Creating new styles cuisine
• Grandson reinvigorates longtime family restaurant
• Hilo chefs' recipes worth trying
By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor
In Hilo, two restaurants offer contrasting East-West dining experiences: the familiar Seaside Restaurant, well into its third generation of operation, and the new Restaurant Kaikodo, where a celebrity chef and a pair of Asian art experts are creating a buzz.
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'East-West' cuisine comes together in an artful blend
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| MaryAnn Rogers, above, and her husband, Howard, brought their skills as art dealers and historians to the decor at Hilo's Restaurant Kaikodo.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser Restaurant Kaikodo Keawe and Waianuenue streets, Hilo Open: lunch and dinner; appetizers, $6 to $8; dinner, $15-$27; desserts from $5 Reservations: (808) 961-2558 restaurantkaikodo.com (site under construction) |
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| Michael Fennelly Chef, Restaurant Kaikodo Born and raised: Northport, Long Island, N.Y. Schooling: Southampton College, Parsons School of Design Chef career: Santacafé (Santa Fe, N.M.), Mike's on the Avenue (New Orleans), Mecca (San Francisco) Goal: To open a bed-and-breakfast in Puna |
They found him in Puna.
A Food & Wine magazine Best New Chef and a James Beard Foundation Rising Star. A man whose first executive-chef job netted him a listing in Condé Nast Traveler magazine's "Fifty Best Restaurants in the United States." An artist who hangs his own work in his restaurants. Featured on the PBS "Great Chefs" series. Author of "East Meets Southwest."
In Puna?
"I always wanted to build a beautiful bed-and-breakfast with really great food, a place where I wanted to live but also to cook and do my art," said Michael Fennelly, taking a few minutes' break from the lunch rush at Kaikodo, perspiration kinking his hair and traces of liliko'i-macadamia nut curry dotting his apron.
He fell in love with the area during a retreat at the Kalani Honua Conference Center five years ago. "It's rustic but not touristy. There's so much drama of nature there, the terrain so rugged, the lava, Pele's down there," he said. Burned out, he found 15 acres in Kamaile, near Kalapana, with no intention of going back into a restaurant kitchen for a while.
But then a friend heard about the Rogers' project and mentioned it to him. "A month went by, and I thought I should really call these people," he said. The Rogerses were surprised when Fennelly said he didn't have a up-to-date résumé, but that they should check him out on the Web. What they read had them convinced that he was right for the place.
Fennelly had a similar reaction when he walked into Kaikodo.
The Rogerses, who lived in Japan for many years, are art historians and collectors, owners of a respected New York gallery called Kaikodo ("Hall of Embracing Antiquity") and part of a growing (and wealthy) expatriate community that has discovered Hilo and the Hamakua Coast. Looking for a place where their Eastern and Western business interests could meet, they bought 75 acres on Onomea Bay in Pepe'eko a few years ago. In August 2001, they purchased the nearly 100-year-old Toyama Building, which is a former Masonic temple and bank that is listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings.
Fennelly immediately was taken with the expansive dining area, a light-filled space of white and crimson incorporating a 19-foot mahogany bar from England, 100-year-old cut-glass doors from an upper-class Chinese home, a Chinese gentleman's bedchamber, and a wine cellar fashioned from the bank's vault.
"This space is so conducive to my personal aesthetic style. It's very important to me that the food be presented in the right arena," Fennelly said. "I couldn't say no."
Though Fennelly grew up in New York state and had his first successful restaurant in Santa Fe, N.M., and second in New Orleans, he is strongly influenced by Asia, having encountered Asian food while studying architecture at the University of California-Los Angeles and on trips.
Asked to discuss his philosophy, Fennelly talked about some dishes on the Kaikodo menu. For example, Off-Shore Spring Rolls, using 'ahi and mahimahi. "I've always done spring rolls. At Santacafé, I did pheasant. Here, I wanted to use local fish, and I liked the play on the two words ('ahi and mahi)," he said. The 'ahi is rolled in a lumpia-style wheat wrapper with Thai basil and Maui onion, with a creole seasoning, and the mahi is in rice paper with zest of local lemons, black sesame and furikake, with ponzu mayonnaise.
"I'm more fond of fish than I am of meat," Fennelly said, "so I always approach meat in a very straightforward way." His steak is a grilled filet mignon with sherry, Szechuan pepper, Maui onion and oyster sauce in a mahogany-colored Cajun roux, served with wok-seared shiitake mushrooms and his version of kimchee, made with a faster technique than most for a clean, not musty, flavor.
He makes his own togarashi spice mixture from fresh lemon rind, toasted sesame seeds, chilies and furikake. And after he and his colleagues had their first encounter with an onaga (pink snapper), they came up with an idea to preserve the fish's delightful blush with an en papillote (paper-pouch) preparation, using a simple topping of Hawaiian 'alaea salt, snow peas, spring onions, bamboo shoots and enoki mushrooms, topped with a melting New Mexico-inspired compound butter of lime, roasted garlic and chilies.
Fennelly never formally trained as a chef. He just loved to cook, got some gigs as a personal chef while he was working as an artist, was asked to help design a menu once and found himself in a chef job.
Sous chef Ryan Angulo was willing to leave trés chic Picholine in New York to cross a continent and half an ocean because he enjoys working with Fennelly. Angulo, who worked with Fennelly at San Francisco's Mecca, said Fennelly understands the balance between serving as a teacher, a boss and a guy who's creative and fun to be around. "He's very down to earth; he's one of us," Angulo said.
Across the bar, Fennelly was getting his first sight of li-hing powder. He was immediately drawn to the color. "What's this stuff?" he asked. The bartender explained, and invited Fennelly to taste. He "mmm'd" appreciatively. "We could do something with this," he said enthusiastically.
Said Fennelly: "I just do the food I know how to do and incorporate local ingredients as much as I can."
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Grandson reinvigorates longtime family restaurant
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| Three generations of Nakagawas have operated The Seaside Restaurant.
Carl E. Koonce III • Special to The Advertiser The Seaside Restaurant & Aquafarm 1790 Kalaniana'ole Ave., four miles from Hilo Open for dinner, except on Mondays; appetizers, $5.50-$9.50; entrées, $10.95-$25.95 (entrées include salad, starch, pie); keiki menu Reservations: (808) 935-8825 |
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| Colin Nakagawa Chef and president, The Seaside Restaurant Born and raised: Hilo, Big Island Schooling: Hilo High, University of Washington Chef career: Taught himself Goal: To keep the family restaurant going |
Instead, he is carrying his family's restaurant and aquaculture farm into the third generation in a setting unlike almost any other in the Islands, a sprawling eatery and home perched by one of the many brackish ponds along the coastline south of Hilo.
His father, Susumu, says that if Colin hadn't decided to return and teach himself the restaurant business, the 80-plus-years-old Seaside Restaurant might be gone. "I had no clue that I was going to be running this restaurant," says Colin, 43. "I just missed home."
But it was clear that the restaurant needed a renewed vision if it were to survive. And Colin, like all his cousins, had fond memories of the place. The Nakagawas lived in town, but Keaukaha was their country retreat, where days were spent in the ponds and ocean, everyone becoming half-fish.
"Then, it was just a fun place, nothing to do with working," he recalls. "I didn't want to lose this place. It was too special. ... To me, there's no place in the world like this — a pond in your own back yard."
In fact, a pond IS the back yard of the restaurant, the upstairs of which is Colin's bachelor digs.
And on the edge of that pond, leased from the state, cement pools with pens made from netting and plastic pipe house the restaurant's raw material: 'ama'ama (mullet) and aholehole (Hawaiian flagtail), as well as tilapia, rainbow trout and papio (young ulua), plus bright-colored koi kept for their aesthetic appeal. (Although other carp are food fishes, colorful koi aren't for the table, thank you.)
When it's time to stock up, the chefs take a net, scoop up what they need, immerse the fish in a chilly brine, which sends them into a quiescent state, and later kill, scale and clean them.
Both businesses — aquaculture and restaurants — are vulnerable to a dozen negative forces, from 'auku'u, or herons, preying on the fish, to rising labor costs. Pairing them, though a romantic idea, has been an uphill battle, Colin says.
His father, an entomologist, took early retirement some years ago to bring his scientific mind to bear on the fish-raising operation. At one time, Susumu Nakagawa says, this coastline, like others in Hawai'i, was a large aquaculture operation, with miles of stone-walled pens along the shore. "The (1946) tidal wave took all that," he said.
The tsunami destroyed the original two incarnations of the Seaside Restaurant: first, the Seaside Club, a multifloor supper club and banquet hall built over the water, that Susumu's parents, Harry and Matsuno, leased in the early 1900s but lost to the military during World War II. The second was a smaller spot also on the makai side of the road, overlooking a bay.
In a glass case in the foyer of today's restaurant is the invitation to the 1947 opening of the Seaside in its present mauka spot: half-surrounded by a pond fed by springs and connected to the sea by inlets under Kalaniana'ole Avenue. There also are a few pieces of salvaged crockery that Colin and other members of the family have unearthed while diving in the pond, some of the pieces labeled with the name of the restaurant in curly blue script.
In the years between the deaths of the first generation of Hilo Nakagawas and Colin's return in 1980, the restaurant became a weekends-only thing, operated cooperatively by the family. The specialties remained the same for half a century: mullet steamed in ti leaves with lemon and onion, and fried chicken, Grandma-style.
This pairing had its start at the Seaside Club, where small mullet were the standard offering as a first course, with chicken to follow. This may have been a menu the Nakagawas inherited from a previous owner; no one knows.
Later, when the restaurant moved to the area popularly called Four Mile (being about that distance from the Hilo junction), other pen-raised fish were added.
Under Colin's direction, the menu has grown in size and sophistication. But back in the early 1980s, it was just Colin in the kitchen, aunties and part-time help waitressing, open weekends only, reservations required. Colin learned to make the simple dishes, and by the late 1980s had expanded the operation to six days a week.
Now, the restaurant averages 85 covers a weeknight, 100-plus on weekends, and more on holidays and during graduation party season.
And Colin has made it his own.
Though the ti-leaf preparation is a top seller, Colin prefers the steamed mullet with a medley of colorful vegetables, topped with a sizzling Asian oil. His excellent furikake salmon takes the usual preparation one step further, drizzling the nori-skinned salmon not only with the usual wasabi mayonnaise, but also with a house-made teriyaki sauce. This dish won a Taste of Hilo competition.
Colin's cousin-in-law, Andrea Weymouth-Fujii of Honolulu, says that although the restaurant is best known for fish, his paniolo-style prime rib is one of the best things on the menu.
He hasn't changed the aholehole preparation — a plate-size whole fish, lightly battered and deep-fried. And the fried chicken? It's on the keiki menu.
The standard dessert remains apple pie, which is included with the meal along with rice or pasta, hot vegetables and a house salad. But his taro bread pudding with warm haupia sauce is a little bit of Hawaiian heaven, neither soggy nor heavy, the sauce like a marriage between haupia pudding and pastry cream.
To sit in the dining room sipping a glass of wine, looking out over the ponds to a mangrove tree famous for the egrets that nest there each evening, to watch the sunlight disappear and a soft night fall, is to understand why Colin Nakagawa wanted to come home, and to be happy that he did.
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Hilo chefs' recipes worth trying
Here's a recipe each from the two Hilo chefs profiled in today's section: Mike Fennelly of Restaurant Kaikodo and Colin Nakagawa of the Seaside Restaurant.
This recipe, based on one in Fennelly's out-of-print cookbook, "East Meet Southwest" (Chronicle, 1991) is an easy shrimp version of his Off-Shore Spring Rolls, which use 'ahi and mahimahi. Don't be intimidated by the length of the ingredient list; the techniques involved are easy.
Mike Fennelly's Shrimp Spring Rolls with Three-Chili Dipping Sauce
For the spring rolls:
- 1 red bell pepper, seeded, deribbed, cut into ¥-inch-wide strips
- 1 pound cooked shrimp, peeled, deveined and cut into ¥-inch pieces
- 1 small carrot, finely julienned
- 1/2 cup julienned napa cabbage
- 1/2 cup julienned spinach
- 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 1 stalk celery, finely julienned
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
- 1/2 cup chopped red onion
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 1/2 package rice-paper wrappers (1/2 pound)
- 4 egg whites, lightly beaten
- Peanut oil for deep frying
- 1 head red leaf, butter or Manoa lettuce
- 1 bunch fresh mint
For the sauce:
- 6 cloves garlic
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 3 fresh Thai or Hawaiian chilies, seeded and deribbed
- 2 fresh serrano chilies, seeded and deribbed
- 1/2 dried small red chilies, seeded
- 2 limes, juiced with pulp
- 1/2 cup Vietnamese fish sauce
- 1 cup water
- 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
- Thin carrot strips, for garnish
In a large bowl, gently toss together the bell pepper, shrimp, carrot, cabbages, spinach, garlic, celery, cilantro and onion. Season with salt and pepper.
Place a rice paper round on a dry, flat surface. Brush with egg white. Let stand a few seconds to soften. Place a heaping spoonful of filling about one-fourth of the way in from the edge of the wrapper. Spread filling into a rectangular shape about fl-inch wide and 4 inches long. Fold over top of the wrapper to cover filling, then roll up, folding in sides after second turn. Repeat until all filling is used.
To make sauce, combine garlic, sugar, chilies and lime juice in a food processor or blender. Process until minced. Remove to container; add fish sauce, water and vinegar, and mix well. Set aside.
To cook the spring rolls, pour the oil into a large saucepan to a depth of at least 4 inches. Heat oil to 375 degrees. Drop spring rolls into oil a few at a time; do not crowd. Fry until golden brown, about 4 minutes. Remove with a slotted utensil to paper towels. Drain briefly.
Cut each roll into three pieces with a sharp knife. Serve with sauce, garnished with carrot strips. Rolls can be eaten plain or wrapped in lettuce leaves with mint, then dipped into sauce.
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Colin Nakagawa has taught himself to prepare the standard dishes for his family's seafood restaurant, then added a few touches of his own. The signature steamed mullet of his grandfather's day was flavored only with a little lemon; he prefers this Chinese-style version, which he serves on a bed of stir-fried vegetables cut into strips, with a garnish of Chinese parsley.
If you don't care for whole fish, you can steam fillets or steaks. And you don't have to use mullet; any flaky white fish will do.
Any one of a variety of steaming methods may be used: in a rack over simmering water, in a steaming basket over simmering water, or in an electric steaming appliance. You can wrap the fish in ti leaves and then in foil, or make a pouch of parchment paper.
Steamed Mullet, Chinese-style
- 1 (1-pound) whole, cleaned mullet, or 2 fillets or steaks of any white fish
- Vegetables (onions, red and yellow bell peppers, etc.) cut into strips, quickly stir-fried
- 2 green onions, slivered
- 2 slices ginger, slivered
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro (Chinese parsley)
- Dash of white pepper
- 1/4 cup peanut oil
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1/4 cup shoyu
Steam wrapped fish for about 15 minutes or until done. Drain away excess water and arrange fish on plate atop desired vegetables. Garnish fish with onions, ginger and cilantro. Sprinkle with white pepper.
Have ready peanut and sesame oil heated together until they begin to smoke. Pour over fish (ingredients should sizzle) and top with drizzled shoyu.
