had the blackened fish tacos, which understandably appear to be one of the most popular items on the menu. They were fantastic. I chose to get the night’s special, which was blackened duck medallions tacos with goat cheese and a raspberry reduction sauce. I’m fairly particular about duck, because it’s often rather greasy – not so with this meal. It was cooked perfectly, and I practically licked my plate.

Th drinks were good (not as strong as I was expecting from a tiki spot), the food was just ok (slightly bland, deconstructed fish tacos) but the service wasn’t particularly stellar. Our waitress was working the table full of middle-​aged vacationers HARD but was really short and cold towards us until the check came, then of course she was all smiles. I get it, you gotta make that money, but don’t expect a good tip from me after pointedly ignoring me all night.

In the OBX for work and was pumped to find a restaurant with great food and football on TV — as it was a football Sunday afternoon. Mama Kwans you were awesome. I asked our waitress for her recommendation and she suggested the blackened fish tacos. They were fabulous. I loved the sauce served on the side. It had a coconut lime flavor to it and I used it on every taco. It was fantastic. I was too focused on catching the end of the Panthers game to read reviews before my visit. My only regret — I want to try the butter rum rice next time. I will be back. Yum!

My favorite restaurant on the beach! Every time I visit home, I always stop by and have the coconut shrimp with the jasmine rice (so tasty!). They also have a great jerk chicken appetizer and butter rum rice.
Lovely atmosphere and décor.

I went here while on vacation in the Outer Banks. The blackened fish tacos were very tasty because the fish was heavily seasoned. It came with generic cheese and cabbage as toppings. The jasmine rice it was served with wasn’t cooked well-​it was like a ball of mush. I had a good time there and the staff is really nice, but nothing here is spectacular.

Pretty much the only restaurant in outer banks that met my expectations. The drinks were cheap and the blackened fish tacos excellent. Much better than Tortugas Lie fish tacos. The novelty drinks in the ceramic glasses were pretty funny. I had to force down some frozen drink to get the parrot mug, which I proceeded to drink out of for the rest of the vacation. Definitely would go back!

I asked a local where to find a good fish taco and was sent here. we first ordered the Thai Money Bags $ 7.99 (yum) Onion Rings $ 5.99 (yum) then Mama’s World Famous Fish Tacos $ 9.99 fresh mahi mahi marinated and sautéed. served with cheddar/​jack cheese, scallions, jasmine rice, shredded cabbage, flour tortillas and our lime sour cream.
take my advice unless you have a huge appetite do not order two appetizers, I was so full I could only eat one taco and at these prices I was so mad. I know the tacos look odd with the cheese, cabbage ect but for some reason it works they were so good. I only at one bite of the rice but yum. now my lime sour cream might have been off not sure as I have never been there before but it was runny like water and just kind of odd tasting they should just serve you a lime wedge and normal sour cream. we will go back but we will not order two actually we will not order any appetizers just to much food. I might not even use the tortillas just mix the fish and stuff on the plate.

Very good fish tacos! My brother and I went to Mama Kwan’s last night, sat at the bar and had great service (wish I knew the bartender’s name that served us). Very attentive and personable. Unfortunately we ordered nachos to have before our meal but everything came out at the same time. We took most of the nachos home and heated them up in the oven. Tasted even better the next day. We are definitely going back!

Blackened fish tacos were perfect! And very, very filling. Best fish tacos I’ve ever had.
It was pretty busy, about 8:30 ish on a Wednesday night. Tables were full (and stayed full the whole time we were there) so we opted to sit at the bar. Bartender was great and our drinks were delish. Definitely would love to come back here!

Mama Kwan’s Tiki Bar & Grill… oh how I love thee.
This restaurant has the best tuna nachos I’ve ever had. The seasoning was perfect and the other toppings were fresh. The lime sour cream was a perfect addition.
For the entrée, I ordered the mahi tacos. It’s well worth the $ 0.99 to get the mahi blackened. Soooo good!!!
The next time I return to the OBX this will be one of the first places I visit.

Fish tacos are really good!
The only thing I’ve had here. The atmosphere is really cool. I would suggest coming here if you are in the OBX!

Great food… I want to go to Hawaii!
We wanted to go to our favorite Pizza spot but I guess it’s closed for the season, SO on the whim Mama’s Kwan was in passing.
Atmosphere had that tropical Island vibe, that played great music but was a little too loud. There’s a bar section with an intensive drink selections and the patrons at the bar seems to all know each other as they were walking through. It almost feels like an episode of Cheers «where everybody knows your name.»
The bar section is also loud making the whole restaurant even louder like a loud-​live-​hang out spot.
So for the food — YES– as the other reviewers mentioned, the fish taco is YUMMY! The cool sauce is what tops it all off. I substitute my jasmine rice for a Butter Rum rice. Ok… So let’s see if I can describe it? It’s butter, rum and sugar simmered together poured over rice. I know!!! It was so gooood!
Hubby got the Garbage plate which had Stir fried vegetables that was cooked perfectly, grilled chicken with a lovely soy sauce concoction, grilled sweet pineapple and pickled cucumbers. It was very delicious And plentiful that we could have shared the plate.
It’s notated as a Hawaii type restaurant as I see uses of pineapple and rice for most of the entrees along with a sweet and spicy sauces. Even for our chicken fingers, it had that sauce on it that brought ordinary fingers to a handful of delight. I think this is one of the best restaurants on the Island!

Vacationing in the outer banks– this place was close by and had a decent rating on Unilocal so the boyfriend and I figured we would check it out. We weren’t disappointed!
I ordered the mango margarita to start. When on vacation– it’s kind of a must to drink super fruity frozen drinks, right? It was delicious– I definitely could not taste the alcohol, which could either mean they disguised it well, or there wasn’t a lot of alcohol in it. Considering the lack of any buzz, I’ll go with number 2. Although I enjoyed it, at $ 7.50 a drink I would not get it again.
We ordered the queso sticks as our appetizer. They were delicious! Again though– a little pricey for basically fancy frozen cheese sticks.
My boyfriend ordered a cheeseburger with fries and raved about how awesome it was. I ordered coconut shrimp (a must when I’m on vaca) with fried green beans and jasmine rice. It was presented beautifully and tasted just as good. They were generous with the shrimp and the shrimp was awesome! They were pretty big and tasted fresh. The fried green beans were awesome too.
Our server was awesome as well! Super friendly.
Overall– awesome food but a little pricey. The drink and appetizer were overpriced for what we received.

Okay. so I have no idea how I forgot to write a review for Mama Kwan’s because this would’ve been my second visit here… and the first time I ordered the exact same thing… shocker lol… my very first visit to Mama Kwan’s was back in 2010 when my best friend invited me to OBX.
Mama Kwan’s is still as fast an efficient as the first day we visited. The wait was no longer then about 5 – 10 mins maybe less. They always have specials which are usually delicious my best friend and fellow Unilocalers Kelly C. decided on the Duck Tacos. Which she thought was pretty good. But I’ll let her expand on it in her review. But overall she said the duck was moist and the goat cheese added a nice tang to it.
I always go with the Big Kahuna Chicken sandwich partially because you can’t really go wrong with a grilled slice of pineapple and grilled chicken on homemade bread with seasoned fries.
Okay…I know grilled chicken sandwich big deal. surprisingly yes it is a big deal because the chicken is juicy… you can taste the pineapple its not a skimpy slice and the pepper jack cheese actually goes well with it gives it a nice kick. My only gripe is I wish I had sauce on the side. But eh its not something I couldn’t have asked for.
But I will say if your visiting Mama Kwan’s… order the first tacos they are fresh meaty and delicious. Kelly C raves about them considering those I think were her first fish taco… So considering she wasn’t crazy about fish… it made her a believer.
Overall Mama Kwan’s is a casual fun funky place that you can just chill get drinks if you want to and enjoy some Hawaiian/​Asian style dishes with a twist. I’ll challenge you to try something off the menu that isn’t good. Lunch or Dinner.

I love you Mama Kwan’s. I crave the fish tacos all the time when I’m back home in Virginia Beach. I always suggest day trips to my fiancé to drive down for lunch. I cannot get enough of this place!
I’ve only had the fish tacos, but I’ve had them enough times to know that they are always consistent in their deliciousness. I prefer mine not blackened though. That coconut sauce that comes along with it is the best thing that has ever happened to fish tacos.
I have yet to find better fish tacos. Damn, now I’m craving them again from writing this review ;-)