Reviews for Mad Bene in Kapolei, HI

In short, the food is flavorful but expensive. The service was slow with minimal attention from staff. Read on for more... details.. Our server persuaded us to order the eggplant mozzarella stick appetizer by reminding us that the pizzas inparticular take a while to cook and we should anticipate a long wait. The appetizer had good textures & flavor, but for theprice, we were expecting more than 4 mozzarella sticks The shrimp linguine was creamy, with a nice lemony flavor & visuallypleasing presentation. The portion size seemed small for the price. The mad garlic pizza was pretty good.. I would have likedthe option to add some black pepper or red pepper flakes over top just to enhance the pizza. However, after our food arrived,our server did not return to our table for over 20 minutes, by then, the pizza was cold. This kind of characterized ourexperience- lack of attention from the servers, though they were friendly when explaining the menu options & did warn us thatthe entrees take time to prepare. Read more

The food came out a bit slower than we would have liked, but the gnocchi and drinks held us over until our food arrived, and boy... lemme tell ya, it was well worth the wait! We were seated in the really pretty outdoor seating area, and I would say this is agreat spot for romantic dinner dates. Read more

I was so impressed by this place! Everything I had was really good. Even though the lettuce was a little soggy, the Caesar salad... was delicious! But the star appetizer was the Crispy Potato Guy (not sure how that got named.) The potatoes has such a nicetexture and just enough sauce to add a little zing to it. We ordered the Truffle Pizza (it was the pizza of the week) and itwas incredible. Such a unique mix of slightly sweet and savory. Highly recommend! Another favorite of mine is the CarbonaraPizza, but the Hot Honey was also really good. In addition to the Truffle Pizza, their MB Old Fashioned was phenomenal! It'shonestly my favorite Old Fashioned of any I've tried. Also, my waitress, G, was fantastic!! She explained everything on themenu, gave suggestions, and checked up on me often. Will be back for sure! And often. Read more

The worst food in the world everything is bland and they don't let you choose your meat to go with what sauce and noodles. The... noodle were over cooked asked them what kind of spaghetti sauce it was they said new York Jersey style lol. Even if you weretrying to do a play on not York style Italian you guys fail big time so we ate our appitzer cause that was the only decent foodthey had which was a seafood fritter. Waitress nice and tried to help us out but food was just terrible oh and manager on dutyor restaurant manager is unfriendly he doesn't even stop when a customer is waving him down like hello your the higher up if theproblem our waitress should actually be him because she has more respect from the customer. Salad dressing nasty tasted way overlemoned and anchovy yum but atleast take the skin off. This place is a never again for me. So discussing we had to pay for whatwe ordered and went to a better place to eat. Read more

Mad Bene was excellent. I've never had authentic Italian but I think this may he the closest there is in Hawai'i. The flavors... were amazing, the customer service was amazing. I will be dining there again very soon. Read more

Overall had a positive experience at Mad Bene! Looking forward to visiting again and trying more items on the menu (more in... depth details of my experience below) The restaurant has what I'd describe as upscale cozy decor with a casual diningexperience. There was a little bit of a fly problem, and we spent a decent amount of the meal trying to shoo them away. We cameon a Saturday during lunch to a fairly empty restaurant but extremely nice waitstaff! They spent the time to have conversationswith us and made sure we understood the menu and had a good time. Food was a little slow, but the kitchen also seemed to onlyhave max 4 people in for lunch service and maybe 4 people at the front of house. appetizers: The Chopped Salad was beautifuland nicely dressed. It wasn't personally to my taste since I'm not huge on salads but my family enjoyed it. The Caesar Salad wasstandard looking and teensy bit over dressed, but had good unique croutons and actual pieces of anchovy as a garnish, which I'dnever seen in a Caesar before! The salad was good, if a bit peppery. The Fritto Misto was excellent and the table really enjoyedthis pick. The marinara it came with was a bit plain on its own but worked really well when eaten with the frieditems. mains: I had the lunch special with the Pappardelle Bolognese. The ragu was good, a little lacking in depth but a solidattempt compared to what I've experienced in Italy. We also shared the Mad Garlic Pizza, which had a good satisfying crust andlots of garlic. In my opinion, the dish smells better than it tastes. I'm a huge garlic girl and was looking forward to tryingthe pizza, but it was a little bit of a let down. However, the cook on everything in the pizza was perfect. It was very rich,verging on heavy despite being a thinner crust, so I recommend sharing if you order this! desserts: The tiramisu was rusticlooking but delicious! A perfect, light end to the meal. We also ordered the Olive Oil Gelato since we like trying un Read more

Sorry to be negative, but I’ve had so many bad experiences dining out on Oahu- I am very cautious. Our evening out at Mad Ben... went above my expectations. Prices- for the quality and amount of food we received, I feel like the prices were extremelyreasonable. I’ve paid the same at other spots with way less quality of food. Quality- good ingredients, fresh.Unique Service- everyone there was so attentive and professional. It really makes a difference. Clam pasta wasincredible. Can’t wait to try more. Read more

The best food I have had on the island so far! The bone marrow and the caviar was by far the best, but everything including the... cheese pizza that isn’t picture was fabulous!! The pizza crust was perfectly crisp and tasty!! Oh yes and the service was aclose second to the best part of the experience!! Read more