The long walk to the reserved table for two at Beachhouse, the Moana's new signature restaurant, should have been an indication that we were in for a long night.

The restaurant, whose surf-and-turf theme, though neither novel nor tired (a city can never have too many good steakhouses), is the iconic hotel's 3 1/2-month-old culinary baby. The restaurant is one of a series of structural and cosmetic upgrades at the hotel since it was rebranded as a Westin resort last year.

I had a good feeling about this place. After all, the Sheraton Waikiki's recent add-on, Rumfire (the Sheraton Waikiki is owned by the same company as the Moana), far exceeded my expectations, redeeming my lost faith in Waikiki hotel restaurants. Surely, Beachhouse would help further my conversion to devoted hotel restaurant supporter.

I'd snuck a peek at an advanced copy of the menu, and it looked good. Chef Rodney Uyehara (formerly of The Bistro at Century Center) had designed his dishes with the savvy culinary know-how of a seasoned chef.

I was all for it.

Even when the hostess showed us to our table, a far-away two-top that was just a few tipsy tourists and a wedding party away from the hotel swimming pool (did I forget to specify that we wanted reservations at the restaurant, not the pool bar?). It wasn't what I'd had in mind for a high-end restaurant, but I was keeping an open mind.

It's the view. That's why we're out here, I thought. And it IS spectacular, with the setting sun turning the evening sky that orangey shade of pink that's soft and vibrant all at the same time.

I could live with this. Cocktails and a good steak? Here? I could think of worse ways to spend a Sunday night.

If I had known that the first 20-minute wait for a server to appear with menus was going to set a precedent, I might have just grabbed my dinner guest and headed right for the pool bar. But good company and a sunset are to patience what yeast is to bread, and my patience was growing with every glance at the ocean.

Despite the long walk to the sequestered table and the long, long, long wait for a server, when she did finally arrive — smiling and kind — it was like someone had pressed the refresh button.

This could turn out OK, after all.

First, cocktails.

The restaurant's signature drink, the Beachhouse Cooler ($11) for me; the apple mojito ($8) for him.

The cooler, a twist on the traditional mojito with pineapple and ginger essences added to vanilla vodka and muddled with mint and sugar cane, came weak and watery, all the flavors canceling each other out. The apple mojito was worse.

Uh-oh. We were two for two. (Or five for five, if we count the walk, the table and the 20-minute wait, but who's counting?)

And then: redemption — in the form of bread and tapenade. (It's the little things, right?)

If there had been some way to measure my pleasure, the needle would have bounced and spiked with my first bite of fresh focaccia topped with the salty olive spread. I thought: Yes! This is how you start a good meal, weak cocktails be damned.

If only.

If only the paniolo steak tartar ($16), a mangled mess of beef that tasted like it had been in the refrigerator since the day before was as good as the diver scallop potato cake ($14), a sweet, giant, tender scallop surrounded by savory potato shreds formed into a hash-brown-like patty, fried and served over fresh greens and herb butter.

If only it didn't take 20 minutes for the roasted asparagus salad ($12) to arrive, its warmth long gone and replaced with limp slivers of prosciutto, a quickly solidifying tangerine hollandaise sauce and topped with a sunnyside egg whose other side was burnt and crisp. All of the pieces of a good dish were there, minus the care a good dish deserves.

If only it didn't take another 20 minutes for the main course to arrive, and when it did, it, too, was room temperature, demoting the 20-ounce bone-in rib-eye ($42) and the kurobuta pork chop ($28) from quality cuts to leftovers.

And what a shame it was. To know that a good piece of aged Angus beef, which was cooked medium-well instead of the requested medium, needed steak sauce to mask its imperfections!

The pork chop was better, as pork always is when the person handling it knows that it doesn't, in fact, have to be cooked until it's well done. The extra-thick chop had a beautiful pale pink center, which was also where the flavor was the richest.

In classic steakhouse fashion, Beachhouse's menu is a la carte, letting diners choose their own combinations of veggies and starches to accompany the meat. We went with the creamed kula spinach ($8) and potato, Gruyere and Maui onion gratin ($8).

Both were good choices — and they would have been even better had they arrived hot. The creamed spinach is a fresher, less-weighted-down version of the dish. The spinach came roughly chopped and was blanched (not boiled to death) to retain its color and form and was barely covered in a nice, light cream sauce. The potato gratin didn't set any precedents, but it was done right.

By this time — 3 1/2 hours later — I was losing track of the hits and misses, but I knew it was mostly misses.

My patience had gone the way of the server: It had all but disappeared. So, what now? Now, I thought, I try again.

Beachhouse, Take 2.

This time I asked to be seated in the dining room. I was going to take control of my dining-out experience, even if I had to look like a spoiled diva to do it. (I didn't ... I hope.)

One quick glance around the room and I wondered why they even seat people outside. The place is beautiful. Tables and chairs of dark stately wood, accented by sand-colored walls and couches. Panels of sheer fabric hung throughout the large room to give it a sense of smallness and privacy. Large windows open to the beach, the sound of the waves crashing on the sand audible through the walls. This, I thought, is a steakhouse.

The second time around, some things were much better. I wondered if my feelings about the first time had been the result of my own bad memory. But some things were just as bad, proving that my memory is just fine.

I ordered steak again — it's the restaurant's signature dish, and it deserved a second chance before I wrote it off completely. This time, I got the 16-ounce American Wagyu New York strip. At $85, how bad could it be?

It seems ridiculous to say that ordering a steak that expensive (I've had perfect $30 steaks) paid off, but it did. Tender, juicy, perfectly charred on the outside and around the edges, and perfectly medium-rare on the inside. The consensus: Beachhouse can do a good steak.

As for the other things, the service was again slow, with no explanation or apologies. But the food was hot, hot, hot. Everything came at the right temperature, proving that the Sunday-night cold front was just that: a one-night mishap.

But the bottom line for diners (and it never changes) is this: Is the restaurant worth their time and money? This is my answer, with regard to Beachhouse: If I know I'm going to spend $150 per person on dinner (and that is what it costs at Beachhouse), everything should be perfect. Everything. From the table to the cocktails to the service to the food.

At Beachhouse, it just doesn't add up.

RESTAURANT NEWS

i Nico's Pier 38 restaurant, a paper-plate place with white-tablecloth food, has switched to environmentally friendly plateware. For an extra 25 cents, you can get your meal on a "green plate": 100 percent compostable and made from sugar cane fiber. The "plastic" pieces are made from biodegradable cornstarch.

i A new cafe has found a home at the the Nu'uanu YMCA, pleasing workers in the area with its long hours: It's Sweet Basil Express, owned by Thip and Tui Nguyen. It's open to both members and nonmembers from 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays and 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays. Our reader-informant says the food is "good comfort food" — Asian-style, of course.

THE 4-1-1

Restaurants: If you're changing chefs or menus, adding a new service or making news in any other way, we'd love to hear about it. And diners: Got an idea for an eating establishment we should visit — someplace new, underappreciated or recently updated — let us know.

Write Wanda Adams, Food Editor, Honolulu Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802; fax 525-8055; e-mail wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Reach Kawehi Haug at khaug@honoluluadvertiser.com.