Posts in Hawaii

Alan Wong’s, Hawaii

Hawaii Review Travel January 26, 2014 2 Comments

If you’re into your fine dining, then Alan Wong’s would be a must-go stop when you visit Hawaii. Alan Wong is one of the top chefs synonymous with Hawaii fine dining, and his clever use of unique local ingredients with international knowledge and techniques really impressed me when I visited his other restaurant – the Pineapple Room.

So with the amazing experience from the Pineapple Room still flowing through my veins, I arrived at Alan Wong’s with anticipation bubbling in my belly.

When I head to a restaurant like this, I always try and go for the fanciest tasting menu they have to offer, because I figure that the food on there would be thoroughly representative of the dining establishment. The Chef’s Tasting Menu – featuring eight courses – really caught my eye, but I was informed that they required the whole table to order the menu, as the number of courses would leave some at the table waiting for me to finish eating while they had no food, which would not contribute to the dining experience. Fair enough.

So the next best thing that I could order was the six course “Tasting of the Classics” ($85 per person, $125 with wine)

First and second courses: “Soup and Sandwich” – Chilled Hamakua Springs Tomato Soup with a Grilled Mozzarella Cheese, Foie Gras and Kalua Pig Sandwich, and Chopped Ahi Sashimi and Avocado Salsa Stack – Stacked on Crispy Won Ton, Spicy Aioli and Wasabi Soy

Third course: Butter Poached Kona Cold Lobster – Keahole Abalone, Hamakua Heritage Abalone and Eryngii Mushrooms, Green Onion Oil

Fourth course: Ginger Crusted Onaga, Long-tail Red Snapper – Miso Sesame Vinaigrette, Mushrooms and Corn

Fifth course: Twice Cooked Short Rib, Soy Braised and Grilled “Kalbi” – Gingered Shrimp, KoChoo Jang Sauce

Sixth course: “The Coconut” – Haupia Sorbet in a Chocolate Shell, Tropical Fruits and Lilikoi Sauce

The food was of a high quality, and utilising fresh, flavourful ingredients. Standout dishes for me were the Kona lobster (it’s hard to go wrong with fresh lobster as long as you don’t overcook it), the Twice Cooked Short Ribs (surf and turf! And short ribs always carry lots of hearty beefy flavour), and “The Coconut” showed an immense amount of creativity and technique. A balloon was used to create a chocolate shell, and rolled in desiccated toasted coconut while it’s wet. Then when it’s set, the balloon is popped, and it’s filled with haupia (coconut) sorbet, and an indent is made with a small bowl or ladle. Once that’s set, the edges are hand-carved with a knife, to create the cut-open-coconut look. Incredibly impressive.

One of the courses impressed me a little less, like the snapper course. I’m not the biggest fan of snapper to begin with – it’s a fish that dries out wayy too easily, and has a tendency to be ‘squeaky’ when it’s overcooked. The fish here wasn’t squeaky, but it definitely left me reaching for the water after a couple of bites. I would much prefer they included the butter cod that was also on their menu, but I understand that it’s not within their theme of the ‘classics’.

In all, I much enjoyed my experience at the Pineapple Room better. At Alan Wong’s we were seated at an incredibly noisy area where the waiter had to constantly yell at us in order for us to hear him. He was also a little abrupt with one of us. Another waiter who brought us our food rattled through the description as though he couldn’t wait to leave, and didn’t bother waiting to see if we had any questions about what we ate. Then finally, when they decided to do damage control with my offended friend and asked her how her meal went, they asked her about a meal she didn’t have, which really made things worse.

Not the best experience although the food was decent enough. Maybe next time.

We ate at:
Alan Wong’s
+1 (808) 949-2526
1857 S King St
Honolulu, HI 96826

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Pineapple Room, Hawaii

Hawaii Review Travel November 29, 2013 4 Comments

Furikake Crusted New Zealand, All Natural Ora King Salmon on Ochazuke Risotto.

Located inside Macy’s at the Ala Moana Shopping Centre, the Pineapple Room is Alan Wong’s casual dining counterpart to his fine dining restaurant on South King Street. Not having dined at either, I was originally a bit reserved about all the reputation surrounding both restaurants, especially when I read that the Pineapple Room is borne of a chef at Alan Wong’s expressing a wish to run his own restaurant.

I ordered the Tasting Menu – I always find that the best option if you don’t know what to order.

Ho Farms Tomato and Watermelon Salad, with Hawaii Island Dairy Goat Cheese and Li Hing Mui Dressing

Miso Garlic Butter Fish (Black Cod) with Curry Kabocha Potato Salad, Karashi (Japanese Mustard) and Gobo (Burlock Roots)

Braised Beef Short Ribs and “Taegu” Shrimp, with MAO Farms baby vegetables

Walalua Chocolate Candy Bar, with Macadamia Nut Praline Crunch, Hawaiian Salt Caramel, Chocolate Ganache, Triple Chocolate “Brownie” Cookies

The food was excellent – the butter fish was divine and the watermelon salad was amazing in its simplicity and elegance. And did I mention the melt-in-your-mouth short rib? – but what really blew me away was the service. If you don’t know already, I really like asking questions, and the service staff not only answered every question I had about the food, they even brought out the sous chef to talk to me about the menu and its development. I had particular questions about the Sea Asparagus – which taste kind of sea salty and capery – and they even sent out a note at the end of the dinner with alternate names so that I could find out more information if I was interested.

The Pinapple room provided me with not only a great dinner, but a fantastic dining experience. Definitely one worth repeating if I was in Hawaii again. Yes, you can get more affordable food on the islands, but this is a place to treat your family and yourself to a nice dinner out. With a true passion for food clearly evident in every member of the staff, this is a dining destination for eager foodies.

Leonard’s Bakery, Hawaii

Hawaii Review Travel November 24, 2013 3 Comments

You’re walking down Hawaii’s eat street – Kapahulu Avenue – after a full dinner. The night life is bustling, and people are spilling onto the street. At the end of the road, a neon sign beckons you, like the neon signs of Vegas calls to gamblers in the wee hours of the night.

“Come,” it says, “I have doughnuts.”

Malasadas, to be more exact, are a Portuguese dessert that consists of deep fried balls of yeast dough that are then coated in sugar. Variations – which are the spice of life – include different coatings (Original, Cinnamon and Li Hing – which is the flavour of Chinese dried plums), and fillings like Custard, Haupia (Coconut) and Dobash (Chocolate).

You can hardly go wrong with deep fried balls of dough, and Leonard’s Bakery is all kinds of right. They take your order, and deep fry them on demand, so you always get hot Malasadas. A crispy toasty ball of goodness is encrusted with sugar, and gives me the kind of high that rivals the memories of being a kid. I also love the filled Malasadas, which add a velvety custard-based filling to this deep fried cloud of decadence. If you’re in Hawaii, do try their flavour of the month – I had macademia whilst I was there, and while it didn’t taste overwhelmingly like macadamias, it was still a delicious creamy filling.

Mmmm..doughnuts.

Random Notes from Hawaii

Food For Thought Hawaii Travel November 20, 2013 1 Comment

Musubi

I went to Hawaii recently! And while I’ve got a lot of photos to process, and posts to write, I thought that I might start with all the random things that I thought was interesting in Hawaii.

Spam sushi anyone?

SPAM is HUGE in Hawaii. Apparently, the people of Hawaii consume more SPAM per person than anywhere else in the US. Even on the shelves in the local grocery store, there are more varieties of SPAM than I’ve ever seen anywhere else. Musubi (pictured above) is an example of the omnipresent SPAM, mixed with the distinct Japanese influence from migrants after the war. A slice of SPAM is fried, coated in a terriyaki sauce, and placed on top of a shaped handful of sushi rice, secured with a piece of nori (seaweed).

I would suggest you give it a go if you visit Hawaii for the cultural aspect. It didn’t exactly rock my world in terms of flavour combination or innovation, but it’s still pretty cool and good fun. And surprisingly filling too, though for a complete meal I would suggest supplementing with some fruit/veg. 😉

In my late night prowling of grocery stores – they need more 24hr grocery stores around here! – I also found this!

These sugar cane stirrers are about as unprocessed a form of cane sugar you can get, I think. I’m sure that it would be great to sweeten your coffee or tea – they remind me of the Persian rock sugar stirrers that you can get – I bought some because I thought it would be cool to use as a sweetener/decorative item for a cocktail. The original thought was that I’d use it to sweeten a Caprioska, but I haven’t opened the packet yet. Given that Hawaii used to be known for its sugarcane plantations, these are not as common as I would’ve thought, but you can still get them in grocery and convinience stores.

Also in the grocery store – have I mentioned how much I love Foodland? – are their selection of ready-to-eat items.

My favourite breakfast while I was there was a simple half of a ripe papaya, with a squeeze of lime over the top. Simple but satisfying.

Poké is another ready to eat item from the grocery store, and I’ve developed a mild addiction to it. I’ve been back in Sydney for about a week now, and I’m still suffering from withdrawals.

From left: Tako poké, spicy ahi poké

Poké, from my understanding, is raw cubes of fish (or pieces of seafood), in a variety of marinades. Common ingredients in the marinade include garlic, ginger, shoyu, green onions. Spicy poké commonly uses kochujang, a korean chilli paste. Limu poké uses limu, which is the Hawaiin word for seaweed.

The most common fish I’ve seen used is ahi, which is tuna. Tako (Octopus) and salmon poké are also widely found.

If snacking on tub after tub of raw fish is a bit much for you, you can also get poké bowls, which are bowls of rice topped with poké. At about $5 a pop, those bowls became my go-to lunch options. There are also other pre-packed rice bowls with other toppings.

$6.95!! I don’t think I’d necessarily get a bowl with that much ikura that cheap in Sydney. Like I said, I’m suffering withdrawals big time.

And if you’re feeling the heat after a satisfying lunch, then try to drop by Waiola for a Hawaiin shaved ice. Delicious and refreshing, it’s basically finely shaved ice that melt like snowflakes on your tongue, covered in syrup. I got a banana and lime one – green and gold! – but you can get a whole variety of flavours, with various toppings like pearl and mochi.

The biggest thing that I’ve found is that the people of Hawaii are just so nice and hospitable. Every local that I’ve asked has happily told me their recommendations for foodie destinations, and even what their favourite dish on the menu is.

I miss Hawaii already. =(