When Mark Oyama was approached to take a teaching job at Kauai Community College, he was reluctant. “I felt I didn’t have the experience.”
But he took the position at the urging of a friend — “Eh, no be stupid, take the job!” — and got hooked in his first year, when his students won a statewide culinary competition on Oahu.
Twenty-three years later Oyama has been voted into the Hawai‘i Restaurant Association’s Hall of Fame, and his reaction is the same: “I still don’t know if I have enough experience.”
But enough voters begged to differ, and Oyama will be among a group of industry professionals to be honored Sept. 21 at a dinner at Dole Cannery. The honor recognizes his work shepherding the next generation, as well as the success of his own restaurant, Mark’s Place, a dining and catering establishment in Lihue known for plate lunches but which also offers gourmet specials built on fresh local fish and seafood.
I met Oyama during a visit to Kauai in May, when I thought I could try out the student-run restaurant that he oversees. It was closed, but he was going to cut up a freshly slaughtered pig that day and offered that as an alternate experience.
So instead of lunch, it was butchery. I spent a couple of hours in the college’s kitchen with a highly motivated group of students watching Oyama explain how to cut up a pig and what can be done with all the parts.
The root of the lesson was the menu plan for the next week, when the restaurant would reopen and feature dishes planned by a group of students as sort of a final exam. They wanted to make sausage, chicharron (crisp pork skin), headcheese (a terrine made with various parts of the head) and Cuban sandwiches with porchetta (a rolled pork loin roast).
Faced with such ambitions, Oyama suggested bringing in a whole pig. “More fun,” he said.
Not every day is such a visceral experience. Most days he’s teaching the basics of Continental and Asia-Pacific cuisine. Running the school’s restaurant is the practical part of each student’s curriculum.
These are lessons he learned himself as a student at Kapiolani Community College and in a long career that began in the 1980s at the old Black Orchid in Honolulu.
The one point he tries to get across to every class: “Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Because I want them to build confidence. Cooking is a lot of trial and error.”
The restaurant association’s hall-of-famers are a cross section of the food industry, from chefs (Alan Wong, Ed Kenney and Beth Ann Nishijima) to business owners (Warren Shon of Southern Wine and Spirits and the Tamura family of Tamura’s Fine Wines and Liquors) to another educator (Gladys Sato of Kapiolani Community College). Proprietors of two longtime eateries are also being recognized: Roy and Dora Hayashi of Like Like Drive Inn and Gerard Reversade of Gerard’s Restaurant on Maui.
Tickets to the restaurant association’s dinner are $200. Call 944-9105 or visit hawaiirestaurant.org.
For those who lack the wherewithal to deal with a whole pig, Oyama offered this recipe, for fish, as a favorite, served sometimes at his restaurant and often at his home.
It’s a twist on a miso marinade for seafood, made with lots of lemon juice and zest. The lemon, he said, “gives the sauce a lighter feel and flavor, which is a nice contrast to the heavy miso paste.”
Lemon Misoyaki Fish
» 2 pounds fish steaks (butterfish, salmon, opah, swordfish)
Marinade:
» 1 cup white miso paste
» 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
» 1/2 cup mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine)
» 1/2 cup sugar
» 1-1/2 tablespoons fresh ginger, finely minced
» 1 tablespoon green onion, finely minced
» Zest of 2 lemons
Combine marinade ingredients and pour over fish. Marinate overnight.
Remove from marinade and broil a few minutes per side until cooked through. Serves 4.
Variation: Use the marinade with shrimp (marinate just 1 hour) or use to make a glaze for scallops.
Nutritional information unavailable.
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