Posted on: Friday, December 24, 2004
Kai's sleekness sets mood for late-night spinning
By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer
The four leggy, tight-tanked and low-rise jeans-wearing blondes who cruised into Classy as if off the pages of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog turned more than a few heads. And not just male heads, either.
Photos by Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser Slightly, perhaps.
Sure, the 100 or so patrons who filled Kai's intimate, sleekly modern environs were heavily twentysomething and heavily local Asian. They liked their underground hip-hop infused with a subdued lounge-comfy groove. For the most part, they seemed fond of raiding the dressier side of their closets for evening fashion.
But a pretentious bunch? Hardly. A bunch with a keen interest in people-watching? Definitely.
Absent half its tables, Kai's narrow dining room features a small dance floor and turntable set-up up front and a rear bar (by day, a teppan grill). Wood and metal accents, high black ceilings, beaded curtains and arty shelves lined with cool tchotckes (samurai and "Star Wars" action figures, ceramic apples) give the room a mod-funky yet distinctly Asian vibe.
Discreet lighting is provided by an ornate collection of votive holders, a trippy chandelier of gold bulbs, and ice-cube lamps hanging over each table. On the night we dropped by, Hong Kong director Ronnie Yu's cheesy action flick "The 51st State," projected at an arty angle, also offered the dance floor all the funky-cool illumination it needed.
"I'd come to an all-trance night here," said Ayumi Yamamoto, 23, nursing her second cranberry-grape shochu.
"Or a trip-hop night," said her friend, Missy Yee, also 23.
"It's so cool, new and modern looking, and the crowd is pretty mellow," said Yamamoto. "Some of the guys could dress a little better — backward ball caps are not a turn-on."
Open since April, Kai began hosting after-hours parties in late October.
1427 Makaloa St. (makai of Wal-Mart)
11 p.m.-2 a.m. Thursdays
$5
944-1555
Also recurring at Kai's:
• Blend (DJed deep house), last Friday of every month, 11 p.m.-2 a.m. Kai also hosts a deep-house party, Blend, on the last Friday of each month. And Maeshiro is planning a dancehall weekly for a February launch.
Eric Soo's appreciation of Kai, on the other hand, seemed to hinge on the continuing activities of the blonde quartet.
"You think they'd go Asian for one night?" he wondered out loud.
Get in line, dawg.
Reach Derek Paiva at 525-8005 or dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.
As they sauntered to the rear of Okonomi Cuisine Kai's late-night weekly 'round midnight on a recent Thursday, a woman watching me scribble notes smiled and said, "Well, there goes your demographic, huh?"
Top: Yoko Gullikson, left, of Diamond Head, chats with Nobue Singer of 'Aiea at a recent after-hours party at Okonomi Cuisine Kai. Above: Andrew Furuta, left, of Makiki, and Kei Hayashi of Waikiki chat over drinks and pupu at a recent after-hours party at Kai.
DJs J.T. and David Bui provided a fine soundtrack of urban sophisticate hip-hop and R&B. But any niche-music genre with a core following would be a good fit for Kai's smallish environs. Promoted well, an all-breakbeat, all-jungle or even all-ragga night could attract as loyal an audience to Kai as Classy.
Reid Okumura of Hawai'i Kai takes a turn at the tables at Kai. The Makaloa Street restaurant has two recurring after-hours parties.
"(Classy) took off pretty quick," said operations manager Mike Maeshiro. "And we've been getting our biggest crowds the last couple weeks as college classes end."
Classy at Okonomi Cuisine Kai
