Vote HFWF in USA Today poll

Hawai'i Food & Wine Festival photo
Among local chefs involved in the. Hawai'i Food & Wine Festival are co-founders Alan Wong, left, and Roy Yamaguchi, right, and between them, Mark Noguchi, Lee Anne Wong and George Mavrothalassitis. Now they're asking you to vote for the festival as best in the nation in a USA Today poll.

Sunshine. Beaches. Food and wine selections from an international roster of top chefs and sommeliers. What's not to love about the Hawai'i Food & Wine Festival?

We've always known Hawaii is epicenter of world-class culinary events and word is getting out about the festival that, since 2011, has raised $1.3 million for local culinary and agricultural programs. HFWF is in the running for a USA Today poll looking for the Best Wine Festival in the USA Today 10 Best Poll.

HFWF has a good head start, currently in 2nd place out of 20 candidates and is hoping fans will push the festival into the top spot over the next two days.

Voting is open through 5:59 a.m. Aug. 15, Hawaii time. Here's the link to vote: 10best.com/awards/travel/best-wine-festival/hawaii-food-wine-festival-honolulu.

No need to enter email or personal information. Just click on "Vote."

—————
Nadine Kam is Style Editor and staff restaurant critic at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser; her food coverage is in print in Wednesday's Crave section. Contact her via email at nkam@staradvertiser.com and follow her on Twitter, Instagram and Rebel Mouse.

Alan Wong celebrates 20th anniversary

Photo courtesy Alice Inoue
Chef Alan Wong celebrated the 20th anniversary of his eponymous restaurant, with Alice Inoue.

Time flies when you’re having fun, and nothing makes me feel older than to witness the anniversaries of food movements and restaurants that I was writing about from their starts.

I was there when Alan Wong opened his eponymous restaurant in 1995, and I was in the room when he celebrated his 20th anniversary April 15, another tax day, just like Day 1!

It’s another landmark year for Wong in that, come summer, he’ll be opening his first restaurant in China.

As much as I get down on a new generation of chefs who seem to take a nonchalant, somewhat lackadaisical approach to running their businesses—often failing to keep regular hours or opening without training staff or opening with only an outline of a menu—Wong’s remarks on his anniversary evening reminded me that today’s pros didn’t start out perfect either, even if they had a more polished veneer.

He said he remembered being told to put out signs telling motorists passing by his nondescript King Street building that the restaurant would be opening soon. So he put out a sign that said, “Coming Soon,” with no indication as to what exactly was coming. And, after the restaurant opened, they forgot to take down the sign for a long time.

In an earlier interview for HI Luxury magazine, he told me, “To tell you the truth, I didn’t know what I was doing. The only thing I was envisioning was survival.”

Nadine Kam photos
This was one of my favorite dishes, so refreshing with a fiery kick. Kualoa Ranch poached shrimp wrapped in somen, with kochu jang Asian pear sauce, mint and basil.

Coming to Oahu after working at Lutece in New York City, and opening The Canoe House Restaurant at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and Bungalows on Hawaii Island, he hoped his restaurant would last five years, knowing that within the industry, nine out of 10 restaurants fail in their first year.

Well, he made it, and with a celebratory menu of 14 savory dishes and 11 sweet bites, showed what keeps diners coming back for more. There were about five food and dessert stations set up around the restaurant and lanai, so I thought, “I can handle this.”

But, food kept emerging from the kitchen. Sadly, I was able to enjoy only about eight dishes, but they were all wonderful.

Some of the things I missed were a Keahole lobster summer roll, five spice pork with mustard cabbage chimichurri, kim chee porridge, and opakapaka with savoy cabbage daikon broth.

One dish I didn’t photograph was Kauai Makaweli Ranch “Flintstone Steak” accompanied by a decadent glob of roasted bone marrow. So silky amazing, I had to have seconds!

Here are some of the other dishes:

Niihau eland carpaccio with chili Parmesan and Nalo Farms arugula.

Kombu-cured Hawaiian kampachi with shiso ahi tartare, uni, opihi and ocean foam.

Niihau lamb shoulder moo shu with salsa roja and a choice of toppings from a condiment bar, below. I opted for fresh corn salsa, goat cheese and verde sauce.

Pork hash “katsu” slider with shredded cabbage and hoisin mustard vinaigrette.

Cambodian kampot black pepper surf and turf with Maui Cattle Co. beef, Hamakua mushrooms and king crab.

North Shore Aqua Farms misoyaki tilapia on onigiri.

 Macarons and Hawaiian Sun guava fruit jelly.

An assortment of cookies and castella cake with local honey glaze.
———
Nadine Kam is Style Editor and staff restaurant critic at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser; her coverage is in print on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Contact her via email at nkam@staradvertiser.com and follow her on Twitter, Instagram and Rebel Mouse.

HFWF gives back with $200,000 check presentations

Nadine Kam photos
In the front row, from left, Kapiolani Community College Culinary Arts associate professor Alan Tsuchiyama, Culinary Institute of the Pacific director Conrad Nonaka, University of Hawaii Vice President of Community Colleges John Morton, and chef Roy Yamaguchi, show the $80,000 check presented by the Hawaii Food & Wine Festival to the Culinary Institute of the Pacific.

Now that we've cleared all of winter's major holidays, the founders and directors of the Hawaii Food & Wine Festival took time out to host a Mahalo Reception for festival partners and participants, and a check presentation of more than $200,000 at Kapiolani Community College's Ka Ikena restaurant on Feb. 4.

During the September 2012 festival, 4,000 visitors and residents from around the world enjoyed 50,000 portions of food served up at 15 events at six venues on Oahu featuring 61 chefs, four master sommeliers, 25 winemakers and 31 local farmers, artisan food producers and innovators. More than 200 culinary students from Kapiolani Community College, Leeward Community College, Maui College, and Kauai Community College put in 23,000 hours working side-by-side with some of the most respected names in the industry.

As promised during the fall event, funds raised from a week of HFWF events will benefit culinary education in the islands, as well as organizations working toward long-term sustainability and agricultural integrity. The 2012 beneficiaries were: Hawai'i Agricultural Foundation ($80,000), Culinary Institute of the Pacific ($80,000), Leeward Community College Culinary ($30,000), Paepae o He'eia ($10,000), and Papahana Kuaola ($10,000).

Hawaii Food & Wine Festival co-founders and co-chairs Alan Wong, left, and Roy Yamaguchi, with executive director Denise Hayashi.

With all but $1 million left to be raised for the construction of the new Culinary Institute of the Pacific at Diamond Head, University of Hawaii Vice President of Community Colleges John Morton announced that the school system will put Phase I of construction of classes and labs out for bid in the next two to three week.

The great thing about the association with the culinary program is that students were tasked with coming up with pupu for the event, so guests could gauge the return on those dollars. The food was amazing, certainly equal to the best restaurants in the state and I could see and taste the improvement from just a few years ago, when a chop suey, throw everything in the pan mentality reigned. Our food may not "suck," as Scott Caan so eloquently put it, but could at times be viewed as muddled. I can see where students' direction is now more thoughtful and considered.

After speaking about HFWF, co-founder chef Roy Yamaguchi humbly introduced his co-conspirator and co-chair chef Alan Wong as, "The man who made it all happen," while Wong refused the honor, assuring that it was Roy who did all the work.

Wong reiterated the aim of the festival, which they saw as a way of putting the spotlight on Hawaii, bringing in international media to focus on farmers and "get people thinking and talking about Hawaii," and most importantly, to make the kind of sustainable decisions today so our grandchildren's children can also enjoy the pleasures we enjoy today.

Considering Hawaii's geography and relationship to the ocean and limited land, it would be crazy to ignore the specters of global warming and development. We can see the effects on fish stocks and easily predict a future in which fish is no longer edible and the consequences going up the food chain.

HFWF is continually working to ensure people keep thinking and talking about ways to preserve this culinary paradise. This year, the festival will add a stop on Maui to its calendar, timed to the tail end of Ka'anapali Fresh.

One of the problems of putting out such a beautiful display of greens is that no one wanted to disturb the arrangement.

Cheese and fruit spread.

Braised baby abalone on daikon with miso mustard sauce and micro greens. Loved it!

Spicy kim chee snapper springroll with edamame and wasabi puree, saute of Ho Farm tomato, Ewa sweet corn, sea asparagus and kochujang aioli.

Seared nori ahi on shiso noodles with Hamakua mushroom, crispy taro threads, kabayaki, hot mustard aioli and ginger scallion oil.

Someone took a humorous approach to dessert, serving up cheesecake over green tea cake, to the delight of a marzipan mouse.