We had been dying to give this place a try. We finally got a reservation and not sure if it was because it was a weekday but service was not great. Our waiter didn't greet us but let us sit for 15 min and then came over and ask "what do you guys want". We instantly just felt that the experience went down. The food was rather tasty. We did not order much as we felt like we couldn't ask questions. We had our pastas,loved them. Waiter not once came to ask how we were doing or if we needed anything. The waiter only came over to clear our plates and ask "are you having desert here". The service was really disappointing.
Tani D.
Woooow amazing restaurant!!! Really fast and kind servers! Their food was exquisite. My friend brought me here for a late Birthday dinner and I am hooked I love this place. They have 18% off pastas during their happy hour. We were looking at the menu and were debating what to get so we ended up getting 3 different pasta dishes to share. The mushroom risotto, bolognese, and the uni pasta. My favorite dish is the bolognese I love that the pasta was not over cooked or mushy. It was a perfect texture Al dente and the meat sauce was not over powering. I'm not a huge fan of uni but my friend was and that was her favorite dish.
Jennifer T.
Vein At Kakaako is a trendy restaurant with a new Pasta Happy Hour, where all pastas are 18% off at 4:30pm-6pm. The open-seating arrangement makes for great ventilation throughout the restaurant, but I would not recommend if it's windy or rainy. The restaurant was also not too loud, which my friends and I appreciated. Service was great: we felt taken care of, our waters were filled at all times, and the ordering process was simple. We never felt rushed to order or that our conversations were interrupted. Saltimboca: pasta was al dente and surprisingly a bit spicy. The chicken was just like a light-version of regular karaage, I wish there was a bit more protein, especially the mushrooms. The shiso was a good touch. I also liked the citrus from the yuzu. But there was nothing remarkable otherwise. Crab Pasta: I had a few bites of this and it was pretty good. The crab is broken up into the red sauce and so it was crab-forward. This dish was also a bit spicy, but I thought it worked especially well here. Overall, I liked it more than the Saltimboca. Overall, I would recommend for the ambiance and service. The pasta is good if you like crab pasta and more Japanese fusion pasta, but I wouldn't say it's the best pasta around town.
Mika O.
Been wanting to try Vein for a while now and finally got a chance to during their pasta hour! I made a reservation online a few days before to ensure we got seating. I would highly recommend because they were turning people away at the door. We were really excited to try especially since they have food and drink discounts from 4 - 6 pm. *Note my rating is based on my overall experience. Food was probably 4 stars but the parking situation really made the experience a 2 or worse. Our friend ended up being really late for dinner but our servers were nice and let us sit at our table and order food and drinks - they even let us order before happy hour ended and offered to wait to make one of the dishes until she came (but we could order for the pasta hour price). We ended up enjoying our meal and ordering a pasta for our friend who came later. For pastas, we tried the bolognese and the crab arrabiatta. The bolognese was SO GOOD - I could have eaten the whole thing and almost wished we both got this dish! Loved the flavors of this one. The crab dish was something that stood out to me on the menu, but we both agreed that flavors were interesting. It's more of a fusion dish and not what we had expected. I think it could have been spicier and the combo of the crab meat and sauce was a bit interesting. I definitely liked the bolognese better. We had a great time enjoying dinner, sipping on drinks and talking in their restaurant. Our servers were nice and attentive and didn't rush us either. At the end, we paid our bill, gave our tickets for parking validation (our server asked if we needed) and left to get another drink before leaving the Salt complex. Now we thought that the server had validated our tickets - he just gave us each back our own parking tickets. We were there for around 3.5 hours total which would have been $2 with validation. Upon leaving, I put in my ticket and the machine was saying $15. I couldn't believe it! They didn't validate our parking - I should have known as most places will give you an extra validation ticket. So the server did not properly validate or give us validation tickets. I was already at the gate and blocking traffic so we had no choice but to pay and leave. After a good meal with friends, I was disappointed that we had to pay so much for parking - that's $45 total extra on top on meal cost! So lesson learned, remember to double check your parking is validated! They have a parking machine by the elevators where you can go to pay for your parking before heading to your car. I will always do that from now on! I hate to give such a bad rating, but the experience just left a bad taste in our mouths and I'm hesitant to go back no matter how good the bolognese was.
Gayle C.
Second visit could not resist ordering the uni pasta!! Caesar salad was okay. A bit disappointed. Main dishes were delucious and best of all, we got a complimentary dessert!
Ray P.
Great food but took forever and overpriced for the portion. Bad service. Place was empty and we were sat outside under a fan during a windy cold front. made reservations 3 days in advanced.
Helen S.
Vein is the perfect spot for a casual date night. We enjoy all the dishes we order and they are consistent every time. Their entrees are quite big, and may be enough to feed 2 people if you aren't that hungry. Charred octopus: great starter. Comes with grilled octopus, fingerling potatoes, and salad Oso Bucco: very hearty and tender. Includes risotto with it Lamb: best lamb I ever had! Nice grilled flavor with no gaminess Staff is also very friendly and have offered us dessert on the house.
Bethanie C.
I was finally able to snag a reservation for a Friday night at Vein and it did not disappoint. The service was great, the food was a fun play on Italian. The server was great at drink recommendations! I never know what to get, preferring to try just whats good no matter which alcohol. I first tried the Yuzu Margarita, since I'm a tequilla fan. It was great, definitely margarita mix made in house and with fresh ingredients. It wasn't overly sweet or sour, the yuzu made it the perfect after work refresh. The second drink I went with the recommendation of Fall From Grace, I was hesitant at first but it was super light for being a bourbon drink. The lemon juice and amaretto really worked well in the proportions of the drink. Food was great, I loved the artichoke karaage, theres not many places that do fried artichoke and thats something strangely enough I'm always wanting. My friend and I shared the uni carbonara and the special of the the day, Arizzo Frutti di Mare. Definitely enjoyed the special more than the uni carbonara. Both of us haven't uni carbonara, were left wishing it had more of an uni flavor. It was definitely stronger on the carbonara flavors with the uni added for a hint of richness. Glad I was finally able to try vein, you'll definitely catch me here again for pasta hour.
Sheryl R.
Lamb dish was lukewarm - not piping hot as described. Octopus appetizer was okay but not great. The pasta bolognese was also not Hot and not that flavorful. No ambience. The service was good. But we had heard such good things about the restaurant and instead we were very disappointed overall.
Nancy J.
The food was delicious, tasty and bursting with flavor. The restaurant itself was open and inviting. And the service was like being at home with family and friends enjoying a wonderful meal.
Think of the Pasta-bilities / Pasta hour is 4:30-6pm. Recommend booking a resie online. Validate your parking ticket! / The meal (in order of favs): Uni Carbonara - shamelessly creamy and rich with thick bacon squares. Bread pudding - is a massssive thick cut. The BEST I've had dining out, hands down! Very shareable and you can add a gelato scoop -- yes, just do it. (: Osso Bucco - an exceptional carnivorous dish that showcases the oh so tender port that falls seamless apart from its natural juices (it is what it is). Its couscous bed is a nice embellishment but order some starch if you need a side with the pork. Bolognese - not heavy or swimming in sauce, but prepared with a good balance of all the ingredients. / Vein offers a relaxed welcoming experience with selections to savor. Perfect little place to catch up with the girls after "one of those days." Upon arrival manager chatted with us asking about the effectiveness of their ads then shared the background story of the restaurant (a literal goals friend group). Happy with my experience here. cheers (:
Robin M.
The food is amazing, you must try the mushroom risotto. The service is amazing. The cocktails are great, the Ron Zacapa old fashioned was fabulous. Highly recommend trying
Sierra M.
This is my second time to vein - the first time was over 5 years ago & I can't believe it took me this long to come back. A few girlfriends & I called for a very last minute reservation on a Friday evening. They were able to take us & we were so happy since our original plans had fallen through. Vein is located in SALT at Kaka'ako. The entry is a bit weird - there's a door on the side but since it's an indoor/outdoor restaurant, there were signs to walk in through the patio, then wait awkwardly in the middle of the restaurant by the bussing station until we could get staff's attention to take us to our table. It wasn't that bad, I promise - since we were seated almost immediately! I loved that we had a table at the side of the restaurant, away from most of the other tables. We were basically in PJs & really had no business being in somewhere so fancy, so it was nice that we could quietly eat in peace without judgement lol. We ordered: - Bolognese: has wagyu beef, pasta cooked perfectly. winning! - Grilled Spanish Tako: cooked perfectly, easy to eat. Potatoes were really good too! - Crab & Scallion Arabiatta: SO much crab! We were scooping up crab after the noodles were done! - Tarako & shimeji pasta: I think it was shimeji but I'm not positive. OMG, the butter goodness with the mushrooms & the tarako mixed in? This was an absolute game changer. - Bread Pudding: house made. HUGE. I'm not a huge dessert gal but I went ham on this lol. Our server was really sweet & was always available to take our food or drink order right when we needed him to. Overall a solid 5 star experience & can't wait to go back & try more items.. or go back for that tarako pasta again!
Joy S.
Came here spontaneously and thankful my husband and I were able to get a table. It's a small restaurant with a nice ambiance and excellent service. We started with the steak crostini and bone marrow with uni butter. Both dishes were exceptional. Each component complemented one another perfectly. I then had the uni carbonara and it was good. Overall a great place and would return again!
Claire H.
We were walking around Kaka'ako looking for a new place to have dinner. The menu looked good but on the pricier side. So here we are at Vein. For appetizers we ordered the WASHUGYU BONE MARROW w/ UNI BUTTER and GRILLED SPANISH TAKO with CHIMICHURRI. The tako was really soft and tasty. Both was really good and I would order it again. For dinner bf ordered the LAMB "SCOTTADITO" WITH PICKLED PLUM TAPENADE. The reason for three stars is partly because he ordered it medium rare and it came medium well. He said it was good but wished it came as he ordered. I had the UNI CARBONARA. It was rich and delicious! I would definitely order it again. For dessert bf had the Bread Pudding with vanilla gelato. He said the Bread Pudding and Gelato was really good! I had the crème brûlée! It was okay. The other reason for three stars is the portion size is small for the price. well expect for the bread pudding. lol Service was good and attentive and the restaurant was clean.
We had been dying to give this place a try. We finally got a reservation and not sure if it was because it was a weekday but service was not great. Our waiter didn't greet us but let us sit for 15 min and then came over and ask "what do you guys want". We instantly just felt that the experience went down. The food was rather tasty. We did not order much as we felt like we couldn't ask questions. We had our pastas,loved them. Waiter not once came to ask how we were doing or if we needed anything. The waiter only came over to clear our plates and ask "are you having desert here". The service was really disappointing.
Woooow amazing restaurant!!! Really fast and kind servers! Their food was exquisite. My friend brought me here for a late Birthday dinner and I am hooked I love this place. They have 18% off pastas during their happy hour. We were looking at the menu and were debating what to get so we ended up getting 3 different pasta dishes to share. The mushroom risotto, bolognese, and the uni pasta. My favorite dish is the bolognese I love that the pasta was not over cooked or mushy. It was a perfect texture Al dente and the meat sauce was not over powering. I'm not a huge fan of uni but my friend was and that was her favorite dish.
Vein At Kakaako is a trendy restaurant with a new Pasta Happy Hour, where all pastas are 18% off at 4:30pm-6pm. The open-seating arrangement makes for great ventilation throughout the restaurant, but I would not recommend if it's windy or rainy. The restaurant was also not too loud, which my friends and I appreciated. Service was great: we felt taken care of, our waters were filled at all times, and the ordering process was simple. We never felt rushed to order or that our conversations were interrupted. Saltimboca: pasta was al dente and surprisingly a bit spicy. The chicken was just like a light-version of regular karaage, I wish there was a bit more protein, especially the mushrooms. The shiso was a good touch. I also liked the citrus from the yuzu. But there was nothing remarkable otherwise. Crab Pasta: I had a few bites of this and it was pretty good. The crab is broken up into the red sauce and so it was crab-forward. This dish was also a bit spicy, but I thought it worked especially well here. Overall, I liked it more than the Saltimboca. Overall, I would recommend for the ambiance and service. The pasta is good if you like crab pasta and more Japanese fusion pasta, but I wouldn't say it's the best pasta around town.
Been wanting to try Vein for a while now and finally got a chance to during their pasta hour! I made a reservation online a few days before to ensure we got seating. I would highly recommend because they were turning people away at the door. We were really excited to try especially since they have food and drink discounts from 4 - 6 pm. *Note my rating is based on my overall experience. Food was probably 4 stars but the parking situation really made the experience a 2 or worse. Our friend ended up being really late for dinner but our servers were nice and let us sit at our table and order food and drinks - they even let us order before happy hour ended and offered to wait to make one of the dishes until she came (but we could order for the pasta hour price). We ended up enjoying our meal and ordering a pasta for our friend who came later. For pastas, we tried the bolognese and the crab arrabiatta. The bolognese was SO GOOD - I could have eaten the whole thing and almost wished we both got this dish! Loved the flavors of this one. The crab dish was something that stood out to me on the menu, but we both agreed that flavors were interesting. It's more of a fusion dish and not what we had expected. I think it could have been spicier and the combo of the crab meat and sauce was a bit interesting. I definitely liked the bolognese better. We had a great time enjoying dinner, sipping on drinks and talking in their restaurant. Our servers were nice and attentive and didn't rush us either. At the end, we paid our bill, gave our tickets for parking validation (our server asked if we needed) and left to get another drink before leaving the Salt complex. Now we thought that the server had validated our tickets - he just gave us each back our own parking tickets. We were there for around 3.5 hours total which would have been $2 with validation. Upon leaving, I put in my ticket and the machine was saying $15. I couldn't believe it! They didn't validate our parking - I should have known as most places will give you an extra validation ticket. So the server did not properly validate or give us validation tickets. I was already at the gate and blocking traffic so we had no choice but to pay and leave. After a good meal with friends, I was disappointed that we had to pay so much for parking - that's $45 total extra on top on meal cost! So lesson learned, remember to double check your parking is validated! They have a parking machine by the elevators where you can go to pay for your parking before heading to your car. I will always do that from now on! I hate to give such a bad rating, but the experience just left a bad taste in our mouths and I'm hesitant to go back no matter how good the bolognese was.
Second visit could not resist ordering the uni pasta!! Caesar salad was okay. A bit disappointed. Main dishes were delucious and best of all, we got a complimentary dessert!
Great food but took forever and overpriced for the portion. Bad service. Place was empty and we were sat outside under a fan during a windy cold front. made reservations 3 days in advanced.
Vein is the perfect spot for a casual date night. We enjoy all the dishes we order and they are consistent every time. Their entrees are quite big, and may be enough to feed 2 people if you aren't that hungry. Charred octopus: great starter. Comes with grilled octopus, fingerling potatoes, and salad Oso Bucco: very hearty and tender. Includes risotto with it Lamb: best lamb I ever had! Nice grilled flavor with no gaminess Staff is also very friendly and have offered us dessert on the house.
I was finally able to snag a reservation for a Friday night at Vein and it did not disappoint. The service was great, the food was a fun play on Italian. The server was great at drink recommendations! I never know what to get, preferring to try just whats good no matter which alcohol. I first tried the Yuzu Margarita, since I'm a tequilla fan. It was great, definitely margarita mix made in house and with fresh ingredients. It wasn't overly sweet or sour, the yuzu made it the perfect after work refresh. The second drink I went with the recommendation of Fall From Grace, I was hesitant at first but it was super light for being a bourbon drink. The lemon juice and amaretto really worked well in the proportions of the drink. Food was great, I loved the artichoke karaage, theres not many places that do fried artichoke and thats something strangely enough I'm always wanting. My friend and I shared the uni carbonara and the special of the the day, Arizzo Frutti di Mare. Definitely enjoyed the special more than the uni carbonara. Both of us haven't uni carbonara, were left wishing it had more of an uni flavor. It was definitely stronger on the carbonara flavors with the uni added for a hint of richness. Glad I was finally able to try vein, you'll definitely catch me here again for pasta hour.
Lamb dish was lukewarm - not piping hot as described. Octopus appetizer was okay but not great. The pasta bolognese was also not Hot and not that flavorful. No ambience. The service was good. But we had heard such good things about the restaurant and instead we were very disappointed overall.
The food was delicious, tasty and bursting with flavor. The restaurant itself was open and inviting. And the service was like being at home with family and friends enjoying a wonderful meal.
Restaurantji Recommends
Think of the Pasta-bilities / Pasta hour is 4:30-6pm. Recommend booking a resie online. Validate your parking ticket! / The meal (in order of favs): Uni Carbonara - shamelessly creamy and rich with thick bacon squares. Bread pudding - is a massssive thick cut. The BEST I've had dining out, hands down! Very shareable and you can add a gelato scoop -- yes, just do it. (: Osso Bucco - an exceptional carnivorous dish that showcases the oh so tender port that falls seamless apart from its natural juices (it is what it is). Its couscous bed is a nice embellishment but order some starch if you need a side with the pork. Bolognese - not heavy or swimming in sauce, but prepared with a good balance of all the ingredients. / Vein offers a relaxed welcoming experience with selections to savor. Perfect little place to catch up with the girls after "one of those days." Upon arrival manager chatted with us asking about the effectiveness of their ads then shared the background story of the restaurant (a literal goals friend group). Happy with my experience here. cheers (:
The food is amazing, you must try the mushroom risotto. The service is amazing. The cocktails are great, the Ron Zacapa old fashioned was fabulous. Highly recommend trying
This is my second time to vein - the first time was over 5 years ago & I can't believe it took me this long to come back. A few girlfriends & I called for a very last minute reservation on a Friday evening. They were able to take us & we were so happy since our original plans had fallen through. Vein is located in SALT at Kaka'ako. The entry is a bit weird - there's a door on the side but since it's an indoor/outdoor restaurant, there were signs to walk in through the patio, then wait awkwardly in the middle of the restaurant by the bussing station until we could get staff's attention to take us to our table. It wasn't that bad, I promise - since we were seated almost immediately! I loved that we had a table at the side of the restaurant, away from most of the other tables. We were basically in PJs & really had no business being in somewhere so fancy, so it was nice that we could quietly eat in peace without judgement lol. We ordered: - Bolognese: has wagyu beef, pasta cooked perfectly. winning! - Grilled Spanish Tako: cooked perfectly, easy to eat. Potatoes were really good too! - Crab & Scallion Arabiatta: SO much crab! We were scooping up crab after the noodles were done! - Tarako & shimeji pasta: I think it was shimeji but I'm not positive. OMG, the butter goodness with the mushrooms & the tarako mixed in? This was an absolute game changer. - Bread Pudding: house made. HUGE. I'm not a huge dessert gal but I went ham on this lol. Our server was really sweet & was always available to take our food or drink order right when we needed him to. Overall a solid 5 star experience & can't wait to go back & try more items.. or go back for that tarako pasta again!
Came here spontaneously and thankful my husband and I were able to get a table. It's a small restaurant with a nice ambiance and excellent service. We started with the steak crostini and bone marrow with uni butter. Both dishes were exceptional. Each component complemented one another perfectly. I then had the uni carbonara and it was good. Overall a great place and would return again!
We were walking around Kaka'ako looking for a new place to have dinner. The menu looked good but on the pricier side. So here we are at Vein. For appetizers we ordered the WASHUGYU BONE MARROW w/ UNI BUTTER and GRILLED SPANISH TAKO with CHIMICHURRI. The tako was really soft and tasty. Both was really good and I would order it again. For dinner bf ordered the LAMB "SCOTTADITO" WITH PICKLED PLUM TAPENADE. The reason for three stars is partly because he ordered it medium rare and it came medium well. He said it was good but wished it came as he ordered. I had the UNI CARBONARA. It was rich and delicious! I would definitely order it again. For dessert bf had the Bread Pudding with vanilla gelato. He said the Bread Pudding and Gelato was really good! I had the crème brûlée! It was okay. The other reason for three stars is the portion size is small for the price. well expect for the bread pudding. lol Service was good and attentive and the restaurant was clean.