Ke Nui Kitchen at Waimea Valley

y's restaurant, The Proud Peacock, all catering is done by Ke Nui Kitchen. We had seen the great reviews online, so that was no problem for us! We met with Francesca from Ke Nui Kitchen on 11/21/15 immediately after our site tour of the valley. The meeting went well, I think - Francesca was very friendly and receptive to the ideas my fiance and I had. We left feeling really good about the consultation, and we were excited to see what Ke Nui Kitchen came up with for our reception. We waited until after Thanksgiving before following up with them, figuring that it was the holidays, so it was only to be expected that the office might be closed, or employees would be out on vacation. I sent a follow up e-mail to info@kenuikitchen.com (taken from their website contact info) on 12/1/16. No response. I tried again on 12/4 - this time using the e-mail address provided by Waimea Valley that went directly to KNK's sales manager, Kaily. Success! I got a reply the next business day. Apparently, Francesca was no longer with the company, and Kaily was having to play "catch up" on the resulting added work load. Not the best news ever, but totally understandable. Okay, so where do we go from here? Kaily found Francesca's notes from our consultation, and stated that she would "create [our] preliminary quote and menu ASAP!" Well, a month went by without so much as a peep from KNK. They had forgotten about us. Again. Or they decided that our small wedding wasn't worth their time. I'm not sure, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt and went with the "they forgot about us again" theory. The first time our info slipped through the cracks was bad enough, but understandable (I get it, stuff happens that you can't control). When it happens a second time, then it starts to show a distressing trend. Can you imagine what might happen if they lost an employee or if one of them got sick right before your wedding? Would they forget to show up? So I sent another e-mail to Kaily on 1/7/16 telling her how disappointed my fiance and I were that we had never heard back from them. I told her that we understand that being short-staffed around the holidays can create a back log of work, but that really can't excuse the complete lack of communication. We had no faith in their reliability. I let them know that since it had been so long, we had little choice but to move on with our planning process without them, and that we would no longer need a quote from them (if they were even still working on it). Of course, they didn't respond to that either... We saw KNK at the Hawaii Bridal Expo a couple of weeks ago. I didn't see them greet anyone coming up to the booth, or talking to the brides and grooms-to-be to explain what their food was - I had to ask what they were serving. Then the girl at the booth went back to reading her magazine or looking at her phone, or whatever it was she was doing instead of trying to bring in new potential customers. I did actually try one of their sample dishes there, and it was the best thing I ate at the expo! It just made me more upset that they had such a great product, but really couldn't care less.

appetizers to go with so we just went for all three choices! All of our guests were amazed by the food and his staff was always courteous and on point. I wish I could eat his food everyday!