It’s always exciting to see a new project from Isamu Kubota and Motoko "Moco" Kubota, who never seem to run out of ideas. Isamu Kubota got our attention with Kai Okonomiyaki, followed by the luxe Kaiwa at Waikiki Beach Walk, while Moco delivered healthful, stylish cuisine with Hale Macrobiotic, a mighty progressive idea for Hawaii, where "healthy" often means including a handful of iceberg lettuce on a meaty plate lunch.
Hale closed, but bless their hearts, the Kubotas are not giving up on improving our diets, even if in tiny increments. This time, they’re entering nightclub territory with YuZu, a casual bar concept with a menu described as "not your grandmother’s Japanese cuisine" and "healthy, but not boring." Heaven forbid anyone bore today’s short-attention-span consumers.
The restaurant is on the ground floor of the Ala Moana Hotel, on the side opposite of Rumours nightclub and hidden toward the back. It’s open just in time for holiday shopping season if you want a close escape from the crowded mall.
Much of the menu is built around the flavor of yuzu, a small Japanese citrus fruit with a bright, eye-opening sourness that is quite addicting. Of course, it’s also packed with vitamin C and the scent of citrus oils, which in aromatherapy is a mood lifter.
For now, the menu is quite simple, covering poke ($9.95), edamame boiled in plain sea salt ($2.95) or finished with a spicy-garlic coating ($3.95), french fries, a lotus root pizza, yakitori, udon and temari sushi. The restaurant just opened two weeks ago, so more dishes are coming, and the couple is already so confident the concept will work that a second YuZu is in the works for Ko Olina Station, scheduled to open next spring.
It would seem that putting french fries ($4.95) on the menu is not at all healthy. But the couple has accepted that people will order them, so they’ve taken care to start with hand-cut organic Yukon Gold potatoes fried in soy oil, which leaves them light and airy. Enjoy the fries plain or with organic dill ketchup and YuZu veggie-based aioli ($2). The yuzu brings out all the umami qualities for an intense rush of flavor that will keep you eating long after you start feeling full.
Save any leftover aioli because it goes great with the yakitori as well. The tender morsels of skewered chicken are flavored on their own with teriyaki sauce or YuZu pepper, but the extra dash of yuzu in the aioli gives them more oomph. It also brings out the salty qualities of each dish.
Let’s not forget, this is a bar and they do want to move drinks, including $9.50 cocktails devised by mixologist Chandra Lam Lucariello. Among them are a refreshing melon, aloe and cucumber Roppongi Gimlet; YuZu Mojito with shiso, yuzu and ginger; YuZu Honey-Rita with coconut water and tequila; and Coco Ginger Splash with gluten-free shochu. Or get a carafe of fruity sangria ($15).
One item bound to be a hit is the renkon cheese pizza ($8.95), because who doesn’t love cheese? Here, a pool of melty mozzarella and cheddar are held together by crisp slices of lotus. The cheese fills the pukas in the root, forming little browned crisps that are among the best parts. Douse it with bottled Yuzu-It! if you like. Going forward, the restaurant will be sourcing its cheese from Waianae’s Naked Cow Dairy, just as it already focuses on locally grown produce.
YuZu’s ball-shaped temari sushi are beautiful to behold, inspired by temari balls crafted from kimono fabric. Choose from seafood toppings of hamachi, sake, maguro, unagi, ebi or tai at $2.95 to $3.95 per pair, or toppings of tomato, carrot, shiitake or eryngii mushroom, eggplant or lotus, at $3.95 per pair. The veggie option is a great one for vegetarians or those who can’t eat seafood; the typical sushi fan will likely stick to fish.
The restaurant is also making a splash with its hearty, spicy sukiyaki beef udon ($9.95) and curry udon ($9.95) layered with slices of grilled chicken. The latter is delivered in a bowl that looks big enough for a bath. These dishes will fill you up, so don’t order too much with them.
Progressive fare isn’t for everyone, so this week, I thought I’d offer up something for traditionalists as well. What I love about a humble space like Tsuku Tsuku Tei is that it’s all about the food, not about seeing and being seen.
The restaurant is on Keeaumoku Street, in the building housing Panda Cuisine and with the benefit of underground parking. It specializes in sanuki udon, characterized by its firm, silky texture, from the Kagawa region of Japan. Although the noodles are made on site, they’re cut out of sight of diners. It would be nice to see the process, as we could at the departed Go Shi Go.
That said, I enjoyed both hot (kake) and cold (zaru) styles offered, the latter immersed in an ice bath as soon as it’s removed from heat to prevent further cooking, and served sans liquid. You’re responsible for immersing the fat noodles in their own dipping sauce, to which you can add ginger, green onions, sesame seeds and shichimi pepper to taste.
The most basic dish is kake udon served with fish cake ($6.50), the most extravagant a tempura combo ($14.90) with an impressive array of shrimp, asparagus, carrot, pumpkin and fishcake. In between is chicken curry udon ($9.90) and udon served with kakiage ($9.90), a deep-fried tangle of thin-sliced carrot, gobo and tiny shrimp.
Oden ($12.90) is also on the menu, but if you’re at an udon restaurant, I’m assuming you’re there for the main attraction, the noodles. I’m glad that udon is finally getting its due.
