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LilyKoi, a closer look
Update: Sorry, Lilykoi now closed!!! Bummers!!!
Aloha!
9/23/09 - Did you know there's wild koi in Hawaii?
No, not really. This canal is from an undisclosed location somewhere in Mililani, where word is that someone let these fish out into the stream. I believe they're fed regularly, also, as there's probably not too many food sources in this relatively small water-way to sustain such large fish. Don't wanna say exactly where it is because these fish are worth a pretty penny, and someone might get ideas and think about hooking or scooping them right out.
I was wondering if the lily flower, the lilikoi fruit, or the koi takes precendence at LilyKoi restaurant, but only for a fleeting moment, as pictures of koi at this Aiea location are found everywhere, including on their logo. There's even a little waterfall and pond inside, but sorry, I didn't think of checking if there were actually any live koi in there! See it, on the right-hand corner?
This roomy hall is actually only part of the restaurant, and used mostly at night, when there are venues such as live entertainment, karaoke, and dj-dance nights, all of which are scheduled monthly and posted at the official Lilykoi website. Sunday evening's are the only days of the week where nothing is scheduled, while Monday and Tuesday night's also do not have any entertainment, per se, but do feature 50 percent-off all bottled wines and Happy Hour all day and night, respectively. Must keep the bar really busy!
I guess they settled for a more economical set of chairs in the main dining area, instead of the modern variety in the bar, but it's still relatively nice and clean, albeit nothing fancy or anything, as you can see in the next shot. It's almost set up like a hotel, where everything is moveable and changes according to the size and nature of the function on any given night.
Though Lilykoi takes-on a very sports bar-like attitude in the evenings, especially the later it gets, what kinda surprised me was how many families and older folk also choose to dine here, as well. I guess those looking for something a little more sports bar'ish and needing a bit more action'd rather sit in the area shown earlier, behind the white shoji screens, while older, more boring folk like me prefer the main dining area:
There's a pretty good view here, as Lilykoi sits on the second floor of the Westridge Shopping Center, across the street from Pearl Ridge, and features large, tinted windows stretching almost the entire length of one side. From busy Kaonohi St., you'll see the large sign, but just know that if you park here in the front, you'll still have to climb the stairs to access the restaurant, which has their entrance on the back of the center, as do all of the second-story tenants. It's better just to drive around-back, from either side, and park closer.
As for the menu here at Lilykoi, Executive Chef Keith Ogawa describes it as a fusion of European, American, and local. Main courses featured can be kalua pig w/cabbage, chicken katsu, seared ahi, and braised pork belly to poached salmon, rack of lamb, chicken alfredo, and eggplant parmesan. Being such a drink-friendly spot, the appetizer and pupu menus are especially large - it could be fried oysters, crab/spinach dip, batter-fried mushrooms, sashimi, poke, teriyaki skirt steak, fried noodles, or smoked duck breast, to name a few.
We ordered a couple of pupu dishes, starting with Manila clams in Saffron Chardonnay butter sauce:
Talk about super-tasty - quite honestly, it wouldn't suprise me if they used an entire stick of butter in this dish! While the high butter factor may gross a lot of people out, it could also be the very reason it's so appealing to others! Me, I just made sure to pluck them out of their shells with my chopsticks instead of slurping them in, just so I wouldn't be drinking dairy! But there were a lot of good things going-on here, like generous slices of fresh garlic and onions, which I enjoyed over some of that soft, warm, white bread. I'm a sucker for power herbs and vegetables, especially root vegetables, such as garlic, onion, ginger, beets, gobo, hasu, and this 'n such. Our kind waitress even said lots of people like dipping the bread into the sauce, but eeeks, that was just a little too much richness for me to handle!
Our other pupu/appetizer item was an order of hot wings, prepared in Chef Keith's special sauce. Turns out, the sauce was not very spicy at all, and not of the American-style red spice, but of the local-style shoyu sauce. Unlike most local-style, shoyu-based sauces, however, this one didn't err on the side of the sweet, but on the side of the savory, with a strong shoyu flavor that I found tasty, but perhaps a bit much in the end.
Pupu's are synonymous with beer, and while we're on the subject, few beers have come to signify local more than Primo. Once the undisputed leader in Hawaii beer, companies like Alii, Mehana, Keoki, and Kona Breweries would die for the double-digit shares Primo once held on the market. And who can forget those signature beer can hats, the type of which I proudly wore into the ground way-back-when, a sight waxing nostalgic of the 70's and 80's, perhaps even 60's, alongside VW bugs, Cecilio and Kapono, Kalapana, Olomana, Jerry Lopez, Dane Kealoha, and, among other things... lots and lots of weed! Not for me, of course...
First brewed at the now-closed Honolulu Brewing and Malting Co. back in 1898, they've undergone a whole lotta changes since then, as you can see from this interesting poster I lifted from the Primo Beer website:
Primo is now being brewed by Keoki Brewing Co. of Kauai, under contract from the International giant Pabst Brewing Co. Can't say I've ever tasted the older versions of Primo, which was shut down in 1997 due to declining sales, but I do know the newer one carries with it a different taste. Unlike the economy beer it was in times past, the new Primo is a designer variety, similiar to the other island beers that are becoming so popular these days, which are all oh, so expensive!
To me, the taste was aah-ite, coming with a slight kick of bitterness but strangely on the light side in regards to body and richness. I'm sure the draft version would be much fuller and more flavorful, as draft is always superior to bottle.
But we also came in the day, as well, without any beer whatsoever, only great dishes like this pan-seared scallop:
If these precious buttons of ocean bounty don't look absolutely delicious to you, you must be allergic. Or at least stricken with the insane disease called shellfish-averse. Seared to a perfect degree, with the center's just barely hit, and only so by residual heat, they were complemented well by a bed of sauteed shiitake mushrooms and long-cut green onion. On the side was a creamy inside/crunchy outside truffle potato croquette, or korokke, as we like to call them.
For $20.95, it's not the biggest portions around, but the whole dish in combination is likely enough to satisfy. I wouldn't mind an extra scoop of rice, though, which would have went well with those tasty mushrooms.
We also enjoyed the herbed chicken, as well, which was served with sides of mixed veggies and fries:
This half-chicken came marinated in rosemary, thyme, garlic, cracked pepper, salt, and some extra virgin olive oil, and served with a tasty mushroom gravy.
But the one dish that brought the most ooh's and aaah's out of everyone was the LilyKoi braised shortribs, which happens to be the most popular dish in the restaurant. Wifey and I were going to share a plate, but upon our kind waitress' offer, they were nice enough to split a full plate into two, so what you see next is actually a half-order!
These thick-cut shortribs were absolutely delicious - fork-tender, rich in a soy/lilikoi marinade, and with lots of decadent sections of fat that dissolved on the tip of your tongue like butter. So it'll coagulate in your tummy and arteries - who cares? With something this good, you just can't pass it up!
If noone told me, I don't think I'd be able to identify lilikoi, but the sauce was definitely not your typical shoyu/sugar, with a fruity flavor of some kind and other touches, probably sherry or wine among them, that give it a more complex, fusion taste, instead of being strictly local or Asian. Definitely a must-try, for sure!
After such savory indulgences, it was time for something a bit sweeter. Desserts at LilyKoi can come in the form of house-made sorbets, coconut tapioca, creme brulee, cheesecake, chocolate souffle, or fresh strawberries with crystallized brown sugar and vanilla mascarpone. But perhaps the most interesting dessert here is their signature sweet-cap, a banana Napolean:
Those wheat-thin-like shreds of crispiness actually come from cinnamon/sugar phyllo dough, and are knotted-together in cake-like beds that are placed between layers of fresh, glazed banana slices, while a drizzling of caramel and whipped cream top it all off. If anything, it was very interesting, I must say. The only thing was - where's the ice cream?!!! Aaaah, a little less of the crispy stuff and a lot more of vanilla ice cream, and this would have been a killer dish! I suppose you could order a scoop or two on the side, but that'd be veering away from the Chef's original, designated creation. The creamy banana, in a way, did kinda take the place of the ice cream, but for me, it was just a bit too much on the robust, deep-fried side as a whole, and definitely a dish with an edge and attitude to it. It's a very man-ly type of dessert, as opposed to the girly varieties that most desserts are.
In the end, I guess you could call LilyKoi a very local place, only the grinds here are much more refined and skilled than your normal local-style restaurant. Many of the dishes, including those above, are worthy of Hawaii Regional/Pacific Rim status, as the formal training and skills of Chef Keith are highly evident. While life-long locals will recognize the taste of many dishes as super-local, with strong, robust, hearty flavors, as evidenced by the copious amounts of butter used in the clams and the strong shoyu of the braised short ribs, there is also an added element of sophistication that can only come through formal training (although I am a strong proponent of auto-didactism, so I must conclude it's still possible without culinary school!).
Except for high-octane entertainment venues or dance nights, it's a pretty kick-back kind of place to have some drinks, pupu's, and just chill with a few friends. There's lots of space, lots of parking, and Happy Hours from 3pm to 7pm every night, except for Tuesday's, when it's Happy Hour all day and night (not sure if it's permanent, but check the monthly entertainment schedule if you really wanna know)!
And with that, hope everyone out there is enjoying their week. I was just informed that the Island Flavors book has just made it into Borders, Borders Express, Logos, and The PillBox Pharmacy, and will be on-sale in the Long's Drug's ad page for the week beginning 11/29.
Take care and Aloha till next time!
Aku
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