Fresh Off Da Boat

I have to definitely credit Yelp for this review as I would have never found Fresh Off Da Boat without looking on Yelp first for highly recommended restaurants! Fresh off Da Boat is located in a business park in the Natomas area of Sacramento. It’s actually a little restaurant located within a beauty school. It is not near any other restaurants and I’d say there wouldn’t be any way to know of its existence without Yelp or someone from the beauty school recommending it! It’s really a hidden away restaurant!

Fresh Off Da Boat specializes in Hawaiian style dishes. They have staples like Spam masubi and loco moco as well as poke.

When you arrive at Fresh Off Da boat, you’ll see the menu behind the counter. It’s a chalkboard that displays the dishes that are currently available. When I went it was summer and they featured select dishes for the season. I’m assuming that the dishes rotate over a period of time so what might have been available on my visit may not be on yours.

Our family decided to try their huli huli chicken, loco moco, and their Hawaiian burger for lunch.

If you’re in a rush, I’d suggest perhaps selecting another dining spot as the food takes a while to come out. This restaurant is a pretty small one so I’m guessing there aren’t many people in the kitchen when order go through. For our family of three, the food took about 20-minutes to come out. The food we ordered required a good amount of cooking time, so we understand for a smaller kitchen this may have taken them longer.

When the food did get to us it looked very tasty. The huli huli chicken was the most impressive of the dishes we ordered. The chicken was beautifully cooked and presented well.

The other dishes had a few issues that prevented us from really enjoying what we ordered.

There was a sweetness that was a bit much. I believe it’s their version of sweet sauce that gave all the items too strong a flavor. For the loco moco, the sauce was all over the rice which made it a big soggy. I tend to like my rice very plain so that I can portion the protein or veggies appropriately with it. The rice under the loco moco just had too much flavor which made the entire dish seem a bit one-note.

The Hawaiian burger had a similar issue where I just wasn’t a big fan of the sauce (the same as in the loco moco).

Based on the glowing reviews on Yelp, I was thinking Fresh Off Da Boat would be a restaurant right up my alley, but alas it didn’t quite reach the heights of my expectations.

The food is solid and there are things to really enjoy, but Fresh Off Da Boat is not a place I’d go out of my way for a quick meal.

Website: www.cheftskitchen.org

Address: 1515 Sports Dr. Ste 300, Sacramento, Ca 95834