Taste
Blossoming breads

• Restaurant-style bread dips are easy to make at home

By Joan Namkoong
Advertiser Food Editor

At Sunset Grill, server Alex Rodarte grates cheese onto an oil-and-balsamic-vinegar mix into which diners can dip their bread. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

Today, Mom may be the very one reaching for that second roll and taking her entree home: Bread baskets have become quite a draw for restaurants, and moved far beyond plain bread. And butter? That's old hat.

A survey of a couple of dozen restaurants around town revealed that few restaurants serve those pull-apart, soft, brown topped rolls anymore. Nor is lavosh as popular as it was on restaurant tables in the '70s and '80s. Even plain old French bread is pretty good these days. Used to be that the most exciting bread basket in Honolulu was the naan and duck liver pate at the Third Floor at the Hawaiian Regent. But it seems everyone has something unique and tasty.

"Bread tells what a restaurant is about," said Wayne Hirabayashi, executive chef of Hoku's at the Kahala Mandarin Oriental Hawaii. "Everything here is made fresh and it's different; it's not the standard frozen wheat rolls."

For those willing to forgo a calorie count, the ciabatta bread with the ahi poke dip at Hoku's is clearly one of the best bread offerings in town. The mayonnaise-based dip with soy sauce, garlic, ginger, chili and cooked ahi is hard to resist atop freshly baked warm bread. And it's worth it to stop in often: Return customers are often rewarded with the restaurant's signature naan bread, piping hot from the kitchen's gas fired tandoori oven.

There are house-baked crusty country French rolls at Chef Mavro restaurant and crackly, crisp rolls at Padovani's Restaurant, both in the classic French style. At Beau Soleil, there's a revolving repertoire of sourdough, olive, rosemary and whole wheat walnut breads served alongside a ramekin of marinated olives. Jalapeno corn bread with roasted onion butter at Brew Moon and thyme butter rolls at CafÚ Monsarrat offer savory bites in keeping with the restaurants' themes.

At Orchids at the Halekulani it's hard to stop munching on buttery garlicky toasts and house-made lavosh served with herb butter. Ryan's at Ward Centre prides itself in its signature rosemary, sage and garlic focaccia laced with butter as it comes out of the oven. The recipe was obtained by corporate chefs from a member of the Borracchini family in the Pacific Northwest, where Ryan's owner, Restaurants Unlimited, is based. They get a lot of requests for take-out orders.

Popovers at lunchtime and monkey bread at dinner time are the signature of Mariposa at Neiman Marcus. Of course, popovers are legendary at Halekulani breakfasts.

Taro rolls are a particularly Hawai'i kind of bread basket item, purplish in color, soft in texture. You'll find them at 3660 on the Rise and L'Uraku, where they are served with wasabi butter.

And what's going on the breads? Butter, mostly unsalted, though some folks (like me) prefer salted butter on bread. Olive oil and balsamic vinegar at Italian- and Mediterranean-themed places. And lots of flavored butters, spreads and dips.

Fruit butters top macadamia nut sweet bread rolls at Sam Choy's Diamond Head Restaurant. But if you like things a little more savory, chef Elmer Guzman offers sun-dried tomato and kalamata olive butters for French rolls by BalÚ that are also in the bread basket.

At Palomino it's the tomato feta relish that customers love, almost outshining the rosemary ciabatta that is made exclusively for Palomino by La Brea Bakery. At Chai's Island Bistro it's the peanut dip sauce on the taro rolls and flat bread that get high marks. Similarly it's the chili pepper aioli at Alan Wong's Restaurant served with French rolls made by BalÚ. Zia's in Kailua offers a black olive pesto on French bread by Moke's bakery down the street.

Many restaurants save time and labor by buying their basket breads already made or frozen and ready to bake. La Brea bread from Los Angeles, known for its organic starter, sour flavor and crusty crust, is the choice for restaurants like Roy's and Che Pasta. The bread is 80 percent baked, frozen and shipped, then finished in an restaurant just before serving.

"You just can't bake this kind of bread in Hawai'i," said Rainier Krumbroch, general manager at Roy's in Hawai'i Kai. "Ever since we started serving it, bread consumption has gone up."

Panissimo, another artisan bread from California, is the choice of the Hawai'i Prince, Donato's, C&C Pasta and the Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel. If you're a banquet guest at the Hilton, be sure to grab a piece of the Irish soda bread, a signature item there.

Just how much bread do people eat? About two-and-a-half pieces each, on average, say restaurant folks. "We really don't want people to fill up on it," said Krumbroch. "It's a fine line: We want to give people as much as they want, but we don't want to affect sales (of menu items)."

"People love bread; they love to substitute it for an appetizer," said Todd Constantino at Diamond Head Grill. Just to keep things exciting, Constantino will start serving toasted sesame green onion biscuits and toasted nori flatbread in another week or so, accompanied by Hawaiian chili and sun-dried tomato aioli.

Restaurants such as Roy's and Alan Wong's don't do baskets of bread. Servers place slices on plates, judiciously helping cut down on waste.

Speaking of waste, inevitably restaurants have leftover bread. But anything left in the basket, even if untouched, gets tossed. Unserved extras are made into bread crumbs and croutons for soups, salads and holiday stuffings — and, of course, bread pudding, the retro comfort dessert that came back for good reason.

When it comes to bread basket presentations, Sunset Grill takes the prize. A waiter presents the olive oil and balsamic vinegar dip with a flair, flipping a plate and ramekin onto the table, then pulling off the ramekin as the oil and vinegar pool onto the plate. Then the waiter grates onto the plate Parmesan cheese, into which you dip a slice of warm sourdough bread. Definitely a meal if you don't restrain yourself. "We have people eat the bread and take home their entrees," chef Ryan Day said.