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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, January 4, 2008

Drink in perfect pairings at Du Vin's wine dinner

By Lesa Griffith
Special to The Advertiser

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Brasserie Du Vin chef Scott Nelson's creations include this sauteed seabream with pine nut, grape and shallot butter, served with a watercress frisee salad and caramelized starfruit.

Photos by ANDREW SHIMABUKU | The Honolulu Advertiser

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BRASSERIE DU VIN

Rating: Three forks out of five (Good)

Raisin d'Etre Monday Night Wine Dinner

1115 Bethel St.

545-1115

6:15 p.m.

Details: Reservations required, seating limited to 14 guests, dinner sometimes held at communal table. Cost is usually $69 for three courses; to get on the Raisin d'Etre list, e-mail miki@brasserieduvin.com.

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Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Chef Scott Nelson of Brasserie Du Vin shows off his sauteed seabream dish in the restaurant's courtyard.

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Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Nelson works with sommelier Jason "Cass" Castle to come up with a matching menu each week for Du Vin's wine-pairing dinners. The Monday night event fills up quickly as seating is limited to 14 guests to keep quality up. Cost is usually $69 for three courses.

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If you've limited your food orders at Brasserie Du Vin to shareable finger foods for pau hana wine sessions — cheese plates and tarts — you can't really say you've experienced chef Scott Nelson's food. As discovered at a recent installment of Raisin d'Etre, the enigmatic chef with the haole name and Asian appearance, who once cooked at Duc's Bistro, lets loose for the restaurant's cleverly named Monday wine-pairing dinners.

Nelson's partner in wine for the event is sommelier Jason "Cass" Castle (who also writes periodic columns for The Advertiser). It's no easy feat to come up with a weekly menu of successful pairings, but the two do it. Nelson cooks up a few dishes and Castle brings out his gems and they settle on the best matches. For the last course, they offer two choices.

The restaurant e-mails out the upcoming offerings, and the dinner books up fast. Du Vin limits the number to 14 people to keep the quality up; Nelson doesn't want to be shoveling food out and Castle wants to be able to serve hard-to-get wines.

For example, the Dec. 10 dinner featured the small-production California wine Zaca Mesa Roussane and from Paso Robles Cass Winery's (no relation) Hacienda, which isn't available anywhere else in Hawai'i.

Nelson started off the dinner with sauteed seabream, a thin filet crisp on the outside and moist within, topped with grape halves and pine nuts sautéed in butter — an unusually sweet and indulgent choice for the fish, which worked, and seamlessly paired with the Mesa Roussane.

The second course of steamed black bass was pure France. Nelson stacked meaty pieces of fish in the subtle red pistou broth accented with capers, tomato bits, fennel and slivers of garlic and surrounded the whole thing with a halo of Salt Spring mussels. Castle's choice was the herbaceous Purisima Mountain Vineyard Marsanne from Rhône varietal king Beckmen Vineyards, where day-to-day winemaking is overseen by former Honolulu resident Mikael Sigouin.

Finally, out came a crisp textbook duck confit (with an addictive potato-crusted spinach and manchego cheese galette). It was sauced with what tasted like a thicker version of the bass' soup, an uninspired choice that didn't counterbalance the rich bird, but the big, fruity Hacienda made up for it. Castle also poured the more sophisticated Domaine LignEres PiEce de Roches from Languedoc, France, letting diners do their own taste test.

Throughout dinner, Castle visits the table, talks about the wines, where they're from, what the wineries are like (Beckmen is a winery with a "hands-on approach; when I visited them, the winemaker's clothing was stained red," Castle vividly described). He gives these talks in a chatty, no-attitude way reminiscent of master sommelier Chuck Furuya's approach. Can't taste the difference between the Hacienda and the PiEce de Roches? Castle won't scoff at you, he'll work with you. And his pours are generous and sometimes topped off — no 2-ounce limits here. And the dishes are no tasting plates; Nelson serves full portions.

Whether you're an oenoneophyte or a seasoned glass-swirler, Du Vin's Monday night dinners are a good place to learn pairing basics and get to know new wines. And to do it with Nelson's light, deft take on casual French food makes getting schooled delicious.

Lesa Griffith is a freelance writer in Honolulu whose reviews appear here monthly.

RESTAURANT NEWS

Two Neighbor Island additions are in the news:

  • On Maui, Honolua Store deli in the Kapalua Resort has been renovated and expanded with a breakfast and lunch menu devised by the operation's new chef, Romeo Arruiza. You can eat in or take out in the new addition to the store, popular with visitors to the area as well as locals (the small store in a historic plantation-era building is pretty much the last food outpost before the famed Honolua Bay surf break and just a few minutes from popular Fleming's Beach).

    Arruiza, a longtime Maui resident, most recently as lead cook and menu designer at The Westin Kaanapali Ocean Resort Villas, tried to create a casual, local-focused, environmentally conscious and interesting menu (service items are biodegradable and compostable). To eat: Moloka'i sweet bread French toast, burgers, tempura mahi wraps, omelets, plate lunches, pizzas.

    The new deli is open 6 to 10 a.m. for breakfast, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for lunch with full kitchen, counter and salad bar. Information: 808-665-9105.

  • On the Kohala Coast on the Big Island, Queens' MarketPlace at Waikoloa is opening the Island Gourmet Markets. The new, nearly 24,000-square-foot store, a partnership between ABC stores and the savvy Big Island market chain KTA, is a combination deli, gourmet and necessities market, take-out spot.

    They will stock an extensive assortment of dry-aged beef (for grilling and barbecues), more than 250 artisan cheeses, local produces and imported organic and specialty products, fresh seafood, and there will be a full-service bakery and a deli. And, of course, there will be bentos and sushi. KTA Super Stores executive vice president Derek Kurisu said they'll even take special orders for ingredients customers want.

    The store opens in the spring.

    — Wanda A. Adams

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