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Monterey Bay Canners, a closer look
Check out these other views of Monterey Bay Canners at Pearl Ridge!
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See the offical site of Monterey Bay Canners! |
 Yelper's on Monterey Bay Canners! |
 More reviews from Trip Advisor! |
Aloha!
6/9/10 - Have you not heard about Crowd Deal yet? Recently, I was contacted by Will Chen, an entrepreneur and sous chef at the Moana Surfrider, about a website he began. It's simply a brilliant idea - one I should have thought of myself, actually! It works like this - commit to a purchase at listed restaurants, spas, shops, or whatever, and if enough people commit, savings of up to 40, 50, even 60 percent or more are possible! A minimum number of people have to commit first, so if you let all your friends know, your group alone could trigger the savings! Check out their site at www.crowddeal.com. And good luck and best wishes to Will on his new project, as it'll benefit him, benefit us, and benefit all the restaurants involved, too! Can't beat that!
And on another, more somber note - Oooh, dear. What to do with all these restaurant closing's? Not since a year or so ago when all the big-time Ward Center hotspots closed down virtually all at once have I seen so many casualties littering the Honolulu food scene. India House (they were pretty bad anyway!), Mekong 2 (they weren't!), Mama's Pizza (a while back; and they are looking for a new place), Hanamaru, Hazuki, and even Sake Street, after only a couple of months or so! I kinda had a feeling the latter was in trouble, as the place was just about empty last we visited, and included some of the most far-reaching combinations I'd ever seen. Owner Wes Zane continues-on with a mini-empire of other great restaurants, most notably Formaggio and Burgers on the Edge, but Sake Street was, me thinks, a bit of a mixed bag. I mean, the disappointment of expecting the latest and greatest sake choices, only to find just 8 different varieties, each played-up on giant, glossy spreads, was simply a case of too much of marketing over actual substance. As for the food itself, the menu left us utterly confused, with everything from pork hash 'n eggs, kare kare shortribs w/peanut sauce, and Korean pork belly tacos to lamb empanadas, beef lauya soup, and Asian seafood cioppino!
On the good side, the dishes did carry an air of sophistication and class, each was presented skillfully, and there really was a great deal of innovative thought involved. Perhaps a few more visits, just to get over the initial shock of it all, and we'd begin to appreciate the hyper-fusion concept a bit more!
Though they've closed, you can bet some of the dishes will be incorporated into future projects from the same owners. Here's a few shots from the former Sake Street:
Above, five-spice duck lumpia, below and clockwise from top-left, tofu salad with crispy salmon skin, sake cart, an inside shot, and fried hasu chips:
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Longetivity hasn't been an issue (knock on wood!) for today's feature restaurant, Monterey Bay Canners. At least the one at Pearl Ridge, that is, as they've been there forever and a day! I can still remember when an outlet was also found at the Ward Center, where, along with Horatio's a skip over at Ward Warehouse, were two of the relatively nicer restaurants I'd turn to for birthday's, date's, and other special occasions. While John Dominis, Nick's Fishmarket, Matteo's, and a small handful of other restaurants ruled the top echelons of dining back then, Horatio's and Monterey Bay were a couple of more economical means to enjoying a reasonably classy dinner.
As of today, the only MBC found in the islands has very much aged, and is now an antiquated version of a once-happening place to be. Located across the parking lot and away from the main malls of the shopping center, it sits perched high above the Sumida Watercress Farm, which, fed by natural spring waters, provides almost 80 percent of the State's watercress! During the Japanese RE boom of the 80's, the Sumida family thwarted every juicy offer and pressure tactic from investors, who wanted to buy the property to connect both sides of the Pearl Ridge Shopping Center, creating a behemoth mall that might have been bigger even than Ala Moana (or at least pretty close!)! I'm glad they didn't sell, though - where would we be without our beloved tofu/watercress salad and beef/watercress soup? Hooray for the little guy!
Here's a couple of shots overlooking the roughly ten-acre farm, both from the restaurant:
The Sumida family could have been sipping on mai-tai's in the Maldives for the rest of their lives, but I'm glad that some folks still know that money is not everything!
Here's a Google Map-look at Monterey Bay Canners Pearl Ridge:
Actually, the current Google directional is wrong. Instead of pointing you to a location directly on Moanalua Rd., look at the patch of green near the bottom left side. See the structure jutting down slightly into the patch? That's the restaurant. Of course, if they've moved the bubble to the right place by the time you read this, scratch what I just said!
You can also try a Google Street view. Just play with the arrows after hitting the link and you can move around freely:
Once inside the restaurant, the place is very roomy, with a large bar, one section overlooking the watercress, one facing the mall, and another in-between. Here's a shot from the slightly elevated center section in-between, an area that is seldom ever used. In fact, I asked if I could sit there, but our kind hostess said I wouldn't receive any wait service if I did!
Mostly, folks are seated on the side overlooking the watercress, which you can kinda see from the shot above. The mall side, shown next, is also seldom used, but will open first if an over-flow is needed:
You know, though it's a bit aged, I luuuv the atmospheres so often found in these American-style restaurants! Part-tavern, part-family gathering place, part-whimsical in decor, they're always fun and roomy, with lots of classic arrangements like cherry-stained wood, brightly-colored contrasts scattered throughout, and a general theme that means things are not just haphazardly thrown together.
The bar area is also spacious, with two sections of its own, both shown next:
OK, ok - this little extension and nook of the bar doesn't quite meet the uniform theme of the rest of the restaurant, looking more like an old Hawaiian home with its single-wall, tongue-and-groove panels.
And that's right, there's live entertainment on most evenings, even weekdays. According to our kind waitress, these three guys go by the name of In-flight, and play mostly easy rock like James Taylor, Elton John, and Billy Joel, along with a smattering of local hits on the side. Live music fills the entire restaurant, providing a relaxed setting that's great for a few drinks. On this particular evening, there was a 31 oz pitcher of Bud Light for only $8 - quite the steal, and it wasn't even Happy Hour!
These days, they don't just automatically bring a bread basket out anymore, so if your waithelp doesn't ask, you have to ask for one. Still on the house, by the way! Cutest little things, they are, just like the ones we had in elementary school at the cafeteria!
Gotta warn you about the next couple of shots - they're ridiculously horrible, and the greater of two evils (the pic, not dish!), a Cajun Seafood Harvest ($19.95), comes with shrimp, scallop, fish, mushrooms, a slightly spicy cream sauce, and a sprinkling of parmesan and romano cheeses:
Looks pretty good, tastes pretty ok. The kind of dish you order once, fill-up on, but never really manage to order again. The seafood pieces were relatively generous and fresh, but the sauce was a bit on the bland side. I suppose you could add salt n' peppah at the table, but I never do that.
We also had a simple order of mahimahi ($16.95), which was, again, not bad - nothing to write home about, but a decent fish fix. A sprinkle of lemon, a dip of tartar, and a crinkle-cut fry or two, and I was aaalll good.
You can check out their official website (link on-top) to see the entire menu, but its basically an American-style set of dishes, leaning heavily on the seafood side, of course, along with salads, burgers, pastas, bbq pork ribs, steaks, and a few local items like poke and teriyaki chicken. The appetizers are a good way to go, with shooters, oysters Rockefeller, shrimp cocktail, steamer clams, wings, crabcakes, and more. Kumi and I visited one night and went with a Monterey Sampler, which, at $21.95, was nearly double the cost of every other appetizer, but was probably more than double the amount of food, as well:
That's a whole lotta fun, any way you look at it! A total of five separate pupus cover the fish-shaped plank, including panko-fried calamari, oysters, shrimp cocktail, garlic/cheese bread, and stuffed mushrooms, along with cocktail sauce and horseradish. My favorite was the calamari ($10.95 by itself). The pieces all came in thick strips, and each was very tender and meaty. Yeah, I'd rather have some tentacle action going-on, but the body sections being so good, I didn't miss a thing:
The most disappointing was the garlic/cheese bread ($5.95 alone), which came topped with meager amounts of cheese that was so thin and airy, you could barely taste anything but the bread. And the garlic? What garlic?
As for our oysters ($12.95 for half-dozen), just be aware - these guys are massive! They're the kind where I'd preferably roast all their slime off on the grill, drown 'em in ponzu or shoyu, Tabasco, and lemon, and enjoy two, maaaybe three of them with copious amounts of beer. Raw, however, is a different story! Small to medium-sized oysters are delicious raw, but these giant ones left me tapping-out before the bell even rang. Just didn't feel like tackling that giant gut sack, was all. Kumi, on the other hand, did finish-off three of the four pieces, and said they were surprisingly clean and fresh. Without ponzu and daikon oroshi, there was something definitely missing for her, but as for the oysters themselves, no complaints at all.
That little casserole-looking thing on-top is their crab-stuffed mushrooms ($11.95 alone) with bearnaise sauce. These were done nicely, only, like the pasta, was conspicuously under-flavored, at least to me. Here's a cross-section, showing its real crabmeat inside as well as the golden-baked cream crust.
And finally, a shot of the jumbo shrimp cocktail ($10.95), which wasn't very jumbo at all, but were fine other than that:
Though Monterey Bay Canners is a seafood house, there's actually only three fish types on the regular menu - ahi, salmon, and mahimahi. However, I hope you know that that's a good thing! All other fish choices are on a separate special menu that changes according to availability, which means that you can expect reasonably fresh fish, or nothing at all. On this particularly fine evening, opah was offered, so I jumped on the chance:
Opah carries a flesh that is definitely more on the fatty side. Not nearly as much as a fish like butterfish or saba, but definitely fattier than a normal ahi, mahimahi, ono, or other such open-ocean variety. The taste is therefore richer, with an ever-so-slight, just-noticeable touch of wildness, and I do mean that in a good sense, not bad! They are also one of the most beautifully-colored fish in the ocean, showing up in brilliant reds, silvers, and whites. Here's a partial shot of one from the last Hawaii Seafood Festival - wish they showed the whole body, but the rest was covered with ice and other fish!
You can order any fish any way you want at Monterey Bay Canners - steamed, baked, or sauteed. Our kind waitress recommended our opah sauteed, which was a great choice, as it came with a tasty lemon butter caper sauce that really added a nice touch.
Here's an inside shot of our opah, revealing the super-moist, super-tender flesh:
For a laid-back, comfortable spot somewhere beween cheap and expensive, with decent fish, MBC does have its merits. Parking is easy, right at the Pearl Ridge Center. Finding an open table, even for a large group, is never a problem. And the views, general atmosphere, and live entertainment add that much more to the experience. It may or may not be a destination restaurant in itself, but if you're in the Pearl City/Aiea area, it's still a great place to check out for yourself.
In parting, here's a shot from the parking lot-side, just as we left the restaurant:
Next time, or shall I say, next couple of times, we'll check out that other excellent pizza spot I was talking about on the last Closer Look, and also get to some elegant pupus and hula at one of the best, if not the best, hotel on the island! In which order, I can't say, but you'll see 'em both here soon!
Take care, and Aloha till then!
Aku
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