Coming soon: Fresh Cafe Downtown

By • March 19, 2014 • Food

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Five years ago Tiffany Tanaka started Fresh Cafe in Kakaako, and it quickly became the hot spot for hipsters, college students, young entrepreneurs, art lovers, and WiFi-seeking cofficers in town.

Now she’s opening a second location, aptly in burgeoning Chinatown, bringing the same kind of unique-gathering-space concept to the downtown area.

“It’s going to be Fresh Cafe 2.0,” Tanaka said at today’s media preview of the restaurant. “We’re trying to bring Fresh Cafe up another notch, to another level.” (Don’t worry, the Kakaako location will still remain open.)

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Fresh Cafe Downtown will open in stages starting in a couple of weeks. It occupies the huge space — more than 5,000 square feet — that was vacated by the beloved Indigo’s, which closed in September 2013.

There will be several components to the new cafe: a pizzeria that will serve pies at lunch and late at night, a coffee bar with pastries (below), and an indoor and outdoor dining area with new and unique menu items.

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Here’s the cafe’s coffee bar, which was also serve pastries and desserts.

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Here’s the main dining hall, which will feature art by local artists — very in line with Fresh Cafe’s philosophy on promoting creativity and local talent.

Because of the largeness of the space, Tanaka said she will be opening the pizzeria first, maybe in a week or two, with service until 3 a.m. (“When you have no place to go at 3 a.m., we’ll be here,” she said, laughing.) Next will be the coffee bar — where the old Green Room was — and the actual restaurant will open in a month or two.

Several dozen media folks in town were invited to a preview of the restaurant today, to sample some of the menu items and browse the space.

Here’s what the event looked like — and what you can expect from Fresh Cafe’s second location:

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Sangria and Bloody Marys got the event started.

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Sarah Honda, editorial director at HILuxury, and Martha Cheng, food editor at HONOLULU who pens the blog, Biting Commentary, were both there, among the dozens of media who turned up for the lunchtime event.

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Tiffany Tanaka, one of the co-owners of this space, addressed the crowd in the main dining hall. She said she was nervous and read her thank-yous from her iPhone.

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Here’s the Lime Jello with haupia and diced mango tossed in an Earl Grey-and-lychee syrup.

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This is a Chinese rice cake with apple mousse, bacon and a black sesame puree.

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Here’s the arugula pizza with an herb cheese spread, chia seeds and coco nibs.

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Finally — a REAL Hawaiian pizza! This was came topped with kalua pork, Portuguese sausage, lup cheong, lomi tomato sauce and spinach.

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This is the spinach artichoke pizza with marinated artichoke hearts, roasted bell peppers, spinach, cream cheese, Parmesan cheese and Prosciutto.

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Of course, everyone got a swag bag, packed with oatmeal cookies and reasons to come back!

Fresh Cafe Downtown, 1121 Nuuanu Ave., Suite 105. Will be open in stages starting in a couple of weeks. Visit the site for updates.

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Why being sick is a good thing

By • March 17, 2014 • Musings, The Daily Dish

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Being sick means one thing to me:

Life derailment.

I can’t work, I can’t sleep, I can’t run, I can’t surf, I can’t clean the house or walk the dogs.

Basically, I can’t function.

So what I typically do — and my close friends with attest to this — is nothing. I pretend I’m not sick or I tough out whatever symptoms I have. My tolerance for pain is pretty high, and even a migraine won’t always keep me locked up at home.

But there comes a time when your body knows better, when whatever you’re fighting (or ignoring, in my case) is louder, stronger and more ambitious than you originally thought — or than you are.

And then you go down. Hard.

That’s what happened to me last week.

Back in January I had self-diagnosed, then got treated, for what turned out to be an aggressive infection that was resistant to whatever antibiotics I had been given. I didn’t rest, I kept plugging away, getting sidelined every once and awhile from severe pain and bouts of nausea until it came to a head.

I was lying on the floor in the hallway, in fetal position, after vomiting for the third time, suffering from symptoms of a urinary tract infection — and if you had one, you know what kind of pain I’m talking about — and hoping death would be quick.

That’s when I decided to call my doctor. (OK, that’s when my mom convinced me to call my doctor.)

I was immediately admitted to Straub Clinic & Hospital in Honolulu with a kidney infection. I was severely dehydrated, nauseous and in pain. And, to be honest, I had suffered from infections for three months — and hadn’t done much about it. It was time to finally kick this.

It got me thinking about being sick.

It takes something catastrophic for me to actually succumb to a sickness. I have to be bleeding or missing a limb or writhing in pain for hours before I seek professional help.

But to be honest, sometimes it’s the best thing for me.

We all need to check in with ourselves, take account of our health, and sloooooow dooooown.

See, “slow down” isn’t in my vocabulary. And sometimes it takes a hospital stay for a few days to get me to take stock of what’s important.

In a hospital I can’t run around, I can’t work, I can’t walk the dogs. I’m stuck on a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV and unable to leave. And even though I brought my laptop — and there’s free WiFi in Straub rooms! — I was too tired, too nauseous or too much in pain to check my email or get any work done.

The only thing I could do, really, was lie down and watch “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.” (Not complaining.)

It’s been humbling — and, to be honest, weird — to NOT be able to do anything, to sit back and have people hand me trays of food or ask how I’m doing. I could just sit here, read a book, watch movies and sleep — simple pleasures I rarely have.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like being sick. But sometimes being sick is the only time I actually take care of myself.

Maybe I shouldn’t wait so long next time.

Thanks to everyone who sent well wishes, delivered goodies, prayed for and messaged me. I was blown away by the love and support! And thanks to the awesome staff at Straub Clinic & Hospital including Dr. Soon, Dr. Ono, Dr. Pien, Maeann, David, Allen, Dominic, Lauren, Holly, Robert, Jordan, Cheryl, Jae Hee, Liza, Rochelle, Joe, Fred, Ashley, Michele, Ruthie, Esme and anyone else I’ve missed. (Sorry. Blame the meds.) And special thanks to Dr. Herbert Chinn for practically saving my life — again.

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#FUUD: MW Restaurant near Ala Moana

By • March 12, 2014 • Food

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The rave reviews were in months ago, but I just never got around to checking it out.

It’s not that I didn’t want to dine at MW Restaurant near Ala Moana Center in the old KGMB building. Oh, I did. It was one of the most highly anticipated openings last year. But for whatever reason, maybe I was saving it for some special occasion, I never went.

Until this month.

The special occasion: to be honest, I didn’t want to cook.

I had just managed to pack away two full bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a living room of junk — 38 years of accumulation — and moved to a house in Nuuanu. I was just tired of seeing boxes and eating takeout. It was time to dine in style.

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Here’s inside the restaurant at the bar.

The restaurant is run by the husband-and-wife team of Wade Ueoka and Michelle Karr-Ueoka, both long-time alums of Alan Wong’s Restaurant and Rising Star recipients from StarChefs.com.

Not only that, but both worked at the uber-swank The French Laundry in Yountville, Calif. Those are some major creds.

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Here’s Chef Wade and me!

And add to that that of the 30 contenders for prestigious 2014 James Beard Foundation Awards given to restaurants and chefs, MW was nominated in the Best New Restaurant category and Karr-Ueoka among the 20 candidates for Outstanding Pastry Chef.

“Party of two?”

“Yes, please.”

Here’s what my first meal at MW looked like — and trust me, it won’t be my last:

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Turned out that night was packed and we lucked out with a 7 p.m. reservation because another party had cancelled. It was nice to see a new, locally owned restaurant hopping like this!

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We went with the chef’s tasting menu, which offered a sampling of some of the restaurant’s most popular dishes.

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As part of the appetizer sampler plate, this was a bite of pickled beets grown at Otsuji Farms in Hawaii Kai with local goat cheese. Completely perfect.

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Next, we tried the ahi nachos — just a bite — with an avocado salsa and rice cracker balls on a fried won ton pi. The flavor combination was unexpected but delicious.

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Here’s the restaurant’s “fried chicken,” made with pressed Jidori chicken topped with a garlic shoyu sauce and Hawaiian hearts of palm.

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Next up was the sampler of one of the restaurant’s popular entrees: the mochi-crusted opakapaka (pink snapper) with a yuzu kosho soy vinaigrette. This usually comes on a bed of somen noodles.

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Here’s a tasting of the Kauai shrimp with seafood ravioli. (It’s under there.) This came with a spicy uni (sea urchin) sauce, soy katsuo and shiso.

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Here’s the final entree of the chef’s tasting — and the one I was looking forward to most. This is the oxtail stew and rice; really, a piece of oxtail (it’s a stuffed roulade if you order the entree) on beef stew risotto with peanuts and mushrooms. I love the playfulness of this dish, taking something so “local” and elevating it. Nice job!

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I ordered a REAL entree: the twice-cooked pork tonkatsu with a vegetable panchan from Ho Farms. I’m not sure what it means for this pork cutlet to be cooked twice, but it was juicy on the inside, crispy on the outside, and all-around delish. Then pickled veggies and kim chee were a nice touch.

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One of the desserts here was part of the Localicious Hawaii menu, offered by various restaurants during the month of March with proceeds from these dishes supporting local ag education. This was a Meyer lemon creme brûlée, which was utter perfection. (I’m biased since I love both flavors separately anyway.)

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But what I really came for was Michelle’s signature ice cream sandwiches, carefully crafted (and wrapped) with a housemade chocolate caramel praline crunch ice cream that was spectacular. I think the restaurant should have a chef’s tasting menu of DESSERTS ONLY, too. (I’m so there.)

MW Restaurant, 1538 Kapiolani Blvd #107 near Ala Moana Center. Hours: Lunch, 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.; dinner, 4 to 10 p.m., closed Tuesdays. Phone: (808) 955-6505. Reservations highly recommended.

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Cancer, you haven’t met the Toths

By • March 7, 2014 • Musings, The Daily Dish

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It’s not the kind of news anyone likes to get.

Last year my older sister told us she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Stage II. Serious but beatable.

Still, it wasn’t something I wanted to hear.

My older sister and I are eight years apart. We didn’t have much in common, with that kind of age difference, save for an interest in rocks and fish. In fact, I was still in elementary school when she moved out, then left for California. I never really got to know her.

We had been in minimal — if not seasonal — contact over the years, sending birthday cards and Christmas gifts. That didn’t last too long. We sent e-mail every now and again. Then that stopped, too.

We weren’t conventional sisters, not the kind you read about in teen books or see on TV sitcoms. But we still loved each other, albeit from a distance.

I haven’t seen my sister much since she moved away almost 30 years ago. In fact, in the last 20 years, I may have only seen her once, a family trip to Vegas. (She hates flying, I’m not a fan of Ventura.)

But all that changed with the cancer diagnosis.

After she went underwent surgery to remove the cancerous cells in her right breast, my mom and I flew up to Los Angeles to see her. She was in great spirits, considering, happier to see us than think about the next phase of her treatment.

It’s taken her several months to schedule her first round of chemotherapy, which started today, but she did it and she’s on her way to recovery.

It’s easy to stay positive when you see the statistics: the 5-year survival rate of those diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer hovers around 93 percent.

But it’s still scary to think of it: my sister has cancer.

Then I remembered: we’re Toths. We’re tough. We can do this.

But it doesn’t hurt to get help, too.

I posted on Facebook today that I was sending positive vibes in her direction, and I was floored by the love and sharing that started to happen on my page.

So I’m hoping this post will help my sister, who needs that same kind of love and support right about now.

You got a story, advice, some words of encouragement? Post ’em here.

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Good service goes a long way

By • March 4, 2014 • Food, Musings, The Daily Dish

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It’s rare that I encounter such bad customer service at a restaurant, I feel like blogging about it.

And while I’ve been tempting to outline everything that happened to me at a particular establishment recently, I decided not to. And here’s why.

It wasn’t the wait staff or food was bad. In fact, I didn’t even sit down at a table. I got poor customer service right at the front door — and that prompted me to never book a reservation there in the several months the restaurant was open.

Oh, I wanted to blog about it. I’m a big believer in sharing accurate information, even bad experiences, because people should know what to expect.

But in this case, I didn’t. I felt it wouldn’t be fair to everyone else who worked there, particularly the chefs and owners, to let this one person influence my view of a restaurant at which I had never dined. It wouldn’t be right.

So I bit my tongue as I browsed photos of crab cakes and short ribs on Instagram, hoping my experience wasn’t shared by others — and cursing the fact that the food looked so ridiculously good.

And then I broke down.

I called one afternoon and booked a table for that evening. When I walked through the door, there was no sign of the worker who had left such a bad taste in my mouth about the place. And the restaurant, as anticipated, lived up to expectations, churning out well-crafted dishes from start to dessert.

It’s interesting how influential bad customer service can be. As someone who writes about food for a living, I’m supposed to try new restaurants, yet this one experience with a front-of-house staffer caused me to put it off for months.

I was reading a blog by New York Post restaurant critic Steve Cuozzo who bemoaned the poor service he received at several new restaurants in the city. And these restaurants knew who he was!

“That I encounter at least as much amateurish, clueless or downright hostile service as I did in my ‘anonymous’ days speaks to the current state of restaurant staffing. It makes it easier to write funny reviews, but it’s nothing to laugh about when regular customers are treated worse.

Exactly.

Service can make or break your business, restaurant or not. I eat at certain restaurants almost exclusively because the people who work there are nice and attentive. The food can hover above mediocre.

And poor service can start from the front door.

But what I’ve come to realize, though, is this: you can’t always judge a restaurant — or any business — by one person who might be having a bad day. Yes, I agree workers shouldn’t bring their personal issues to work. But we’re all human, too, and it happens.

That said, repeated bad service or a business that doesn’t care about the poor treatment you received — well, I’d close that door and never come back.

It may have taken awhile to finally book a table at this restaurant, but I’m glad I did. The food was stellar, the ambiance was perfect and, yeah, the service was up to par, too.

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