LCC cooking program grows with the pros
By Scott Ishikawa
Advertiser Central O'ahu Writer
PEARL CITY — While a burger and fries are available at the Leeward Community College campus lounge, oysters Rockefeller, chicken marsala and sauteed snapper are also on the menu if you look hard enough.
Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser
The Pearl restaurant is a hidden campus gem that provides a fine-dining atmosphere and is a real-world classroom for LCC culinary arts students training to enter the food industry.
Left to right: Sommelier Chuck Furuya, Dean Okimoto of Nalo Farms and L'Uraku chef Hiroshi Fukui were videotaped at a recent workshop at LCC.
"Our first restaurant here a decade ago had six tables that seated less than 20," said culinary arts professor and program coordinator Fern Tomisato, who said the restaurant now seats 40 people. "Customers coming here are surprised we operate a restaurant here because we're tucked away in the back (of the student center)."
One of the community college's better-kept secrets will become more prominent this fall with a $2.3 million expansion of its kitchen/restaurant facility, allowing the program to triple its number of students and position graduates to take advantage of huge demand for employees in the national food-service industry.
The addition of Hawai'i food industry leaders such as Alan Wong, Roy Yamaguchi and Chuck Furuya to the program's board of directors also adds prestige to what is known as the Culinary Institute of the Pacific at Leeward.
• What: "Taste of the Stars," a benefit for the Leeward Community College culinary arts program, will include food prepared by executive chefs Fred DeAngelo, Hiroshi Fukui, Russell Siu, Alan Wong and Roy Yamaguchi, pastry chef Cyrus Goo, Dean Okimoto of Nalo Farms, and graduate chefs of LCC's The Pearl restaurant. Proceeds from the event will help pay for restaurant equipment. • When: 6-9 p.m. May 4 • Where: Leeward Community College, Pearl City • Tickets: Purchased in advance until April 26 are $70 each, and $80 afterward • For more infoRmation: 455-0392
Wong, who runs Alan Wong's Restaurant and Alan Wong's Pineapple Room at Macy's, said the program expansion comes amid high demand for food-service employees, with an estimated 1 million job openings expected nationally by next year.
At a glance
"The industry is always looking for qualified applicants, and with more people living out in Central and Leeward O'ahu, we felt the need to strongly support the culinary program out here," said Wong, who was raised in Wahiawa.
The two-year LCC program includes fundamental cooking in the first semester, short-order cooking in the second, baking in the third and cooking at the dinner house in the final semester.
Tomisato said expansion plans will triple the size of the present dining and cooking facility. Because of limited classroom space, the program can accept only 16 students per semester. A bigger kitchen will allow room for 30 to 50. "It'll allow us to teach three classes at a time, instead of one," Tomisato said about the expansion plans. "Our program also has a huge dropout rate, sometimes we lose half, because students for a number of reasons realize they're not ready to enter such a demanding field."
Because the program is financially self-sustaining, a larger dining room to fit 90 people will increase customer revenue, she said. Construction is expected to take about a year, she said.
"A larger dining room will have students feeling the everyday pressures in the front and back of the restaurant," Tomisato said. "But the expansion is coming at the right time; we really needed it."
