Alan Wong's

Now this was a great meal, and I’m truly sorry that we took so little care to ensure the photos would do it justice.

Alan Wong’s is a bit of an odd duck of a restaurant, though sounds scornful when it's not. I’m not at all familiar with Honolulu, but the neighbourhood in which the restaurant is located is unambiguously plain. Similarly, the building housing the restaurant is a simple lowrise. The effect is one of having a good restaurant in the middle of an accounting firm or something of that sort. The dining room is quite pleasant, to be sure, but the décor is still somewhat muted. The food, one guesses, is meant to be the star.

We took a long time deliberating. Conrad’s friend (and colleague) Lei and her husband Doug were our gracious hosts, and we were delighted that they preferred sharing dishes in order to taste a variety of things. Nonetheless, there were many attractive choices, but I think we did well. Cocktails to start (and I stuck with my passionfruit margaritas) and an opihi (limpet!!) shooter in tomato water for me (just to try it) and we launched into the real dinner.

The service was astute in providing us our appetizers one at a time, to be shared (but I will grouse slightly and suggest that a couple of times during the evening they might have checked on us a little better and more often). We had a dish of chopped ahi sashimi and avocado salsa stack, followed by a smaller dish also of tuna, but flavoured differently and topped with caviar. Then it was "Da Bag", a foil bag in which a bowl of Kalua pork, shitake mushrooms, clams, and tomatoes in a broth were enclosed. It comes to the table and sits like a silver cushion before the waiter punctures it and releases the smoky pork scent. Yes, I ate the mushrooms and even enjoyed them.

Lei, Doug, and Conrad opted for fish. Doug’s mochi crusted opakapaka (pink snapper) with nametake mushroom risotto had a crunchy/chewy coating. Lei’s ginger crusted onaga (another type of snapper) came served with a delicious sauce of miso sesame vinaigrette, shitake, enoki mushroom, and corn. Conrad’s kiaawe wood grilled mahimahi was simple and flavourful, served with a wasabi sauce and stir fried vegetables. I went a different route and enjoyed the twice-cooked soy braised and grilled kalbi short ribs in a sauce that burned pleasingly a little more as I went on. An excellent choice, and we all shared a taste of our meals with each other.

Dessert? Of course! New Wave Banana Split was the name of the dish, and I have described it elsewhere. Doug had the kitchen’s version of Crunch bars. What was a little astonishing was the coffee menu – vintages and boutique producers from around the islands. I settled on a milder Oahu roast to close out my night.

Don’t mistake me, we ate very well on Maui. This was food more than a notch above, though. The plating was deft, and the tastes had more subtlety and variation than we’d had in the days on Maui. Lei and Doug not only provided us wonderful conversation throughout the dinner (as well as the opportunity to taste some different things we’d not ordered ourselves) but very generously treated us to the meal. We’re keenly hoping to have an opportunity to show them good Chicago dining sometime in the future!