Ciao Mein serves culinary fusion family-style

By Tanya Bricking Leach
Advertiser Staff Writer

Pesto and chili sauce as condiments reflect the West-meets-East flavors at Ciao Mein in Waikiki. Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser

Or so their name tags said.

When we entered Ciao Mein restaurant in the Hyatt Regency Waikiki, I expected it to be full of tourists. My first surprise was recognizing a high-profile Honolulu attorney sitting at the bar.

When we sat down to eat, my dining companion and I were game for suspending our disbelief about a restaurant that would attempt to blend Chinese and Italian cuisine and seeing how this East-meets-West blend would all work out. So we chuckled at our servers' name tags as we scanned the menu.

The next thing I noticed was the place settings with a choice of a fork or chopsticks — not all that unusual around here.

The better choice came when the bread basket arrived. It included regular bread as well as crispy, cheesy breadsticks and two dipping sauces: Asian chili or pesto. The pesto hit the spot.

Ciao Mein is all about options. It's family-style, the kind of place where you sample food around the table. So if you can't decide between Chinese and Italian, you can have both.

We opted for spring rolls ($9.75) with shrimp and bamboo shoots for a starter and two entrees that were both past first-place winners in the annual Taste of Honolulu: Honey Walnut Shrimp ($22.75) and Bistecca Di Manzo Alle Erbe ($20.75), sirloin marinated in olive oil with garlic, herbs and pine nuts.

For a hotel restaurant, it has surprising good food. It also has a romantic setting that would make it a good date place.

The honey-glazed walnuts and shrimp with sugar snap peas was delicious. (But if I really wanted to satisfy a craving for honey-walnut shrimp, I'd go to Little Village Noodle House on Smith Street in Chinatown. And if I really wanted to mix the East-meets-West experience, I would have ordered my meal with pasta instead of rice. And if I really wanted to satisfy just an Italian craving, I would have headed to Zia's or Buona Sera on the Windward side.)

But I keep forgetting. This experience wasn't supposed to be just about me. My assignment was to find family-style restaurants with an Italian flair.

O'ahu has lots of great family-style ethnic restaurants. Asian restaurants, anyway. It can be tougher if you're looking for family-style Italian. (Heck, it is a hunt itself just to find a place that serves decent Italian bread.) Buca di Beppo, a chain restaurant below the movie theater at the Ward Entertainment Complex, is a fun and affordable place to go with a crowd if you want something casual. Cafe Sistina comes to mind for something a little more upscale. But I've always found Cafe Sistina, on King Street, with its cool muraled walls, more about the atmosphere than the food.

One place I hadn't thought of until friends suggested it was longtime Maui favorite Longhi's, which opened its first O'ahu restaurant last year in a open-air spot with an ocean view above Morton's Steak House at Ala Moana Center. It features the Longhi family specialties, such as lobster over linguine. And it has an impressive koa bar with a good happy hour.

The restaurant also has waiters who recite offerings not necessarily on the menu and a cookbook at each table you can browse for ideas. At our table of eight, there were plenty of choices for our vegetarians and carnivores alike.

Each item is a la carte. So our table shared appetizers such as steamed artichokes ($12), side dishes such as sauteed asparagus ($10), and pastas in the $20-$30 range, such as an Alfredo dish with scallops. If you add in drinks and dessert, a meal here can easily set you back $60 each.

Both Ciao Mein and Longhi's are a bit pricey. But they're memorable spots for special occasions with buon cibo, buon vino, buoni amici — good food, good wine, good friends. And chopsticks if you so desire.

Reach Tanya Bricking Leach at tleach@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8026.