Dinner for lunch

You’ll forgive the "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to the menu at HASR Bistro. After waiting five years for the space adjoining HASR Wine Shop, owner Terry Kakazu had a lot of time to dream up ideas for a restaurant that would dovetail with her wine store and vice versa.

If you’re wondering about the unusual name, it’s shorthand wine geek-speak for "Highly Allocated Spoiled Rotten," in reference to Kakazu’s ability to secure exclusive wines. The first thought was to create a wine-friendly French bistro, but that would close the door to so many other cuisines she loves. So call it a contemporary cafe and be prepared for anything.

Lunch is the starting point until dinner service begins, but I’m excited about her plans for special events, running the gamut from traditional wine dinners to more playful Knights of the Round Table "Excalibur"-style dining with hand-wielded foods, and everything in between to keep mealtime fun. Other plans include movie nights, all-you-can-eat fried chicken nights and sake-and-sushi events.

The extremes of such social-oriented events and culinary fetes, in addition to regular meal service, are a tall order for any chef, but executive chef Rodney Uye­hara has a long history that encompasses work for chef Charlie Palmer at Aureole as well as returning home to work with Roy Yama­gu­chi, Chai Chao­wa­sa­ree and Nick Sayada. He most recently served as executive chef at the Beachhouse at the Moana.

I’m not worried about basing this review on lunch alone, before dinner service starts up in early November, because I’m expecting more of the same from Uye­hara. The lunch menu already looks a lot like a dinner. My first impression was how heavy the entrees appear, and I wondered whether anyone could stay awake after an afternoon here.

It’s not every day a person seeks out a mushrooms and escargot duo, osso bucco or cioppino ($23) for lunch, for instance. But, if it looks good to you, get it. The special dishes are far more impressive then more rote selections such as an HB Burger ($14), which was just "meh," and flatbread-style pizza ($14) that is just as good anyplace else. Clearly, ambitions lie elsewhere.

Prices on the menu can seem daunting for lunch and, because it’s such a small space, will tend to keep patronage a bit exclusive. But, it’s more doable if you consider gnoshing on shareable small plates such as tequila-cured salmon tartare ($9) served with cucumber relish, tarragon aioli and toast, and a roasted eggplant and ricotta soufflé ($8), with thin slices of the eggplant wrapped around the whipped, airy soufflé, which is served in a tomato-and-basil sauce and topped with a Parmesan crisp.

There are also salads of seasonal farm greens served with pears and a goji berry vinaigrette; Caesar with a choice of chicken breast, seared ahi or grilled shrimp; and a prettily arranged blackened ahi Niçoise ($14).

Don’t even think of ordering until you’ve heard the daily specials, which typically include a couple of pasta dishes and catch of the day. To save time, visit the restaurant’s website for these specials, which include chicken carbonara gnocchi, grilled shrimp puttanesca ($17) that is both spicy and cheesy, and a grilled mahi sandwich on a sweet roll. Prices aren’t listed on the website.

Perhaps aiming to give people their money’s worth, food here tends to be quite rich. It’s nice to have a Maryland crab reuben ($15) full of crab meat, but it’s so much more decadent when also topped with gooey melted Swiss and melty caramelized Maui onions. It’s a fairly small sandwich, served on toasted focaccia, but I had to take half home.

With our Puritan work and self-deprivation ethic, it just seems wrong to be able to enjoy cioppino in the middle of a workday, but once you’ve taken the plunge, it goes down easy and enjoyably. Uye­hara gets the touch of fire right, in the tomato stew teeming with shrimp, clams, mussels and lobster meat.

You’ll see many of the lunch dishes turn up on the dinner menu, along with such entrees as a Peking duck confit pot pie, Mongolian-style baby back ribs, spiced ahi katsu, potato-crusted diver scallop, and gruyere- and ricotta-stuffed chili relleño.

You won’t need much dessert after this, and selections to date include a number of gelatos and sorbets, fruit cobblers and bread pudding.

They’ve made a great start, and I look forward to those special events.

———

Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com.