The 808 Center opened last summer as a promising new restaurant row but has yet to become much of a destination. Hidden on the back streets behind the main thoroughfares of King and Keeau­moku streets, it’s subject to “out of sight, out of mind” syndrome.

At any meal time, Hawaii diners can opt to stay at home or patronize one of 3,370 brick-and-mortar food-and-drink establishments, and many more itinerant vendors, so a question every restaurateur must ask before opening day is, How will I steer people to my restaurant, instead of the other 3,369-plus sites?

With so much competition for our dining dollars, it’s a daunting question but one that must be answered for survival’s sake.

The latest to play restaurant roulette is Namioto, a combination kushikatsu and teppan bar and grill that aims to win diners over with Osaka-style kushikatsu, a dish that has not yet flooded the market.

For now the kushikatsu menu comprises about a dozen selections of meat, seafood and vegetables, plus cheese, all presented in a combination of light batter and panko crust, deep-fried to a crisp golden sameness. They’re served on skewers with the region’s light fruity sauce, which tastes like a thinned version of tonkatsu sauce, with citrus and vinegar components that balance the fatty aspects of deep-fried food on the palate.

More selections will be added in the month ahead, but for now the best of the offerings are a thick 3-ounce cut of salmon, crunchy lotus root and delicate cauliflower, browned to a light, delicate crisp. If you’re on a budget, you can eat here fairly cheaply by sticking to the kushikatsu. There are no minimums, so you could just get one each of the skewers priced from $1.45 (eggplant) to $2.60 (ahi).

The restaurant is in the former Urban Bistro spot. The quaint photogenic murals evoking foodie destinations are gone, replaced by the even, sterile look of faux brick.

The other half of the menu is devoted to teppan dishes, including pizzas off the griddle top. Unlike other teppan restaurants in town, the cooking show doesn’t come to your table, but you can get up and watch the chefs at work.

This portion of the menu brings back a few Urban Bistro specialties to appease fans who might wander in, not knowing that restaurant has closed. These include the popular Vina Dosh Ribs ($16.95), tacos and the pizzas. It’s an unexpected marriage, but makes it a little more interesting for those who just can’t dine on deep-fried food alone.

I got a dose of greens in a kale salad ($8.95) with sesame dressing, accented with tomatoes, bacon and onions. Kale leaves can be rather chewy, so I would have liked to see a finer chop here.

A mushroom pesto pizza ($12.95) was an improvement over Urban Bistro’s. A pesto spread is the bottom layer for a juicy garden array of tomatoes, mushrooms and arugula.

A trio of Baja fish tacos ($13.95) cooked on the griddle arrived on a skewer, and the ahi disappeared under the weight of purple cabbage and bright lime dressing. What’s a foodie to do? Improvise, of course. Adding sausage and cauliflower kushikatsu to the tacos at the table proved to be a vast improvement.

Pork chops ($14.95) served with a side of soy sauce-whiskey butter suffered from the dryness common to most pork dishes. The best dish by far was sweet grilled squid ($16.95) drizzled with a Sriracha aioli.

The bar is stocked with shochu and sake and, for hot summer days, refreshing chu-hi blends of shochu, soda and fresh fruit and herbs such as calamansi and lemongrass ($8) and raspberry and rosemary ($8).

Dishes listed on the menu but not yet available include wafu New York steak with daikon oroshi and ponzu ($22) and crispy pork tacos. Looking forward to trying these in a few weeks.

Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com. For a look at the Fourth of July, Four Seasons’ style, go to takeabite.staradvertiserblogs.com.