Quick Bites
Kahala Mandarin celebrates food, wine

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

The Kahala Mandarin Oriental Hawaii Hotel and executive chef Wayne Hirabayashi are staging the resort's first Food & Wine Week Oct. 22-31, including a guest-chef appearance by Bernard Dance of Mo‘t & Chandon (makers of Dom Perignon champagnes), private dinners and receptions, cooking classes and demonstrations, menu specials and chef-guided visits to local food purveyors.

The hotel is offering a four-day/three-night package including accommodations, a gala dinner, brunch, cooking classes, culinary tours and a welcome gift; $1,488, based on double occupancy.

It is also possible to register for individual events, including: a special business lunch at Hoku's Oct. 23-30 ($31); special dinner menus devised by chef Dance, Oct. 23-26 and Oct. 29 and 30 in Hoku's ($65); an evening of stargazing with Barry Peckham of the Hawai'i Astronomical Society, desserts and champagnes, 7-9 p.m. Oct. 25 ($35); A Culinary Tour of O'ahu, 5:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Oct. 26 ($75); "A Night with Mo‘t & Chandon," 6:30 p.m.-10 p.m. Oct. 26 ($195 includes vertical champagne tasting and six-course dinner); curry cooking demonstration, 12:30 p.m. Oct. 27 ($25); a six-course dinner reception, 6 p.m. Oct. 27 ($125); Sunday brunch with jazz, 10 a.m.Oct. 28 ($45); ornamental edible carving demonstration by Hoku's garde manger chef Warren Sasaki, 1 p.m. Oct. 29 (free); All About Ahi class with Hoku's chef Brooke Tadena, 11 a.m. Oct. 30 ($25; $35 with wine).

Information: 739-8704, the Food & Wine Week hotline.

Room Service in Paradise, a restaurant meal delivery service, will sponsor a food drive on behalf of the Hawai'i Food Bank through November. Last year, 900 pounds of food was made available to the Food Bank through this program; the aim is to double that this year. Patrons are asked to donate a minimum of three cans (or other nonperishable food items) when ordering, for which they will receive $3 discounts. Room Service in Paradise delivers meals from nearly 40 restaurants in the Honolulu and Kailua areas; lunch weekdays and dinner nightly. Information or orders: 941-3463 for town delivery or 261-3463.

'Hearts of Hawaii Unite'

On Oct. 18 from 6-10 p.m., the "Hearts of Hawaii Unite" event will bring together more than 20 of Hawai'i's best-known restaurants and food purveyors (including current 'Ilima Award winners Ryan's Grill, Starbucks and the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel's Hanohano Room) at the Victoria Ward Centre for a menu of pupu, desserts, cocktails along with live entertainment and a silent auction, all to benefit Hawai'i families of victims of the recent terrorist actions on the East Coast. Cost is $25. Tickets at all Ticket Plus outlets, Blaisdell box office, Victoria Ward Centre ticket booth, and Ryan's, Palomino and Kincaid's restaurants.

Culinary winners

Maui Community College culinary students have been competing in — and winning — culinary competitions around the country. Their most recent was the American Culinary Federation's Western Region Junior Team Competition in Kona the week before last. Team members Pamela Neitenbach, Shaun Nishida, Leo Pasalo, Chad Tacag and Eden Castillo won the regional competition and will compete in the national competition in Arizona in January.

Neitenbach, who graduated from the program recently, competed in the Western Region's Culinary Knowledge Bowl in January 2001, entered a menu in the 2001 Alize Mentorship Challenge II (she was one of three winners, announced in May) and traveled to New York to accept her Alize award in August.

Jonathan Mizukami, a May 2001 graduate of the program, was part of the January 2001 MCC team that won silver in the ACF regional competition and was an individual winner in a Chaine des Rotisseurs Jeaune Commis competition later in the year. He was one of four finalists in the North American Food Equipment Manufacturers' competition in Orlando, Fla., in September, where he won the gold medal. (He flew back to Maui Sept. 10, the day before the terrorist attacks grounded airplanes.)

One of America's finest

Alan Wong's Restaurant, perennial winner of our annual 'Ilima Awards Favorite Hawai'i Restaurant category, was named one of America's Top 50 restaurants in the October issue of Gourmet magazine, which called him "the master blaster" of Hawaiian eats ... who constructs "a devastatingly delicious alternative universe of his own." Yeah, it's called the Wong Way. (Alan's was the only Hawai'i restaurant on the list.)

Send food or restaurant news to Wanda A. Adams, Honolulu Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802. Fax: 525-8055. E-mail: wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.