Couple's guide to small, local restaurants a hit

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

Donovan Dela Cruz and Jodie Endo Chai were surprised to find some operators of small local eateries didn't want publicity. Watermark Publishing

The challenge wasn't deciding the criteria for inclusion, compiling a list of places, finding time to visit them all or writing up the text. It wasn't even how to keep out of XXL territory while tasting all that saimin with teri stick, fried butterfish, mochiko chicken, loco moco and pork cutlet.

No, the challenge was a particularly local phenomenon: Some of the places they liked best very politely declined to be listed in the book.

"It's because they're so small, literally mom-and-pop operations, and they don't want to make it hard for their regular customers. Their customers are people they think of as family and friends. If being in the book meant their regular customers would have to stand in line or gotta wait to get in, they didn't want it," said Dela Cruz.

His point is made for him as we sit talking at the New Uptown Fountain, just mauka of the freeway on School Street. A well-dressed businessman walks in, throws 50 cents into a mayonnaise jar for the newspaper he picked up just outside the door, sends an eye flash at the waitress and sits down without speaking. His coffee is on its way within a minute, his regular order on the grill shortly thereafter.

Dela Cruz and Chai are known here, too, and the food arrives in a steady parade: papaya, egg and miso soup, grilled steak on sauteed spinach, the New Uptown Fountain's famous garlic bread, saimin, Fried Rice Maasan (the Okinawan take on loco moco; an omelet made with breakfast meat atop a mound of steamed or fried rice, plus one of three sauces — curry, gravy or Asian-style spicy).

The two say that researching Hawai'i's small restaurants revealed much about the character of the Islands: our ethnic mix, our taste palette, our work ethnic, our clannishness.

New Uptown Fountain, with five booths and four tables, is a classic example of the sort of "puka" place Dela Cruz and Chai celebrate in the book: The menu is highly individualistic. It has the look of a place that hasn't changed much since territorial days. It smells as inviting as Oba-chan's kitchen.

The countertop is like a still life: a TV switched to the morning shows sits atop a pair of plastic milk cases; a huge orchid plant flourishes next to an old-fashioned scale; signs from the defunct fountain advertise long-gone flavors of ice cream (including "tooti frutti"). Dusty menu placards are strung from the ceiling. Another sign refuses checks or credit cards. The waitress expects you to know what you want, state it quickly and clear the booth in a timely manner.

"Puka Guide," which sold out its first printing within weeks of its Dec. 1 publication date and is in its second printing now, is the second restaurant guide for Dela Cruz and Chai. The first, "The Okazu Guide: Oh, 'Cause You Hungry," (Watermark, $8.95) is going into its third printing and was esoteric enough to receive a mention in Gourmet magazine. It also gets a lot of this reaction: "Why didn't I think of that?"

The two books are simply designed, with two pages for each business, a picture, a short quote from the owner, basic data on location, hours and specialties, and room for notes.

It might not seem like it, but this is valuable insider information.

"Okazu Guide" got its start because Dela Cruz and Chai, classmates from their days at Leilehua High School, now both in the public relations business, were hungry for Japanese delicatessen, or okazu-ya, food (okazu means "dishes other than rice," the ending -ya indicates a shop). But they couldn't remember which days which shops were open. Okazu-ya are notoriously individualistic; some open only in the morning; some stay open only until the food is gone; some open weekends, others do not; many close for long vacations. It's the sort of thing customers are just expected to know.

"There should be a book," someone said. To which Dela Cruz, always the idea guy, replied: "We should do a book." That first guide took a couple of years to produce.

Afterward, the writing duo was left with a list of places that didn't fit into the okazu book. "The Puka Guide" was born.

Their criteria in both cases was that the establishments had to serve food unique to Hawai'i. People don't realize, Chai said, that Hawai'i bento and okazu foods have evolved considerably from their Japanese roots.

The flavors are built around a particular balance of sweet to salt, Dela Cruz said. "That's what makes Hawai'i food unique, that shoyu and sugar," Chai said.

Another criterion: The restaurants had to be too small to market themselves (or uninterested in doing so).

Dela Cruz and Chai developed considerable respect for the people who run these tiny businesses. They enjoyed hearing their stories, which are immigrant stories, family stories, stories of being determined to get off the plantation, people who had to make a job because they couldn't get a job.

One reason okazu-ya are disappearing, Dela Cruz said, is that nobody wants to work that hard. "When we go to bed at midnight, they're just getting up," he said, preparing the food in readiness for their crack-of-dawn opening hours.

For the okazu book, they looked for places with a cafeteria-style atmosphere and where the rice had a shape or form — no two scoops of rice plate lunches.

For the puka guide, the primary criterion was that food and atmosphere be local and nostalgic.

Their working list came, just as most of the business for these restaurants comes, by word of mouth. And the ideas are still coming. At every book signing, they get a few more names to add to future editions, if they do them. But they're at work now on a third idea: a guide to places to buy omiyage, those courtesy gifts so necessary in Hawai'i when you return from traveling, when you visit friends or family that you haven't seen in a while or when making a sales call.

It's another very Hawai'i thing, Chai said. "You don't want to go anywhere empty-handed."