Restaurants get real in offering Mexican fare

Through the years, I've heard people complain about the dearth of authentic Mexican fare in Hawaii. Well, they can now put their money where their mouths are. All of a sudden there are two new entries to the scene, both authentic and rather equal in scope. The one you gravitate to comes down to a matter of style and/or geography, with the glitzier Pablo's Cantina in Ward Centre, and the other, El Charro Mexicano in the Aiea Shopping Center.

I love that at both restaurants you'll find nothing generic, but sauces rich with the flavor of toasted chile peppers, everything made from scratch.

Pablo's street-style tacos.

PABLO'S CANTINA

A year ago I learned of plans for a Pablo McGinty's Mexican-Irish restaurant to open on the site of the former Compadres at Ward Centre. It sounded dreadful.

The deadline for the restaurant's arrival came and went, and by the time the restaurant finally opened a few weeks ago, it had undergone a name change to the less questionable Pablo's Cantina. Even so, its menu and signs still refers to a namesake character, Pablo McGinty.

They didn't have to try quite so hard when at its heart, Pablo's cuisine is as authentic as it gets. In the past, that would have been all the selling point needed to draw a crowd, but given the size of this restaurant and the reality that people are not dining out as much as they once did, it's going to be more difficult filling this space than it was in Compadres' day. The result is a restaurant with a split personality, and it'll be tricky trying to bridge the gap between the slow pace of authentic cuisine and the fast demands of the Taco Tuesday set.

Beyond mere tacos and burritos, the restaurant -- with a casita-inspired setting full of pottery from various regions of Mexico -- pays homage to Mexico's diverse food culture, featuring regional specialties from around the country, with everything prepared fresh daily on the premises by chef Mario Lopez (not the actor), who hails from Mexico City.

PABLO'S CANTINA      Ward Centre » 591-8307      Food      Service      Ambience      Value      Hours: 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily Cost: $30 to $35 for two without alcohol

For starters there is queso fundido chorizo, melted Jack cheese layered with spicy chorizo sausage and served with pico de gallo and flour tortillas ($9.95). Who doesn't love cheese? Try to balance that with the better-for-your-health ceviche de la casa ($10.95), the marinated fish strong on lime with a little kick from cilantro and serrano peppers.

If dishes are not spicy enough, take your pick of hot sauces from the restaurant's wall of flame. And if that's not enough, the kitchen staff can also whip up a batch of chopped habanero to add at your own risk.

If you like pork, look no  further than to an entree of Jalisco-style, fork-tender roast carnitas ($13.95), better than our state favorite of kalua pork. Cubes of pork also figures in chile verde ($13.95), in a rich, pleasantly tart tomatillo-chili sauce.

Chiles rellenos ($13.95) in a red chile sauce is another highlight. It comes stuffed with your choice of spicy beef, shredded chicken or cheddar/Monterey Jack. Even so, there can be inconsistencies. The first time I had it, it arrived hot and plump; the second time it arrived cool and deflated.

Speed is an issue with dishes cooked from scratch. On a second visit it took a good 15 to 20 minutes for any food to arrive, and when it did, two appetizers and two entrees arrived at the same time. At a Mexican restaurant, you don't want that much food in front of you at once. Also, during the wait you can easily fill up on chips and salsa, which defeats the purpose of ordering appetizers in the first place.appetizers in the first place.

If you're really hungry or are in the mood to share, steak a la Tampiqueria ($24.95) is a platter the size of a banana leaf laden with about six ounces of grilled Angus steak, a chicken enchilada, a cheese chile relleno, grilled nopale cactus (a little similar in flavor to cooked green bell pepper with a more rubbery texture) and all the usual sides of Mexican rice, refried beans, guacamole, sour cream and tortillas.

Similarly, for those who like pupu-style grazing, the molcajete ($24.95) is something I would have loved to try. They weren't serving it because the proper bowl hadn't arrived. It would have been filled with green sauce for dipping its other contents of grilled beef, chicken, chorizo, green onion and cactus, served with avocado, cheese and tortillas.

Of interest to bar hoppers, star mixologist Joey Gottesman had a hand in developing Pablo's bar concept. Continued heat in winter months calls for the refreshment of Roasted Pineapple Margarita made with fresh roasted and caramelized pineapple, and the Chipotle with roasted jalapeno, tequila, triple sec, house-made sweet-and-sour, and fresh orange and lime juices.

Chase straight shots of tequila with the traditional Guadalajara sangrita, a tomato-based nonalcoholic shot with the flavor of a Bloody Mary, meant to complement the pepper and citrus flavors of agave tequila.

"Taco Tuesdays," initially established by Compadres, returns next Tuesday. Other specials include "Monday Madness" happy hour with beer, drink and appetizer specials coinciding with football night, pau hana happy-hour drink specials from 4 to 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Friday nights, and "Sunday is Fun Day," during which kids under 12 eat for $5.

Pablo's carnitas.

The wall of flame.

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El Charro Mexicano's Parillada.

EL CHARRO MEXICANO

Aiea Shopping Center between Dirty Lickin's and Aiea Bowling Alley » 488-9727

Food 

Service 

Ambience 

Value 

Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays to Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays Cost: About $25 for two

At El Charro, whose owner comes from Mexico City, English is a second language. This requires patrons proficient in understanding a menu because it may be difficult to get servers to answer questions.

Aside from that, I enjoyed the food here immensely, though the ambience is strictly understated mall.

Just as at Pablo's, you'll find a starter of queso fundido of melted jack and mozzarella cheese ($5.50), with chorizo ($6), shrimp ($8) and scallops ($9) as topping options. Again, it's easy to polish this off while waiting for your entrees, but try to resist or you won't be hungry when your entree arrives.

Similarly, ceviche ($8.99) also comes with shrimp or mahi options.

Pork lovers have the option of chile verde or chile rojo ($10.99). The pork flavor comes out stronger with the green tomatillo sauce than the red, in which the flavor of Anaheim chiles dominates. More of the character of Mexican cuisine is revealed in the depth of chocolate, chiles and spices that go into the chicken mole sauce ($10.99).

It's not just the entrees to get the attention. The Mexican rice accompanying entrees is perfumed with garlic, and guacamole and pico de gallo is always fresh and vibrant to the eye and palate.

One of the major dishes, for those who find ease in communal dining, is the Parrillada ($21.50), a platter that easily feeds three adults or perhaps a family of four (two adults and two young children). The menu described grilled chicken, steak and chorizo, which is quite different from what it really is, more like a glorified fajita platter, with chopped steak sauteed with shrimp, scallops, bell peppers, onions and mushrooms, all intended to be wrapped with accompanying rice, guacamole, pico de gallo, refried beans and sour cream on corn or flour tortillas.

It wasn't as great as the smaller a la carte plates, but if you're on a budget, it's quick and easy, and the sizzling platter is dramatic.

Nadine Kam's restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. E-mail nkam@staradvertiser.com.

New spot needs more Hello Kitty spirit

Cooking up lobster tails evenings at Makittii Hawaii.

I like the option of dining at a Hello Kitty/Sanrio restaurant, but the first couple of forays leave me feeling like Goldilocks in the Three Bears story. 

The first Hello Kitty Cafe in Pearlridge Center, essentially a dessert counter, was too small.

The second, the recently opened Makittii Hawaii Japanese Seafood Buffet, is more Papa Bear than girly size. Maybe the next will be just right in appealing to women and girls, the core Sanrio fans.

Very young girls might be taken by the Hello Kitty murals in back that make a nice backdrop for birthday parties, as well as the small gift shop in front of the restaurant.

It was smart of Makittii owner Toru Makino, of Makino Chaya fame, to try to differentiate this buffet from his other establishments, but then Makittii doesn't go far enough with the theme. Save for some delightful, colorful desserts at the end of the meal, there's little in the buffet or about the setting in general that makes me think I've entered a joyful fantasy world. The plantation-style ambience is much the same as it was when it housed another buffet operation, Perry's Smorgy.

Anyone planning another Sanrio restaurant in the future should look to Disney and Q-pot for inspiration in everything from candy- or ice cream-shop decor and cute uniforms to match, to hiring staffers full of bubbly charm.

Considering what I imagine to be a childlike effervescence and aura of Ms. Kitty and crew, I found the experience rather gloomy due to servers just doing a job, without having sipped Kitty's shiny, happy Kool-Aid. In fact, when in the absence of adequate help I tried to get a glass of water myself, I was chided for doing so.

When I first hit the evening buffet, I felt there was no way I could eat $30 worth of food. There are so many options you'd be full after sampling just a bite of perhaps one-tenth of dishes offered. It doesn't help that I don't have the buffet mentality of going for the most expensive food. I just go for what I like, so when I scooped a hard-boiled egg out of the oden, my guest didn't think that was very smart, warning, "It'll just fill you up." Sorry, I just like boiled eggs.

Mussels are a little dry, but still one of the best items on the buffet.

This was before I discovered a chef grilling steak and lobster tails to order. That's where you might want to try a tag-team approach and have one person stand in line and place your order before backtracking to salads and appetizers. Otherwise, you might have a long wait as diners catch on to what's going on. The steak and lobster tails are only available during the evening buffet, not the $14.98 breakfast or lunch buffet.

Even so, the lobster I got was flavorless, so when adding up the cost of about $60 for two (with 20 percent kamaaina discount for those with a local ID), one has to consider they can get a pretty good lobster meal elsewhere.

The beauty of buffet is really in the bounty for those with insatiable appetites, or those who simply like to pick and choose from many options. But maybe you've also noticed that in this town where buffets have long reigned, they've been on the wane during the past couple of years. Chalk it up to the economy and waste associated with buffets, as well as a growing appetite for quality over quantity.

I ran into someone else I know there, and surveying the scene after the meal, we counted a handful of things that we really liked, out of dozens of items.

One diner told me the lotus root was good, but with so many options, I didn't try it.

Conceivably, if you do find that many things, you can fill up on those and be quite happy. But first, you have to taste a lot, the dining equivalent of kissing frogs.

Dishes I liked included all the fixings for a fresh spinach salad, salt-pepper shrimp when hot from the deep -fryer, cocktail shrimp, garlic sauteed basa and cubes of kabocha.

My friend liked those things as well, and would add a Japanese lotus salad I didn't have room to try, plus smoked salmon, though I found it was drier than it needed to be.

None of us tried the snow crab legs, which generally involve too much work for too little payoff. Maybe someone else will try it and report back.

Another plus is the sushi bar, run by Gaan Sushi over at the Waikiki Sand Villa Hotel. I wondered where the sushi was in this buffet, and you'll have to look for the abundance of sushi rolls toward the back of the restaurant. A sushi maker is stationed near the desserts, ready to prepare Gaan-style nigiri to order. This should be another of your first stops, for Edo-style sushi made with red vinegar and salt. It may take a while for some to adjust to the stronger, rustic flavor.

Last stop was the dessert station, where 35 types of cakes and desserts are available, though patrons are limited to picking up only two at a time. Oh well, walking to and from your table for the likes of chestnut and pistachio tarts, tiramisu and strawberry parfaits is good exercise. For those who want healthier options, there is mochi and flan made of soymilk.

Nadine Kam's restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. E-mail nkam@staradvertiser.com.

Pizza truck serves tasty to-go pies

Dennis Oda photo

Inferno’s Wood Fire Pizza is run by Kyle Okumoto, left, and Jonathan Wong, who put their wood-fire pizza oven on a trailer. Okumoto is just about to place a pizza in the oven, while Wong has just taken a cooked pizza out.

By Nadine Kam

A trip to Morimoto Waikiki last week showed the kind of theater money and fame can buy. But for every Morimoto there are dozens of potential restaurateurs who simply want to put their ideas on the table, no matter how small their start, evident in an ever-expanding convoy of buses, vans and trucks that bring edibles to events or parking lots near you.

They're getting more creative all the time. Plate-lunch trucks have always made the rounds, but the newest entries have taken tacos, cupcakes, teppanyaki and more to the streets. But the hottest at the moment is Inferno's Wood Fire Pizza in Kalihi, which showed up about two months ago.

It's certainly an original as the first mobile pizza joint on Oahu, serving the only pizza that comes close to being as good as V-Lounge pizza.

The pizzas are baked in a wood-fired pizza oven on site, and one has to wonder who would have been crazy enough to put a 2,000-pound oven on a trailer.

That would be partners Jonathan Wong and pizza perfectionist Kyle Okumoto, two guys whose expertise is in construction, working with sheet metal, but whose love of pizza eventually trumped their day jobs.

Those construction skills did come in handy, though, in tricking out their trailer by trial and error. "Knowing how to weld really helped," Wong said.

It wasn't easy, given their novel concept. For one thing, the permitting process took about a year, as long as it took to build because there was no precedent for a pizza truck, and city officials worried about fire and safety issues with an oven that reaches 800 to 1,000 degrees. Lucky for pizza lovers, it all worked out.

Wong said that they'd been trying to perfect pizza for the past five years.

"We always ate out cuz we worked construction, and Kyle would say, 'Oh, I can do that,'" Wong said. "Every Super Bowl we'd spend at his house, and all he did was make pizza. We were all his guinea pigs, five to 15 people every week.

"All he did was watch Food Network and try, tasting at our favorite places to see if he could do better."

His first "pizza oven" was a Weber that they layered with bricks, and then, Wong said, Okumoto was suddenly struck with the inspiration to buy a pizza oven and install it in his parents' back yard "so we could have real pizza parties."

Wong felt it was no light commitment, and foresaw a day the parents might want to sell the house, and the brick oven with it. So that marked the start of attempting to graduate from hobby to profession.

The resulting pizzas are made to their tastes, which happen to align quite nicely with my own. In a nutshell, that means fresh ingredients and fresh flavors, as unadulterated as possible; a light, balanced hand; and for pizza, a light, thin crust that offers a nice texture without detracting from the toppings. The whole effective supporting player vs. star thing.

The first time I went was just to try, so I took the pizza home and was thoroughly delighted. In 15 minutes of steaming in its box, though, the crust was sagging, and I went back to try it on the spot, when it came much closer to that crisp ideal.

The 12-inch pizzas are reasonably priced at $8 to $10, with additional toppings running $1. For DIYers, a one-topping pizza starts at $8. (A portion of proceeds of every pizza sold is being donated to the American Cancer Society's fight against breast cancer.)

Their pizzas range from your basic cheese ($8) to Margherita with basil and tomatoes ($10) to all-meat pepperoni, sopressata and Italian sausage ($10).

Wong describes Okumoto as a person who's "dedicated to meat," who looked askance at anchovies until urged to put it on his own pizza.

"He didn't want to eat that and was surprised when he did like it, especially when it's with the arugula and mozzarella, when it just tastes clean, bright and salty, not fishy."

That white pizza, also with olive oil and Parmigiano-Reggiano ($12), is one of the weekly specials they'll have in rotation. You'll usually find one red and one white special. The red last week was a slow-roasted pulled pork with red onions, mushrooms and garlic ($10). I liked that they offered a choice of homemade marinara or spicy barbecue. I'm not a big fan of barbecue sauce, and would take the mild San Marzano tomato sauce any day. But, given that I've liked the rest of their flavors so far, I might just try that barbecue one day, trusting that it may not be as treacly as most.

Mexican, duck and hoisin, and salmon pizzas are in the works. The salmon might take a while because they want to smoke the fish themselves, and similarly, they're hoping to tap hunters for smoked meat from the Big Island.

The original plan was to cater to private events such as birthday and beach parties, but they're happy to have been offered their current spot, where there's room for a few tables under a tent.

Waits for pizza run about 20 to 30 minutes, but it could be longer if there are a lot of people in front of you. They will take phone orders if you call early enough, but once the crowd starts coming, they don't have the manpower to do so, and can't predict what time they'll run out of dough.

They'd always been able to find construction work but willingly walked away to provide pizza, and Wong said they're having the most fun they could have working.

"Before, we'd be working in rooms by ourselves. The only human interaction was talking to each other, and Kyle is really quiet. Now there are always so many people to talk to," including, he said, pizza makers from V-Lounge, Pizza Hut, Bar 35 and Boston's Pizza, who want to know what the commotion is about.

Nadine Kam's restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser.

Morimoto's grand entry to Waikiki

Nadine Kam photos

Morimoto sashimi with five dipping sauces: yuzu, arugula, red pepper, yellow pepper and unagi.

By Nadine Kam 

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Oct 06, 2010

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PHOTOS COURTESY DK PUBLISHING

The dining room of Morimoto Waikiki offers a modern supper club ambience.

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I've talked to doctors and artists who've told me they don't like to socialize because they don't want to answer work-related questions.

I feel the same way. I don't like talking, so I write, and what's left on paper is 95 percent of all I have to say about a subject. The question I get most is what's my favorite restaurant, which tends to be a moving target. I figure I've eaten at close to 1,200 restaurants, so honestly, I don't remember them all.

More originally, I was at the Chanel boutique in Waikiki just last week, and someone asked, "What's your favorite restaurant ... if someone else is paying?"

I had to think about that one because I rarely have the option to choose. At the time I didn't have an answer, but now I do.

Morimoto Waikiki.

It's lovely. It's pricey. It's an experience, and I'd love to eventually try all of the vast menu. If it were my dime, as a poor scribe, I'd be more likely go to Nobu for more classical fare, or somewhere inexpensive and leave feeling just as sated. But if money were no object, I'd be back again and again.

I feel for "Iron Chef" Masaharu Morimoto. After all, he's a Nobu alumnus who must feel the pressure of Leonardo Da Vinci's adage, "Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master."

He couldn't do that by doing the same thing as Nobu, nor would he. Morimoto is far too creative to be a copycat. Even so, with Nobu just around the corner, he must know some comparisons are inevitable.

Creativity has its charm, but with food, at a certain point it's like reinventing the wheel. How do you improve on the essence of a thing? 

Sometimes you can't, but as an "Iron Chef," Morimoto must try. Unlike art, dance or music, once you've enjoyed the visual, tactile and scent of food, you're left with what's in your mouth, which here ends up being fairly ordinary. For the anticipation and price, I was expecting fireworks.

From the moment you pull up to the valet at the New Edition Hotel, it is an experience. En route to the first-floor restaurant, there were at least 10 people to greet, open doors and guide patrons to Morimoto. It was like a New York experience (though in New York the staffers would be models in Armani or Hugo Boss).

The room is beautiful, thoroughly modern and modular, but with a retro 1920s Art Deco or supper club vibe. Organic touches included lichenlike material at the entry, white coral decor and orchid imagery in purples and greens. I loved the open, spacious see-and-be-seen layout typical of big-city destination restaurants. We've seen so few of these on Oahu. I didn't even mind sitting close to other diners. Due to the volume in the room, it would have been too difficult to eavesdrop on another conversation. I could barely hear the waiters as they explained the dishes. They tend to be young and inexperienced anyway, and half the time I tested them to find out if they knew what was on the plate, they guessed wrong.

The open room has the double effect of advertising and possibly selling more food. There's a wow factor to presentation here, so diners can't help but have their curiosity piqued as dishes parade en route to other tables.

The restaurant is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Prices are the same for lunch and dinner, though choices are more limited during the day, and it's only during lunch that you'll find soup choices such as chicken noodle ramen ($14), oxtail soup ($14) and clam miso soup ($13).

Yellowtail pastrami.

I visited in the evening, when the open kitchen is bustling, conveying the scope of all available. Perhaps because sushi is so abundant here, few opted to sit at the sushi bar (maki rolls are about $7) when so many other hot and cold appetizer and entree selections beckoned. I would probably be happy feasting on cold appetizers alone. I skipped over the tuna pizza ($18) topped with olives, anchovy aioli, and jalapeño and lamb carpaccio ($17) in favor of yellowtail pastrami ($18) and Morimoto sashimi ($26), figuring that would give me an idea of what the fish is like in sushi here.

Slices of dry-cured yellowtail were thicker than typical sashimi cuts and were dusted with togarashi, then served with a small pool of olive oil, gin creme fraiche and slices of candied olive. The dominant flavor was that of olive oil, and though it was good, those who grew up pairing fish and soy sauce might find themselves missing that little lilt.

Morimoto's sashimi was one of the more visually interesting dishes I tried. The fish was cut to form cubes. Perhaps because of the way the fish is stacked before cutting, pieces of toro, salmon, eel, tuna and hamachi appear as random as fabric scraps. Some might be a full square. Others might be unidentifiable half-inch bits. The dish's saving grace is its accompaniment of five sauces presented in plastic capsule droppers for squirting their contents. Sauces are yuzu, yellow and red pepper, unagi and arugula. Each has its own merits, though there might not be enough fish for you to go back and retry all the sauces.

Meals can be accompanied by Morimoto cocktails, including a cucumber-inspired Morimotini and Morimo-tai flavored with lemongrass syrup and kaffir lime. You'll also find several Morimoto-branded beer, sake and shochu options.

After cold appetizers you might try a few hot ones, such as crispy rock shrimp tempura ($16), foie gras chawan mushi ($16) or wagyu carpaccio ($20). If you like being fussed over, there is yose dofu ($16), tofu prepared fresh at your table.

Pineapple tempura with jamón Ibérico.

I opted for the kakuni ($16), 10-hour slow-cooked pork belly served in rice congee, one of those no-fail dishes, plus the unusual pineapple tempura ($16) wrapped in Iberico ham, just because Morimoto had promised beforehand to incorporate Hawaii ingredients into his menu. The pieces of pineapple were arranged to form arches and mounds, sort of an edible Stonehenge. This was another of those dishes that has little reason to exist beyond the nod to Hawaii. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing spectacular about the two flavors together and therefore not something I'd order again.

As for main courses, I saw a lot of garam masala-spiced lobster ($47) dishes go by. Otherwise, dishes appeared to be straightforward, such as a lamb rack ($28), ginger pork ($23) and "duck, duck, duck" ($28) with the waterfowl served three ways: seared duck breast, confit spring roll and meatball soup.

Just to compare with Nobu, I had to try the braised black cod ($26), literally blackened with a concentrated ginger-soy reduction. (For this silky fish, I prefer Nobu's more delicate preparation.)

I also had to know what "angry chicken" ($29) is like. The organic half-chicken was something of a cross between tandoori and Buffalo chicken, having been marinated in a mixture of yogurt and Frank's hot sauce, before being served with more spicy chicken jus.

You're going to have to order sides if you want more than the main course. For instance, the only other thing on the black cod plate were 2-inch pieces of red, yellow and green pepper. I was like, "Huh?" until I saw some of those roasted peppers on the chicken plate. Waste not, want not.

For dessert there was a dish of tofu cheesecake, a bit of artistry in white, including accompanying tubes of crispy kanako meringues.

True foodies will find a lack of subtlety here, but as "Iron Chef," Morimoto likely sees himself as equal parts chef and entertainer, and as entertainment goes, about $80 per person for an evening of sights, sounds and grinds ain't bad.

Organic oasis

Delicious, healthful fare is the reward for those who journey to Waianae's Kahumana Cafe

By Nadine Kam 

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Sep 29, 2010

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Chef Ranjith Ramanakumar plates Ginger Garlic Mahimahi at Kahumana Cafe. Behind him is café director and manager Robert Zuckerman.

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Last year, a ringed-neck parakeet flew into my life, and, long story short, I found him an excellent home in Waianae where he now lives with his new mate in a large outdoor flight aviary. On visiting with him, I asked his new family if they had heard of an organic restaurant nearby.

They looked at me as if I were crazy. I was going a little crazy trying to find it myself. "Organic, here?" was their response; the subtext being, "Good luck with that."

Waianae is not the first place people usually think of when it comes to progressive food movements, but that is what has been going on at Kahumana Farms for more than 30 years.

The farm is rooted in the philosophy of Waldorf Schools founder Rudolf Steiner. He grew up in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution, when the rural lifestyle that had sustained people for generations lost ground to technology and urban centers, the result being the displacement of human beings and a feeling of disconnect from nature.

Steiner looked to the farm and agriculture as the route back to well-being, considering the farm not only as a place of physical sustenance but a place that encourages personal growth and community consciousness.

With Steiner's ideas in mind, Father Philip Harmon and the late Frances Sydow co-founded the Kahumana organization in 1974, providing outreach services for the needy in Waikiki and Makiki. Their aim was to establish a farm for biodynamic agriculture that would help feed people, provide economic activities and become a center for holistic healing.

Today, in addition to raising crops on 14 acres, the Kahumana organization also manages transitional housing at Ohana Ola O Kahumana and Ulu Ke Kukui.

The cafe is the newest development, having opened its doors late last fall with the aim of serving as a job training site, as well as a model for sustainability, healthy living and eating.

"We had no idea who would come," said cafe director and manager Robert Zuckerman. "We were hoping to reach the local community because there's so many in this area who don't eat well and have so many health issues."

Food served at the cafe offers an alternative to a high-cholesterol, refined-sugar diet, and Zuckerman said, "Some try it and come back; others are like, 'It's not my style.'"

Almost a year later, the cafe is also welcoming visitors from across the island and fielding many requests to open a second branch in Honolulu. That day may come, but for now, they're trying to remain true to the farm's initial vision, while striking a balance with the foodies showing up for what Zuckerman calls "whole-food cooking" and agricultural ambience. The big-picture vision is admirable, but townies faced with a 60-plus-mile two-way drive also want to know, is the food worthwhile?

Let's just say many a visitor has left Waianae wishing the restaurant could be transplanted to Honolulu due to dishes that are both healthful and delicious, from the humblest beet and pea soups, to plates accompanied by greens fresh from the farm.

The menu is small but well-balanced. Salads are to be expected, but you'll also find daily specials that might include burgundy beef, Hungarian goulash, teriyaki beef or chicken curry.

When I visited, there was a delicious meatloaf of grass-fed Maui beef, with a generous amount of chopped Swiss chard and herbs mixed in with the beef. As the daily special ($10 to $12), it came with a choice of soup or salad.

Start with homemade hummus and pita bread ($5) or a huge caprese ($10) with farm greens. Quesadillas ($8) comprise whole wheat tortillas topped with cheddar-jack cheese and avocado to which you could add grilled chicken for an extra $3.

Whole-wheat pasta stirred with macadamia nut pesto ($10) was another of my favorite dishes, served with stir-fried farm greens (on that day, chopped kale), and a choice of salad or soup. Add grilled ahi, chicken or garlic butter shrimp for $3.

Other light offerings are a Greek or Mexican veggie wrap ($8 each). Add grilled ahi or shrimp for $3. Both start with tomato, cucumber, olive tapenade and mixed greens. The difference is the cheese -- feta on the Greek, cheddar on the Mexican -- and avocado on the latter. The Greek tastes Greek; the Mexican could have used a salsa assist.

For dessert there is cheesecake ($3), often with seasonal fruit toppings, carrot cake, banana bread and dense chocolate brownie that's almost like fudge.

Tip well, as cafe proceeds and tips serve as donations supporting Kahumana Farms endeavors.