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Your Kitchen, a closer look
Aloha!
8/7/08 - Made the mistake the other day of coming to a place the day after it was featured on Cheap Eats with Lyle Galdeira and Russel Yamanoha! I remember the same thing happening on our last visit to Kahai St. Kitchen in Kalihi - actually, that time, it was an article by the Honolulu Advertiser that came out, and the next day, it was so packed that we had to wait well over an hour to get our plates! This time, it was much of the same, except part of the reason I was left standing in line so long was that they take so dang long to prepare your plates, crowds or no crowds! I understand that the Chef here at this very casual take-out spot is actually from a fine-dining restaurant, Tokyo Tokyo at the Kahala Hotel and Resort, so I guess meals are prepared to order and he doesn't wanna skimp on quality. No problem. I just don't know how they'll continue making money here after the post-advertisement days, because there were only about seven or eight people in front of me, each of them grabbing one to four plates each, along with several orders of shave ice, which means in the hour-and-a-half time I was waiting, that's all the orders they could manage to push out! With the plate lunch prices they carry here, you do the math - it sure doesn't seem like a whole lotta bang for the effort!
Nevertheless, I do hope they can survive here. The quality of food is great for the price, and you know these tiny hole-in-the-wall's - you always wanna root for them, right? I know it's not usually this crowded, but at least for this month, it looks like they'll have no trouble paying the rent!
Don't know if you recognize the building, but it's housed in the same corner unit vacated by Samira's, once an excellent spot for some surprisingly haute cuisine. The road it sits on, 10th Ave., mountain-side of Waialae Avenue, includes several surprises hidden in tiny shops like the one you see above. There is Azama Market, a place known by insider's for great fishcake in the raw, as well as lau lau, lomi salmon, dried fish, and other such foods. Then, a couple of doors up from Your Kitchen, in the same building, sits North Shore Grinds, a kicked-up plate lunch house with lots of great options, along with the cheapest Ted's Bakery pies you'll find this side of the North Shore, lemme tell ya.
Your Kitchen fits the mold here in sleepy Palolo Valley - it's beyond casual and very run-down-looking, but the focus on food is just as applicable as any in town, and usually, at much better prices. Besides shave ice and desserts, there are all but 10 different menu items, all seen here on the board they paste on the door and at the order counter:
There were no Many kind of today's special items available, no doubt because of the extra traffic generated by the Cheap Eats show. No worries. Over the span of two visits here, we ordered five items out of the ten available, along with some shave ice, as well. After spending so long in a line, you get to know some of your neighbors pretty well, so I made some friends and even asked if I could get a shot of their shave ice, this one of the green tea variety on one side, and lemon, or maybe pineapple, on the other:
Nope, I didn't actually get to sample this one, but I wish I did, as green tea is one of four different varieties, along with haupia, mango, and coffee, that are house-made from fresh ingredients, not through copying chromosomes in the lab, aka artificial sweeteners.
Back at Samira's, the former restaurant housed at this location, I used to always rave about their shave ice, which was also house-made and included mango and haupia flavors, as well. Hmmm... I wonder if they passed-on the shave ice maker and recipes? Whatever the case, these flavors are great indeed, but are a bit expensive, just to let ya know - $2 per small and $3 per large order, and that's just for regular, non-house-made flavors like vanilla, banana, strawberry, or lime! To get the good stuff, it's gonna cost you an additional 50 cents. Aaah - spend the extra two quarters, is what I say. You'll appreciate the deeper, more natural flavors, like this mango/haupia with vanilla ice cream, shown right after the shave ice maker:
Looks good, ey? Another thing that looked good, at least after hearing the name, was miso pork - just hearing the words are enough to make my mouth begin salivating, pictures of a sweet, meaty, fall-apart pork butt flooding my mind, piping-hot and fresh from the oven, it's oils and juices running all over a warm bed of fluffy white rice! I just had to get it!
But alas, what did I find? Well... kind-of a disappointment, to tell you the truth. Instead of the mound of succulent meat I had mistakenly envisioned, small cuts of pork were mixed-in with an assortment of veggies like bean sprouts, onion, cabbage, and zucchini, and both the miso taste and sweetness was a bit overpoweringly much, in my opinion. Furthermore, the slices of pork were soft, yes, but seemed to come from leaner, cleaner cuts, not the fattier areas, and were therefore not quite as moist as I'd expected.
The brighter side of the story is that, with each passing dish, it gets better and better! The rice, for instance, is what I'd expect from a former Tokyo Tokyo Chef - quality grains, well-cooked, shiny, full of fluff - can't beat that from a plate lunch-style place!
The side of potato salad was also, uuuh... interesting... I don't think my mind had enough time to frame an adequate picture to send to my memory banks, as the portions given were so small I could have finished it, quite literally, in a single bite, with lots of room to spare! Not including the greens, that is. I'm talking just the potato mix, which, however small, was very different - creamier than most, and coming with a little zing of something-or-other, I don't wanna say for sure. I mean, it could be wasabi, could be horseradish, could be yuzu kosho, even vinegar - but then again, the moment came and went as quickly as you'll miss this little shop, should you blink and not be paying attention while driving into Palolo Valley.
Here's a closer shot of the salad:
Another dish I had high hopes for was their grilled pork spareribs. A mere mention of this name, like miso pork, brings with it a kind of down-home, country-style, small-kid-day's re-collection, the kind of dish my dad would have gone crazy for, as his happiest moments were spent thinking about his own lost innocence back on Kauai, way-back-when, stealing pineapples and walking three or four miles for an adequate park to play baseball. However, what actually came didn't actually look so old-school, but very modern, its meaty sections of pork and shiny teriyaki glaze looking as beautiful as anything coming out of a fancy Hawaii Regional Cuisine restaurant today!
But once again, expectations are a dangerous field to play in. Despite the great looks, the pork struck all of us as a bit tough, catching me off-guard as I clamped my teeth down hard and immediately thinking it was going to be a dental floss moment shortly thereafter. Far from being a complete loss, however, the taste was very much excellent, the apple-soy glaze a perfect balance of sweet and salty, and despite my complaining about texture, the meat on spare ribs is almost always tasty, with its sections of meat interspersed with sections of bone, cartilage, and fat.
But here's where things really start to get better. I hadn't seen the Cheap Eats program on this place, as I barely ever have time to watch television at all, but my mom watches it all the time, and this time, she said the look on both Lyle Galdeira and Russell Yamanoha was particularly acute, both of them seeming especially happy and impressed with everything they had here. I guess that's why I expected so much from the very beginning.
But at the plate lunch price of $7.80 (ok, it may be a bit on the higher range of the spectrum!), this next offering, a broiled salmon, did live up to its expectations. I know better than to order salmon at most typical plate lunch houses, but this ain't no typical plate lunch house. The salmon was fresh and well-cooked, with a great sesame teriyaki sauce that was original and unique, two terms you love to hear when eating out, especially when eating out as often as we do!
But like I said, things just keep getting better and better! The steak bowl shown next, for $8.50, was a pretty sight to behold!
The cuts were on the leaner side, but still very much soft and tender, with just a light application of a house-made butter soy sauce. Thin-cut, crispy-fried potato slices complete the dish.
But above all, and by far, the most impressive plate actually came from the one dish I had the least expectations of! Yes, the lowly beef stew, the all-around comfort food and plate lunch staple found everywhere, almost always with canned tomato sauce and ketchup as a base, was, on this particularly fabulous day, deserving of a whole 'nother name - maybe burgundy or bourguignon? Beef stew just didn't seem fitting for such an exquisite dish.
The reddish-brown sauce came complex and sophisticated, the use of miso almost taking on the flavor of a good wine, giving it a rich, luxurious taste and feel that seemed to place it waaay out of its price range. In fact, if it weren't for the menu, which informs us of a miso cream sauce and makes no mention of any fruity alcoholic beverages, I would have sworn it was a base of red wine. Whatever the case, it was absolutely delicious, although the strong, very unique flavor may prove too foreign and non-familiar for some. I dunno, you just gotta try it for yourself to find out!
But that's not the whole of the story. I won't even mention the fresh veggies, which in actuality, all seem to get lost under the extremely large and pronounced shadow produced by not only the great sauce base, but the other facet of this dish, and one that'll leave you begging for more - the beef itself! As fall-apart tender, succulent, and flavorful as it gets, these delectable bits, quite honestly, could have been served at Alan Wong's or Mavro's without skipping a beat! In fact, I would have loved to see a giant chunk of this same beef alone, marinating in the same sauce, without any vegetables or other clutter, only a side of white rice, or even fresh-baked bread, alongside. That would be heaven, lemme tell ya!
Next is a closer shot of the beef - if this ain't a thing of beauty, I don't know what is:
Worth a return visit, that's for sure!
Just remember, do expect a lengthy wait while visiting Your Kitchen, line or no line. With good food like this, it just takes a while longer, is all, as they really do put a lot of care into their work, and it shows in both taste and appearance. I may not have cared for a few of their dishes, but I can appreciate the level of quality found for the price.
I can only imagine that their Japanese locomoco must be pretty darn good, too, and I hear that the boiled pork, despite the bland-sounding name, is as soft and tender as the beef stew. If anyone gets a chance to try either of them, please lemme know how they are!
Hey, you all have a great and fantabulous weekend - I know I will! Headed down to the fireworks show tonight at the Hilton - can't wait! Nothing better than bento at the park, with family and good friends! Would have hibachi'd, but we're going straight after work, and don't have enough time to prepare. No worries.
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