Healthy and homecooked to go: Cooking Fresh for You

Michi Harris was the highlight of family parties. From a “poke bar” to a fragrant beef rendang that rivals Indigo’s, her contribution always trumped the inevitable baking pan of sushi rice on the potluck table. I know—she’s my cousin. She also catered events for the family business, Harris Agency, cooking for 200-plus people at a shot.

“A girlfriend told me you should do this as a business,” says Harris. “And my sister said to me, ‘You just love to feed people don’t you?’ I realized I do love to cook. I cook all day now, and I still love it.”
Last year Harris turned her innate talent—she’s self-taught—into a business and launched Michi’s Cooking Fresh for You, a prepared-meal service. Now she’s making dinner for about 60 people twice a week. Continue reading “Healthy and homecooked to go: Cooking Fresh for You”

Will Kaua‘i Grill make the Garden Isle Hawaii’s dining destination?

What you see from Kaua'i Grill

In France, there is a tradition of the restaurant-inn. Michelin-starred chefs are sprinkled throughout the boonies, where the food grows, and include accommodations, so people can make a pilgrimage, eat and sleep off the food coma. Like the five-star Georges Blanc complex in Vonnas or the three-star Le Relais Bernard Loiseau in Saulieu (which thrives despite Loiseau’s 2003 suicide, under the chef’s protégé Patrick Bertron). As you can see from the links, modest inns have been replaced by luxe spa-sporting mini EuroDisneys.

With the opening of Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Kaua‘i Grill on Nov. 19 at the reborn St Regis Princeville Resort on Kaua‘i—with Vongerichten in attendance—Hawai‘i may be getting its own version of this dine-and-doze experience. Continue reading “Will Kaua‘i Grill make the Garden Isle Hawaii’s dining destination?”

No fruit left behind

goglean logo

Two years ago, April Lee and Chetan Mangat were living in Honolulu and two experiences led them to create their new online produce exchange GoGlean.org. One night they saw Agnès Varda’s film The Gleaners and I (a look at harvesting—as former agrarian duty and modern urban survival). It also happened to be mango season. They saw the irony of $2 Costa Rican mangoes being sold in a town where yardfuls of fruit were rotting. Continue reading “No fruit left behind”

In other news

Another special $59 dinner from Chef Mavro: The Julie & Julia dinner was such a hit that the restaurant will do similar special menus periodically. Next up: Beaujolais Nouveau menu, Nov 19-Dec 5, 2009, 6-9:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Call 944-4714. Chef George Mavrothalassitis and Chef de Cuisine Kevin Chong came up with a three-course menu to go with the 2009 Beaujolais Nouveau, which is being hailed as one of the best harvests in 50 years. Continue reading “In other news”

Have you been to 12th Avenue Grill lately?

Big Island boar in broth with Hamakua mushrooms

Honolulu’s original contemporary American bistro turned five this year. And 12th Avenue Grill is only getting better. A dinner two weeks ago, with three discerning eatizen joes and a jane from San Francisco in tow, elicited surprised cries of delight. As usual, the specials were all instant winnahs. Like this starter of Big Island boar in a broth with gnocchi, hamakua mushrooms and other stuff (I just wanted to enjoy dinner and didn’t take any notes, gah). It is a quintessential “chasseur” dish that signals autumn is finally here.

Continue reading “Have you been to 12th Avenue Grill lately?”