Hula Girl Bar & Grill

Wow. Little did i know as i picked the location an hr before closing time- we would be the last diners for the night & ever more. 21 Sep was Hula Girl Bar & Grills last day of business. As we walked in to request an outdoors table, the bar was bustling with people in Hawaiian themed wear. Music was loud and crowd was having a good time watching the game.

Our server was great & explained the story of what happened to us. Recommended the favorites & made sure we were comfortable. Drinks were strong and food was delicious.We got some awesome souvenir glassware & post card. Customer service was top knotch!!

A CVS will be taking over the corner, pushing some restaurants out or down the block. Hopefully Hula Girl Bar & Grill is able to make another appearance in another plaza somewhere else in VA. I'll definitely be a returning customer :)

I love Hula Girl Bar & Grill. I'd been here once before a while ago (like 2 years-ish) and I was lamenting the fact that I missed Hawaain food (post vacation) this year and remembered... I don't have to! I just have to drive to Shirlington! :)
The service is very laid back, I remembered that from last time too. But the food is so worth the wait. I'm surprised to see so many mixed reviews, I honestly only have good things to say about it.
The spam Musubi is fried-which is the ONLY way I like it. The poke is fantastic. The plates are big and bountiful. They import Hawaiian sodas AND beer, and they make killer desserts.
The only thing missing is the palm trees and shave ice.

Ps. If they add shave Ice to the menu, I'm never leaving. They will have to throw me out.

Great place to get Hawaiian food in the area. I'm not sure if there is even another Hawaiian restaurant around?? The place is pretty big and cute decor especially with the SPAM cans. Service can be a little slow even when it's not busy, but the servers are super nice.

Started off with Spam Musubi. It was delicious of course. And only $3 but it's not a lot. Then I got a Chicken Katsu. That was so good!!! It was sooo crispy. Their portions are pretty big too! Came with 2 small scoops of rice and either mac salad or tossed salad. The mac salad was ok. Not that amazing. But I would definitely come back here whenever I'm craving some Hawaiian food!

I used to live in Hawaii, so I was really looking forward to their food. I'm sad to say that it just didn't hit the spot for me. Either the food was too bland, too salty, too expensive, or just meh.

I've been here twice so far. The lomi was pretty damn salty, but they did mention it in the menu. I don't remember lomi lomi being THAT salty in Hawaii.

The poke was just meh for me and my friends. It came with wonton chips I think, and was decent in taste. It wasn't like "Omg it's like the poke from Poke Stop in Hawaii" good. No, I'm not talking about the Pokémon poke stops. It was just, satisfactory in taste.

The loco moco was so bland, I couldn't believe it. I had to add some salt to make it enjoyable. The rice was also heavy/wet and mushy in texture, like freshly made but not completely cooked properly. Ugh, ruined my loco moco experience here.

My friends and I also got some edamame. That was good. It had chunks of sea salt sprinkled all over.

The li hing lemonade was so good! I miss eating stuff with li hing. Never thought of using it in lemonade.

The lilikoi drink was a bit of a ripoff. It came from the can (see my pic) and was like $3 or $4 dollars. I mean, I guess it's expensive because they got it from Hawaii or wherever, but that's a bit ridiculous.

This restaurant is located in Shirlington, so finding parking can be a pain unless you go to the garage behind the restaurant.

Lastly, the first time I came here, I ordered a chicken loco moco. When I got home, I saw that they gave me chicken katsu, and it wasn't even good. I was already irritated that they messed up my food, but to give me food I wouldn't enjoy on top of that... soooo disappointing. It wasn't even like typical chicken katsu. It was like chicken on steroids that was slightly breaded but not crispy, with rice sprinkled with black sesame seeds. I had the mac salad as a side. That was at least kinda good.

Love me a good loco moco! It's how a found this place, which apparently has been around for a long time but I never knewwwww until recently. Personally it's not my favorite loco moco but ehh it's not easily available in the DMV so they have my vote! I've had them for dining it as well as takeout. One day I'll find their food truck. Don't skip dessert when dining in.

We were looking for dog friendly restaurants in the area and this place stood out as I am a huge fan of Hawaiian cuisine. Located in Shirlington, the area is known to be dog friendly, with water bowls placed up and down the street.
We came by for an early dinner, and seating wasn't an issue. Obviously since we had the pup we sat outside. It was a hot day, but luckily our server was helpful in adjusting the umbrella to help with the shade. Our server greeted us promptly and mentioned the Hula Girl Mai Tai as being their most popular drink. Went with that, and was not disappointed. For starters, I ordered the crispy spam musubi and the North Shore shrimp which we all enjoyed!! The North Shore shrimp wasn't quite like Giovanni's Shrimp truck in Oahu, but pretty close!
For my meal I ordered the chicken katsu, which the rice and macaroni salad. The chicken was perfectly fried crispy and the katsu sauce went well with it!
Worth checking out if you're in the area. Carla was our server and she did a great job taking care of us!

Been here a couple times and the service is fine and food is decent. Korean-style kalbi and Huli-huli chicken are two of the better dinner options. There are lots of gluten-free/vegetarian options available for folks that prefer that.

The portion sizes are very large which is good but I still think it is slightly over-priced ($17-$22 for a meal). Their Kimchi is very good and I have had it from a lot of different places. I would also recommend the Brussel sprouts as a side. The rice is very sticky but tasty!

They may have stopped playing the same surfing videos on both of their bar TV's (one TV had the Olympics on it) like they used to do, which is a great change if so. The continuous loop of surfing videos gets old and I have purposely not gone here because of it when wanting to sit at the bar and watch a game.

I came here when it first opened, and whatever it was that I had, I wasn't impressed. I came back a couple of months ago to give it another go since I didn't remember my experience prior. This last visit was a home run. I had the ahi tuna "tacos" where the taco shell was really a wonton shell. It was delicious.... it came with mushrooms, and the marinade was so good I could have licked the plate.

It's a kid-friendly place with a good kids menu and plenty of juices to choose from. I will definitely return again with my family, hopefully, sooner than the last time.

Food was absolutely 5 stars. Unfortunately service was only 2 or 3 :/

When my friends heard me raving about Abunai, they told me about Hula Girl and said I had to hit it for some good Hawaiian eats. Former island dweller here, so I had been dyyyyiiiing to check this place out! Finally did last week!

My dining partner also used to live in Hawaii and lucky for us, they had their special restaurant week menu ($35 for app+entree+dessert) which was PERFECT because it let us eat so many different things!

For apps, we did the ahi poke and spam musubi. I didn't realize the poke was coming on top of tortilla chips but it was a nice crunch to the dish. I loved that the musubi was cut into smaller pieces, made it way easier to eat than just stuffing a full size one in your mouth. Both were delicious!

For entrees, we did the North Shore shrimp and kalua pork. I remembered my days stopping at Giovanni's shrimp truck coming back from a day at the north shore. And kalua pork is one of my all-time favorite dishes! The shrimp were so big and juicy and I liked that they had a little spicy kick to them. The kalua pork was so simply delicious, as expected! Only thing that sucked was that they automatically gave us side salads instead of mac salads (we didn't realize we had to specify - thought mac salad would be the obvious default). So we ordered a side of mac as well, which was delicious!

For desserts, there were only 2 so we got both - malasadas and hauipia. Now, I used to live just about across the street from Leonard's so I love my malasadas and these were divine! I'm not a super sweet dessert person either and the hauipia had a nice tartness that was nicely balanced by the lilikoi sauce.

Overall, it was a TON of food and we didn't finish our entrees so hellooooo next day leftovers!

The decor was as if you walked into a nice restaurant shack on Oahu. Punchy colors, surf boards and hula girls, big huge slippah decoration walking to the restrooms, and even Spam cans to hold the chopsticks on the table! I loooooved that the owner decorated the bathrooms with wallpaper made up of pictures from her childhood. Really made me feel like a part of her family!

Ok as for the service, it was s-l-o-w and it was NOT busy at all. It took us probably over 10 minutes to get our drinks. Our server kept apologizing as it was the bartender that was apparently on Island Time (oh geez, don't I know that well?). We were also out of water frequently and took a bit to get our server to order the mac salad.

But absolutely will be back here, the food was amazing! Thanks for bringing some ALOOOOHA to the DC metro! HANA HOU!!!!

So glad we stopped by for dinner at Hula Girl Bar & Grill! It definitely took me back to our lovely time in Hawaii. It's awesome that they sell both Maui Brewing and Kona Brewing.

Reservations: My husband submitted a request for a reservation but never heard back. We showed up anyways and were able to get seated.

The "plate lunch" style meals at dinner are all at least double the price you can get them for in Hawaii. I opted for the Kalbi, which is an entree and therefore comes with 2 sides, versus the plate lunches which come with the traditional mac salad and 2 scoops of rice.

The Kalbi was so good!! The flavors were on point and the meat was deliciously grilled. For sides, I got mac salad (of course) and kitchen sink rice with char sui and Spam. The mac salad was amazing, but the rice was pretty bland/flavorless.

My husband ordered off of the restaurant week menu. The poke was really good and tasted fresh, but I found the portion to be really small. I wouldn't order it as an appetizer at full price. For his main, he ordered the teriyaki steak, which was delicious.

We shared the malasadas that came with my husband's meal, and we both weren't impressed with them. Of course, I wasn't expecting Leonard's or Tex Drive-In level malasadas, but I was hoping for something better. I think the malasadas didn't taste great because the oil used to fry them was too oiled/needed to be changed.

I'm looking forward to coming back to try some of the other dishes, and of course to try the Spam Musubi.