New Delights at an Old Favorite

Kona Grill

295 North 170th Street
(402) 779-2900
konagrill.com

As an anchor restaurant in West Omaha’s Village Pointe for the last 10 years, Kona Grill has always enjoyed a popular following. Whether for its happy hour, sushi bar, or casual, upscale dining menu and environment, customers know they can count on quality, consistency, and variety at Kona. In fact, August marks the beginning of a new promotional menu at the restaurant that isn’t to be missed.

General Manager Chris Congdon said promotional menus are typically introduced quarterly as a way to test new items. Usually one or two of those become best sellers and make it on the permanent menu, which is changed yearly in the fall. This newest promotional menu is a celebration of summer and its fresh ingredients. It includes a new sushi offering, flatbread, a salad, two entrees, a dessert, and a seasonal cocktail.

The new Rainbow Naruto roll puts a summer twist on sushi with king crab, tuna, white fish, and salmon combined with green onion, citrus aioli, and a spicy ponzu sauce rolled in cucumber rather than rice and seaweed. A kale salad provides another lighter choice that includes carrots, dried cranberries, mandarin oranges, pistachios, soybeans, and goat cheese in a citrus shallot vinaigrette dressing. Kona used to offer a garlic shrimp pizza, which has now come back as a flatbread on the new menu.

The promotional entrees include a Kobe beef cheeseburger, and the Kona Churrasco, which is a flank steak topped in chimichurri sauce and served with garlic parmesan mashed potatoes and French garlic green beans. A banana cake is the perfect summer dessert to end any meal and is made with fresh banana, chocolate chips, and walnuts mixed into the cake then topped with homemade caramel and chocolate sauce with vanilla bean ice cream and a caramelized banana.

The summer menu also features a seasonal pomegranate mojito made with Captain Morgan, fresh mint, pomegranate juice, pineapple juice, and fresh squeezed lime juice. But that’s not the only new drink. After five years, Congdon said Kona has also changed its happy hour cocktail menu. “It was a little outdated, and we wanted to offer some newer, more modern drinks that have become popular,” he said. These include a Moscow Mule, London Mule, and Kentucky Mule, a Patron margarita, as well as a Maker’s Mark Old Fashioned. They also now offer all of their wines by the glass for $2.00 off during happy hour.

Long-time favorites such as the Macadamia Nut Chicken, Avocado Egg Rolls, and Las Vegas sushi roll are still on the menu, but Congdon said there are a number of items that customers aren’t always aware they have but encourages them to try. One is the Temptation sushi roll, which is shrimp tempura, crab mix, and cream cheese topped with more crab and a spicy motoyaki mayo plus eel sauce. “It’s not on the menu, but we can make it anytime,” Congdon said.

He also noted they offer a daily fresh fish such as Mahi Mahi, Swordfish, or Cobia that is served with one of six different salsas made in-house. These include a mango, Mediterranean, Caribbean, and Avocado corn salsas. They also have a sweet chili glazed salmon, a pan-seared Ahi tuna, and a sea bass that is marinated in a miso sake for 72 hours then pan-seared and baked, served with a ratatouille and a shrimp and pork fried rice that includes sweet pineapple.

Kona also has its private dining room that can seat more than 30 guests, its upcoming annual Halloween and costume party, and its Husker happy hour during all of the fall football games. Additionally, on Wine Down Wednesdays all bottles of wine are half off all day throughout the restaurant. With so much to offer, old and new, it’s easy to see why Kona Grill continues to delight.

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