QUICK BITES
Puck's top chef doing Hawai'i gig
By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor
Lee Hefter, executive chef and partner of the Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group, is the featured chef in the next installment of the Culinary Conversations program at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel & Bungalows Nov. 7-9. This is a very pricey but very rare opportunity to get up close and personal with some of the world's best and best-known chefs: You attend a reception with the chef, join in two hands-on cooking classes, one at Mauna Lani's Canoe House restaurant and one on the grounds of Hirabara Farms in Waimea, and you attend an excellent dinner and wrap-up beach party.
Hefter worked with the late, great Barbara Tropp at San Francisco's China Moon before joining the original Spago Hollywood in 1993. He left at Puck's urging to work in a number of European two- and three-star restaurants, then returned to supervise the kitchen at Spago Hollywood in 1996. In 1997, he became executive chef at Spago Beverly Hills and was named a Best Young Chef by Food & Wine magazine and a Rising Star by the James Beard Foundation.
I was able to attend the inaugural Culinary Conversations event with Mario Batali (at a kama'aina rate that's no longer available) and it was an extraordinary experience — great "face time" with an expert.
Rates for three days' accommodation plus culinary events begin at $1,650 with special event-only rate for second person occupying same room. Information: Mauna Lani Sales Department, (800) 367-2323.
Tea like the year's first beaujolais
Byron Goo of Tea Chest Hawaii (www.teachest.com), a Honolulu distributor and catalog retailer that also operates a small shop at Pioneer Plaza on Fort Street Mall, writes to say that the 2003 shin cha green tea is in and it's so concentrated "it's like drinking a green tea espresso" — intense but well-balanced. It was an exceptionally rainy and foggy year in the Shizuoka region of Japan where the tea was grown, but the plants love that kind of weather, Goo said. Shin cha is the first harvest of the year and highly anticipated, analogous to the fall arrival of beaujolais nouveau in France. It sells for $19.95 for two ounces.
Fun food events on O'ahu, Big Island
The Honolulu Japanese Chamber of Commerce has announced the date of its Chopsticks & Wine Event for 2003. It's Sept. 25, and the wine and food grazing event will take place from 6 to 8:30 that night at the Japanese Cultural Center, 2453 S. Beretania St. Tickets are on sale now at $80 per person at 949-5531.
If you're on the Big Island next weekend, tickets are still available to the United Way's "An Evening in Paradise" event Saturday evening at the Fairmont Orchid Hotel (formerly the Orchid at Mauna Lani, in the Mauna Lani resort). It's emceed by Guy Hagi and Kim Gennaula and featuring culinary masters from around the island, including Daniel Thiebaut, Willie Pirngruber, Jacqueline Lau and others. Tickets: $65 adults, $35 children (younger than 5 free). Special room rates are being offered, too. Call (808) 935-6393 or see www.HawaiiUnitedWay.org, and a pop-up window will appear where you can purchase tickets by credit card.
New book profiles the top local chefs
Our former food editor and columnist Kaui Philpotts is editor of a new, abridged version of the "Great Chefs of Hawai'i" book — a kitchen-counter-friendly version of the larger, more glossy original volume. This one is spiral-bound to lie flat and includes recipes from 17 island chefs. Aimed at the Mainland market as well as Islanders, the book includes a chapter on giving a lu'au and a guide to basic, building block recipes used in the book (brown sauce, chili-pepper water, etc.). This one is from Mutual Publishing and sells for $13.95.
Quick Bites is published on Wednesdays. Send tidbits of food news to food editor Wanda A. Adams, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802; 525-8069 or wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.
