3.5 stars.
This is one of those Instagram famous spots in Toronto where people flocked here in the summer for its signature watermelon drinks and Hawaii-inspired decor while the food in general is Asian fusion themed. This place is also actually bigger especially in the back than it looks because on weekend nights after 10pm it turns into a lounge/club. The combination sounds a bit odd to me.
Without holding a high expectation, we came on a Friday night. The restaurant was busy. There were 4 of us and we ordered 1 small plate - the eggplant, and three big plates - the pineapple fried rice, loco moco and lau lau. We also got bunch of cocktails - one of them was is in a cute shark-shaped container and the other is in a tiny fresh coconut.
Overall, we think the food portion is decent. Price is not in the typical Parkdale range but King St range. The drinks are okay and more suitable for instagram pics (lol). One thing we really liked is the eggplant appetizer - it was delicious! The pineapple fried rice was flavourful but the rice is definitely undercooked...you can taste the uncooked dry hard bits in every bite. The loco moco is standard. Lau Lau is an interesting dish which to me looks like inspired by the Peking Duck Wrap dish popular in Northern China. Instead of wrapping sliced Peking Duck meet with chives, you are wrapping Pulled Pork shoulder with fish and mushroom (yum) , pickled carrots and daikons, and mashed taro (nom nom nom). It's a pretty cool idea. The wraps were extremely not proportioned to the amount of the stuff you can wrap though. We asked if we could get a side of the wraps and apparently there will be extra charge for that, but they offered to give us free lettuces to wrap, which worked too.
Whether we would return is a good question because I'm not sure what this restaurant is exactly good at. We didn't have any negative experience, but we didn't have anything stellar either and it's not exactly that affordable. Maybe it's a much cooler spot in the summer since the scene and the drinks would be much more appealing.