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Izakaya Nonbei, a closer look
Aloha!
5/23/09 - It's a living, breathing, massive beast of ever-changing proportion, scope, and dimension, for sure! Every time I turn around, there's a new restaurant opening, an old restaurant closing, a change of ownership somewhere, new hours, new menu's, new features - it's like grabbing hold of a lizard's tail, thinking you've got him, but then the tail stops squirming, and all of a sudden - where is he???
Aaah, it all just keeps us honest, is what it does. Keeps us on our toes. Trims the flab around the edges. It's the kind of atmosphere that fosters fresh ideas instead of rigid institutionalism's. The moment we think we know everything, that's when we find out how little we actually know.
Walking into Izakaya Nonbei the other night with Wifey and Big Al, I thought it'd be the same, always-great-little Izakaya I've come to appreciate so much over the years. What we found, actually, was even more of a great-little izakaya to visit, with a re-vamped menu, a change of ownership, and just about everything working for the better!
We arrived a bit late in the evening, and found that nothing much has changed on the outside, with the small parking lot and very humble building set just off of Kapahulu Ave. on Olu St., whose entrance is directly across the street (Kapahulu) from Burgers on the Edge and the parking lot of the fancy-new Safeway. You may have to find something on the road, as the lot does fill up quickly.
Most of the inside and dining areas are also intact, save for a giant, flat-screen television that plays softly, just as you enter the store on the left-side. On the right sits a large, wrap-around bar where the new Chef, a transport from the old Kyo-Ya restaurant in Waikiki, presides, and if you know anything about that now-closed establishment, this fact will sound like music to your ears. I know there must be former Kyo-Ya Chef's haunting many a kitchen around the island, but as for me, I know of only two, and both of them, who are right here at Izakaya Nonbei and also at Hanabi on S. King St., are definitely hitting it out of the park with their quality style of cuisine and excellent dishes.
Here's the Chef, hard at work and torch-searing a mixed roll just behind the counter:
The spacious counter is a fun place to hang-out, as you can watch the show and be privy to first-hand service. There's lots of space to go around, as you can see from the next shot. Whose that laaahge and manly-looking individual, and that cute-little nihon-jin?
For all you old-timers out there, you may be surprised by the fact that the Chef was even preparing any rolls at all, as for most of its life, Izakaya Nonbei had no sushi whatsoever on the menu. Now, they have a full line-up of large rolls, hoso-maki, nigiri, gunkan, and other types of fancified rice. But even besides that, the menu offers all manner of izakaya-type fare, a host of which we were lucky enough to experience on this particularly fabulous evening.
The first of a long line of dishes arriving was probably the most impressive-looking order of uni (sea urchin) sashimi I've seen yet, with generous portions housed directly on a bed of shiso and shredded daikon and housed inside of a large clam shell, which itself sat upon a large tray of ice, several types of thin-leaf ogo (seaweed), and myoga (Japanese ginger), which has an interesting taste and seems, to me, a cross between an herb, a mellow ginger, a sweet round onion, and a green onion.
I only eat uni when it looks super-fresh, and these bright-orange pieces were surely so, coming large, fluffy, and with a surprisingly clean taste and texture, so much so that even I had to have a piece!
I'm really beginning to love Japanese salads more and more, this one coming as a colorful array of fancy greens, thin-sliced radish, plum tomatoes, bacon, real snow crab, a light vinaigrette, and a dollop of some type of mayo/firm vegetable mix. Looks refreshing, doesn't it?
With mom sick at this moment after coming back and donating to the Las Vegas economy, I made several dishes for her using copious amounts of ginger and no less than four whole garlic bulbs in the last two days - a large pot of chicken soup, gently-fried rice, salmon, and lots of fresh lemonade w/grated ginger - does the trick every time! Of course, it's always better when eaten just before the sickness grabs a hold, usually preventing it completely, but does also reduce recovery time if eaten later.
I could have just roasted garlic bulbs whole, but mom wouldn't have gotten through any more than a few cloves. Don't know why, as wifey and I could eat a whole bulb each, especially when coming as bright and beautiful as this one!
The cloves of soft, luscious garlic meat popped-out nice and easy, arriving perfectly-cooked and soft throughout, but not mushy as to break apart into a pasty mess. Dee-licious!
Moving right along to the protein-side of the evening, on the menu was listed a couple of Kurobuta pork sausages, one an arabiki-style sausage and the other coming with a light infusion of cheese, which was just recognizable. Crisp, firm, and light for pork, and also coming with a small mound of fancy mustard, these sausages made for a great pupu dish, right in-line with catching the latest scores on that big ol', brand-spanking-new telly at the entrance.
Big Al was hungry for beef tongue, which usually comes grilled in a tare (a kind of teriyaki) sauce, and, along with an ever-so-slightly gamier flavor (just enough to make it more exotic and appealing!), has a different type of texture than regular beef. I can only describe it as being void of any grain at all, and more chewy, not to the point of being rubbery, like hard fat, but rather, still maintaining a more delicate over-all consistency. To tell you the truth, I probably wouldn't order it myself, but both Big Al and wifey love the stuff. They are tasty, though, and I'll always have a piece or two when placed in front of me. Don't they look good?
We're only about half-way through this veritable feast, so I'll give you a little intermission with something the new Izakaya Nonbei is really trying to push, and that is... beverages! The prices are pretty darn good on everything from wine, Gray Goose, and Crown to a good selection from the trinity of Japanese pubs - beer, sake, and shochu. Actually, there's not so much of a spread when it comes to beer, because in Japan, it's very different from America, where there are such a dizzying amount of micro-brews and varieties that an entire Wal-Mart would probably need to be converted to a liquor store to house them all!
Although sake and shochu do have legions of different labels, beer in Japan is, to an exceedingly large degree, left to only a few different mega-breweries - Kirin, Asahi, Sapporo, and Suntory. Lesser-known labels like Orion, Yebisu (made by Sapporo Brewery), and Alan Wong's favorite beer, Echigo Koshihikari rice beer, are available, but not offered nearly as much as the Big Four. Despite the lack of variety, you'll always find in Japanese beers a smooth, crisp, clean, vee-ry drinkable product brewed with impeccable quality standards, and the complete antithesis to fruity, super-hoppy, or extra-dark malts found elsewhere.
Wifey and I had our favorite, Kirin, while Big Al stood firm by his, Asahi. But it was sake that was much more interesting to highlight, as there are special sets that allow you to sample from three different varieties in a single order. The first set is titled "dry," which usually means crisper and cleaner, to name just a few descriptions, and "light," of which the clearest and, at least to me, most easily-definable description, would be "sweeter." Unlike the other two in our company, I prefer sweeter sake's in general, so the second set was mine.
But returning from our intermission, and getting back to some serious grindz, we moved into the always-lovely subject of... Pork fat! Kakuni, that is, and it's not just about pork fat, but I won't lie to you when I say that it does play a huge role in this luscious and decadent dish, for sure! These thick chunks of pork are simmered in a soy/dashi/mirin (or sake) base for hours on-end, until the pieces are melt-in-your-mouth tender and simply bursting with flavors.
Another dish boiled for insanely long periods of time is gyu-suji, or beef tendon. Coming with a couple of blocks of tofu and a garnish of spinach, the tendons are simmered in a similiar, if not completely identical liquid, the end result being soft, gelatinous, collagen-rich, and very luxurious morsels. Hopefully, you'll get them as soft and delicious as these were, but I can't promise you'll always find them so elsewhere.
Completely and very conspicuously absent thus far, and definitely separate from form for me, was anything at all dropped into a deep-fryer! But hey, with so many different dishes coming, I could barely keep up with taking pictures, and left all the ordering to Big Al and wifey. Luckily, Big Al pulled through with an order of deep-fried squid. However, of all the dishes coming down the pike tonight, this one was perhaps the one that didn't quite come out as great as I expected. The batter-fry on the outside was great, coming light, crisp, and airy, but the portions were small and the squid, itself, not the softest pieces around. Oh, well. No worries - I got my deep-fried kick!
As stated, the menu here has been expanded, taking up more space than I've seen anywhere, not to mention being more pretty and better presented than elsewhere, as well! Check it out:
It's a good thing we were with wifey to translate everything! No, don't worry, there is an English menu, of the hand-held, turn-the-page type, that is...
With it, you'll find various sushi types, both in traditional and new-wave forms, like this Chef's Special roll, coming inside-out and with ahi, spicy ahi, avocado, shiso, and a dollop of yellowish dynamite sauce. Remember the Chef torching-up that roll earlier? This is the very master-piece he was working on!
The very last dish of the evening was a typical wifey-special called yama-kake, filled with all manner of raw, slimy bits, including, from the top and moving clockwise, sliced ahi, natto, and uni, along with a raw egg and a bottom-base of okra-slimy yama-imo, or mountain yam. Veee-ry nice, but uuuh... I'll pass...
It was an evening well-worth it for all of us! The new manager, Roger, is super-cool, friendly, and very informative, and the pretty-young servers were all super-attentive and helpful in every way. And with a Chef used to the standards of the former Kyo-Ya in Waikiki, you can be assured that the quality level is kicked-up even higher than it was under the old management, and with much more variety, to boot! Like I said, we thought it would be more of the same old-school Izakaya Nonbei (which was great as well, don't get me wrong!), but what we found was a very pleasant surprise, indeed! Makes it even more attractive to stop by this little spot, a spot that we've already been to many, many times before, and have enjoyed immensely, even without the up-grades!
In parting, I'll leave you all with one final shot of the dining room, a section that was completely filled with a single, large group of Japanese National's. Since we already arrived late, and, in fact, closed the place down, I waited till they left to take a snap, as always.
Please do make the most of the weekend, and enjoy it all to the very fullest!
Take care and Aloha till next time!
Aku
Comments:
Al T (8/15/10) I lived in Japan for two years and Izakaya Nonbei is right on. The food is great, the staff is awesome and they will get a lot more of my business. For a taste of real Japanese cooking it's the best I've had in Hawaii.
Aku (8/15/10) You bet, Izakaya Nonbei is awesome! It's a lot more laid-back, relaxed, and old-school than the ritzier, more modern-looking izakaya's out there, yeah? And they do treat you like old friends there, too. So many great Japanese spots popping up everywhere these days!
Thanks for the comments, Aku
Thanks for the comments, Aku
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