Website Food Republic ranked Kansas City transplant Pete Licata the 10th most influential “person in coffee today” in its “coffee power rankings.”
Farewell to a stand-up colleague
28 DecI am shocked and saddened by the news of John Heckathorn’s death today, following a heart attack on Christmas day. For all his blustery persona, he was a kind and generous peer in the food-writing racket. He shared news with and lavishly praised the competition (like me). He made going to food-related press events fun. And, most important, he chronicled the islands’ food scene in an informed, entertaining fashion, enlightening eaters and restaurateurs alike. I’m going to re-read his last three reviews in Honolulu Magazine. Thanks, John.
Big Island find: Zest Kitchen in Hawi
15 Nov
Hawi—the second-to-last last stop before you hit the end of the world, aka the lookout at Pololu Valley—wasn’t where I expected to find one of my favorite cafés in the islands. But a year ago, while visiting friends, that’s exactly what we found.
In August 2010, friends from New York road tripping on Hawai‘i Island told me they found this place called Zest and were in raptures about it. I had to see for myself. So when I found myself in the village two months later, I told my companions we had to have lunch there. We found it in the last Wild West-style old wooden building, on the left, with a sign in red script proclaiming “Zest.” Then we learn that the chef is Jason Verdon, previously executive chef at Roy’s Waikoloa, and the menu is an eclectic cafe dream of things like beet salad, Cuban sandwich and kabocha ravioli.
That salad was a Christmas-colored composition of stuff just harvested from nearby Waimea, sweetened with pieces of Maui pineapple, and topped with a yuzu vinaigrette. The Cubano was a refined interpretation of the pressed sandwich, gushy with beautifully fatty slow-roasted pork butt and accented with pickled jalapeños and prosciutto in the place of the usual slice of canned ham. Ahi tataki was perfectly seared, if a little overwhelmed by the yuzu-liliko‘i vinaigrette. We inhaled the mushroom dumplings in a garlicky white wine sauce.
I was just in Hawi last weekend, and was relieved to see that is is still open. Verdun has left, and owner Patrick Sullivan has taken over in the kitchen (he said Verdun is now at Daniel’s Organic Cuisine in Waimea). I was pleased to find that the menu is almost intact, and the Cubano still worth the drive. “Jason taught us well,” chuckled Sullivan.
Zest Kitchen, 55-3435 Akoni Pule Hwy, 808-889-1188
Photos by Cyrus Amini.
Tags: Hawi, Patrick Sullivan, Zest Kitchen
Pier joy
27 Jun
The Vertical Junkies—the party-and-promotions group—are turning into restaurateurs. First they teamed up with former Nobu pastry chef Alejandro Briceño to create V Lounge Pizza in 2009, and now they’re poised to conquer Kane‘ohe. Vertical Junkies founder Russ Inouye has a vision for his hometown. When it comes to food, “Kaneohe has the money and the knowledge, but there isn’t anything here,” says Inouye, who founded VJ as a surf-n-snow clothing company. (The partners have now splintered off with their own projects—Inouye sold his shares in V Lounge, but they’re still one big, smiling family.)
So he secured the DLNR lease to the little shack at the end of He‘eia Pier (a two-year process), where for 30 years the Choy family sold plate lunches, beer and bait. “This is the perfect flagship,” says Inouye, who fished off the pier as a boy.
The gang gutted the kitchen (often with people from the community pitching in), and installed fancy new equipment and chef Mark Noguchi, a CIA graduate and alum of Town and Chef Mavro.
Opened in April, He‘eia Pier General Store & Deli was in immediate hit, with sleek, sandbar-bound bunnies and Uncle Ernie fishermen types alike. Noguchi mixes plate lunch classics like hamburger steak with innovative creations such as his lemongrass burger (available as a special only—the high price of lemongrass makes it too costly to have on the regular menu. Wah!). And the catch of the day may be the freshest on the island—the boats are coming in all the time. And if the day is a big fail for fishermen, that means no fish from the General Store, cause that’s how serious Noguchi is about the word “fresh.”
Inouye, 37, sees the “deli” as a community hangout. He cites the growing cluster of eateries in Kailua and adds, “We can do our part on this side, and keep things as local as possible.” Which means getting ingredients directly from East Side farmers and fishermen, from the Otsujis in Hawai‘i Kai to the Reppuns in Kahalu‘u.
Eventually he’d like to “branch off and do higher-end places.” He’s thinking small-plates-and-wine. But right now, sitting on the pier, the nightlife-guy-turned-dad doesn’t want to be anywhere else. “I want to dedicate 35 years to this.” (Read my post about the spot’s blessing/opening at Honolulu Magazine.)
Heeia Pier General Store and Deli, 46-499 Kamehameha Hwy., 236-1449, heeiapier.com
facebook.com/heeiapier, twitter.com/heeiapier
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Tags: Heeia Pier General Store & Deli, Kaneohe, Mark Noguchi, Russ Inouye, Vertical Junkies
Clustertruck!
25 Jun
[I did a short piece on Eat the Street with a roundup of food trucks for Modern Luxury Hawaii, and they axed the part about Eat the Street. So here's the whole unedited thing, which was written back in April.]
In January, Poni Askew organized Honolulu’s first food truck rally—Eat the Street. “We were hoping for 500 people and we got about 1,200!,” says the mom of three who started the foodtruck-tracking website StreetGrindz.com as a hobby when, after a long career (in the music and coffee worlds), she found being a stay-at-home mom “didn’t go over so well for me.”
Thanks to a partnership with Kamehameha Schools, Eat the Street is now a monthly event, held the last Thursday of the month in a large Kaka‘ako parking lot at 555 South Street. And in April, Askew launched the weekly Friday Night Bites, a lower-key, smaller confab of mobile eats at 1637 Kapiolani Blvd., on the Diamond Head end of the street. Continue reading
Tags: Camille's on Wheels, Eat the Street, Gogi Korean Taco Truck, Melt, Poni Askew, Street Grindz, Tacos Vicente, Zaratez Mexicatessen
Eat well + be on national TV: Eat Street shooting on O‘ahu this week
20 Jun
Just got the 411 on the Cooking Channel show Eat Street shooting on O‘ahu this week. Nathan Kam, McNeil Wilson Communications vice president for travel & tourism, said that on behalf of the Hawai‘i Visitor and Convention Bureau, he and his team got the food series over here.
The show’s production crew will check out the food trucks Camille’s on Wheels, Flipt Out Eats, Opal Thai Food and Pacific Soul. If you’re a fan of any or all of these mobile feederies, go have lunch there and then maybe see yourself on TV four months from now. (I say maybe—I was in the dining room for the “after” scene of the Kitchen Nightmares episode on Mojito and didn’t make it onto the small screen.) Here is the schedule:
• Today (Monday, June 20, 2011), noon-2pm: Camille’s on Wheels, Kihapai Street between Hoolai and Oneawa, Kailua (in front of Hardware Hawaii)
• Tuesday, June 21, noon-2pm: Flipt Out Eats, Cooke Street, makai of Ala Moana Blvd, near UH medical school
• Wednesday, June 22, noon-2pm: Opal Thai Food, across from McDonalds, Hale‘iwa, North Shore
• Thursday, June 23, noon-2pm: Soul Patrol on Alakea Street at Beretania Street
Tags: Camille's on Wheels, Eat Street, Flipt Out Eats, James Cunningham, Nathan Kam, Opal Thai Food, Pacific Soul
One more reason to go to Ka‘imuki: Salt
14 Jun
Today Salt Kitchen & Tasting Bar officially opens at 5pm. This is the first Honolulu opening I’ve looked forward to in a long time. Why? It’s a Kevin Hanney production, and he’s teamed up with Robert McGee, who came to Honolulu from Portland’s Slow Bar and opened the kitchen at apartm3nt. Hanney blazed a trail with 12th Avenue Grill in 2005, and he’s doing it again with Salt, around the corner from his flagship.
Postscript 6/25/11: The chef de cuisine is now Quinten Frye and 12th Avenue Grill sous chef Doug Kocol is charcuterie chef. Kocol has gained experience in the kitchens of Bouchon, Animal, and Michael Mina’s.
Over the weekend, Salt held preview parties for friends and press. At Friday’s event, Hanney’s wife Denise warmly greeted guests such a “the new Dano” Daniel Dae Kim, Honolulu Magazine restaurant expert John Heckathorn, Tiki’s Grill and Bar chef Ron Nasuti (still can’t get over the fact that he’s no longer at Roy’s Hawai‘i Kai), Whole Foods Kahala marketing supervisor Natalie Aczon and Better Brands events and promotions director Christa Wittmier (and nightlife mover and shaker).
Even on a promo night, it’s clear Salt is an instant winnah. Hanney got everything just right for 12th Avenue Grill, when there was nothing like it on the island (Town was still a few months away), and he’s gotten it all right for Salt, taking over the bad luck space that was once C&C Pasta then two shortlived (because they were terrible) Italian joints, Buon Amici and Belladonna.
“I had the idea long ago—people would say to me, ‘What this neighborhood needs is a bar,’” says Hanney, who acknowledges that’s what’s missing from 12th Avenue Grill. “I saw an opportunity here and said, ‘Here we go.’” Salt isn’t the most original name—there seems to be one in just about every city, from Baltimore to Boulder (and I like the one in New York)—but it’s fine, and reflects a focal point of the kitchen—the art of preservation, in the form of curing and pickling.
I ran into chef Robert at the He‘eia Pier General Store + Deli reopening on May 16, and he divulged that in preparation for Salt’s opening, he had already butchered and cured five Shinsato Pig Farm animals, their meat transformed into things like lomo and guanciale. And on Friday they were thinly sliced and calling to me from a snow white plate. Hanney took me on a tour of the kitchen, which is spotless and orderly, but he divulged that “sometimes we have proscuitto hanging all over the place.” The walk-in fridge is filled with giant containers of house-made pickles (it pains me to admit that McGee’s bread-and-butter variety are better than those of my Grandma Griffith, who would make them from cucumbers she grew herself on my grandparent’s small farm in Washington State).
Salt Kitchen & Tasting Bar, 3605 Wai‘alae Ave., between Koko Head Ave and 12th Ave, 808)-744-7567; daily 5pm-2am
The boy has left town: Chris Kajioka lands at SF’s Aziza
10 Mar
Last summer Honolulu Magazine ran a great food story—Martha Cheng’s “The Boys Are Back in Town,” about island-born chefs returning to Hawai‘i. One of them was Chris Kajioka, who until December was the chef de cuisine at Roy’s Waikiki, and who at one time was chef de partie at Thomas Keller’s fabled Per Se in New York. The article talked about him returning to Hawai‘i from the mainland because he was excited “about what was brewing in the food scene in Honolulu.” Seven months later, Kajioka left on a jet plane—to be sous chef at Aziza in San Francisco. After two years in Honolulu, he realized the city just wasn’t ready for what he what he wants to do.
In November, I had the good luck to sample Kajioka’s talent at an off-the-menu dinner at Roy’s Waikiki, arranged by Hank’s Haute Dogs impresario Henry Adaniya and the savvy food blogger behind Ono Kine Grindz. Then on Dec. 27, Kajioka went to San Francisco where he had a slew of interviews set up, including with Dominique Crenn for her new spot Atelier Crenn. He was offered more than one job. He made his pick and was gone in a couple of weeks. Kajioka’s departure is a loss.
I caught up with him by phone in December and at a going-away pau hana at Izakaya Sushi Shinn shortly before he left. Continue reading
Tags: Chris Kajioka
Keep one of the island’s best things to eat available
2 Mar
Have you ever tasted freshly pounded kalo? If you’ve only ever had store-bought, plastic-bagged poi, eating pa‘i ‘ai right off the papa ku‘i ‘ai is like having your first bite of Peter Luger porterhouse after only eating panfried Safeway steak your whole life. That’s not hyperbole!
You’re in the land of pa‘i ‘ai and yet if you haven’t tried it, most likely it’s because it is not easy to find. Isn’t that weird? That’s like going to Tunis and learning that all the couscous restaurants have shut down, or going to Italy and someone telling you they stopped making pasta a couple months ago. Due to Department of Health restrictions, hand-pounded kalo cannot be sold in Hawai‘i. You heard right. I appreciate that the DOH is looking out for me, but perhaps foods need to be looked at in a case-by-case basis, and I would really like to be able to buy pa‘i ‘ai, because after the first time I tasted it…the supermarket stuff just didn’t cut it. Imagine having to eat only Spaghetti-Os after having a taste of Town’s handcut pasta. Geddit?
In one hour, Daniel Anthony of Mana ‘Ai, an educational organization that has been struggling to be able to sell pa‘i ‘ai, will testify at a hearing for SB101 SD1, which would “exempt the preparation of hand-pounded poi from certain processing requirements and from Department of Health regulation regarding food safety. Imposes labeling requirements on hand-pounded poi made outside of certified food processing establishments. Authorizes the department of health to conduct inspections of hand-pounded poi producer’s premises under certain conditions.”
Anthony reports that Rep. Robert Herkes, Chair of the Committee on Consumer Protection and Commerce, needs more verbal and written support to push the bill through. You can write to Rep. Herkes at repherkes@capitol.hawaii.gov or call 586-8400. As of right now, the Leg doesn’t feel that pa‘i ‘ai, and the right to make, sell, and eat it, is important to the community. It’s important to me, and I’m going to call right now.
Even if you don’t consider yourself “political” (actually, just by existing in the U.S. you’re political, hon), if you take eating seriously, you’ll call or email. Take a stand as a consumer of all that is fine and tasty to eat.
10:35pm: Update: Daniel Anthony reports that the hearing was a success. Even the DOH was supportive. “The committees on HAW recommend that the measure be PASSED, WITH AMENDMENTS. The votes were as follows: 7 Ayes: Representative(s) Hanohano, C. Lee, Jordan, Morikawa, Wooley, Pine, Ward; Ayes with reservations: none; Noes: none; and 3 Excused: Representative(s) Belatti, Mizuno, Yamane.”
Tags: Daniel Anthony, kalo, Mana 'Ai, pa‘i ‘ai
Belated e-toast to Santi Santamaría
27 Feb
Last June, my brother, James Griffith, had the honor of working with Santi Santamaría. Jim, who is assistant vice president for Emirates Flight Catering, is very sanguine about his accomplishments and brushes with fame. In May 2010, he sent me a one-sentence e-mail: “I am going to be working with this guy during June to do our Madrid flight menus.” Accompanying it was a thumbnail image of Santi Santamaría and a blurb about the famed Catalan chef’s Dubai restaurant Ossiano.
Two months later Jim sent me the above picture. Emirates hired Santamaría to concoct a menu for its Madrid flights. Jim reports that the celebrated chef was a “very friendly, genuine guy. His food was very homey and full flavored.” I got a food-blogger thrill seeing my brother arm-in-arm with Santamaría, whose Can Fabes restaurant has had three Michelin stars since 1994 (and who was a vocal opponent of what’s known as molecular cooking). Seven months later, on Feb. 19, I read in the New York Times that Santamaría was dead.
Here are some of the in-flight dishes from the Emirates menu crafted by Santamaría and Angel Zapata, chef of Ossiano.
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Tags: Can Fabes, Emirates, James Griffith, Santi Santamaría
