'Two Skinny Chefs' take to small screen | The Honolulu Advertiser

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'Two Skinny Chefs' take to small screen | The Honolulu Advertiser | Hawaii's Newspaper

Posted on: Wednesday, January 21, 2004

QUICK BITES
'Two Skinny Chefs' take to small screen

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

Beth-Ann Nishijima and Chai Chaowasaree will bring restaurant cooking to Island home kitchens.

Beth-Ann Nishijima is a local girl whose Hilo restaurant, Nori's, is famous for saimin. Chai Chaowasaree is known for his high-end East-West fusion restaurant, Chai's Island Bistro. She's a bubbly, outgoing person with a pidgin lilt to her speech. He is a sweetly shy fellow, detail-oriented with a tendency to remain in present tense and drop the final syllable.

But they've been the best of friends for more than a decade and now they've created "Two Skinny Chefs" — a new TV cooking show premiering at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, repeating at 4 p.m. Sunday on KGMB-Channel 9. Each week, they'll visit a restaurant in places as far afield as Las Vegas and our own Chinatown, then come home to recreate two dishes.

Chai focuses on technique and showing how to replicate the dish. Beth-Ann is the show's "energy" he said, and offers the local perspective. The pair owns the show, which doesn't allow product placements. Said Beth-Ann: "Mainland cooking and Hawai'i cooking are really different. We're showing how to bring them together."

Dixie Grill offering Southern breakfasts

Dixie Grill's Ward Avenue and 'Aiea locations are serving weekend breakfasts 8 a.m. to noon Saturdays and Sundays with a Southern-inspired menu that even includes grits (what Southerners eat instead of steamed white rice). Entree prices: $7 to $12; There's a keiki menu, too.

Start your opera evening with dinner

Hawai'i Opera Theatre ticket-holders trying to fit in a meal before curtain have high praise for the "Dining Opera-tunities" program, in which local restaurants commit to getting you out on time with a reasonably fixed price menu ($19.95 plus tax and tip) if you make an early reservation. Participating restaurants: Aaron's Atop the Ala Moana, Brew Moon, Cafe Sistina, Kincaid's, Marbella, Palomino, Alan Wong's Pineapple Room, Sarento's Top of the I and the Sunset Grill. Call restaurants for information.

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