Uncle’s Fish Market & Grill

The wife and I had lunch today at Uncle's, located at Pier 38 in Honolulu. You can get there by heading Ewa on Nimitz, then instead of turning right on Alakawa to get to Costco, turn left.

I was hoping to write the place up in my “A Place for My Taste” blog, but it doesn’t meet the criterion of having table service. You have to step to the counter, order your food, and wait for them to page you so you can pick it up and take it to your table.

Consequently, I thought I’d write about Uncle’s here, since I didn’t want to waste a nice picture I took of the interior. And that’s too bad, actually, because the food is pretty good.

The place is total “oceanarium” without the actual water and real fish swimming around. They have a couple of flat screens that were showing dvds of ocean fishing. Uncle’s features bar entertainment on weekends. They have varied hours, closing early on week nights and later on the weekends. They do NOT stay open until the wee hours of the morning.

Apparently, a lot of people know about Uncle’s because it was busy during lunch today.

They have the usual fish and chips, fish tacos, fish sandwiches, seafood salads, chowder, raw oysters, poke, and a number of fresh fish entrées – Ahi belly, Atlantic salmon, mahimahi, opakapaka, plus scallops, steak and lobsters. Pasta? Yep – seafood pasta, and clams linguini.

I had a “Big Uncle’s Combo Fish and Chips,” which featured shrimp, calamari, and ono (wahoo, or bonefish), with french fries and cole slaw. They provided both tartar sauce and cocktail sauce with the basket. The food was very good, particularly the large strips of tender, flavorful calamari.

The wife stole some of my food, and also ordered Manhattan seafood chowder for herself. I sampled the soup but didn’t care for it – it tasted good, but it wasn’t chowder. It was more like a minestrone vegetable soup with chunks of fish in it. Tasty, but not chowder.

I did see lobster tacos on the menu. Maybe I’ll try that, should we go back. I think we’ll go back. Yep, I think we will.

(P.S. You can call or fax ahead and they’ll have your order ready for pickup when you get there.)

Uncle’s Fish Market & Grill: 1135 N. Nimitz Hwy. at Pier 38. (808) 275-0063.