Gone are the days when a restaurant’s success depended on replicating a single formula over and over. For today’s creative-minded chefs, that would be too stifling. There are just too many ideas out there waiting for somebody to bring them to life.
Chai Chaowasaree could have continued serving the Thai cuisine he introduced at Singha Thai, but instead he branched out into Asian fusion cuisine, healthy cooking and even gourmet plate lunches in various restaurant incarnations.
Chai’s Waikiki Cafe & Market, which opened a year ago at the former site of Singha Thai Cuisine, seemed like a good idea. It delivered a Chai-quality meal at a lower price point for Waikiki’s day-trippers and a local to-go crowd. But diners couldn’t make sense of eating out of Styrofoam in a classy room with the absence of table service.
Chaowasaree has reopened on the same site as Chai’s Waikiki, marking a return to upscale dining. This time it bears a Hawaiian-Thai fusion concept and focus on local ingredients, an idea salvaged from his plate-lunch operation. And people are eating it up, even if at a much higher price. In retail there is a psychology of scarcity, and people just didn’t value a gourmet loco moco as much as elevated cuisine.
He has kept some of his signature dishes on the menu, such as kataifi-wrapped jumbo black tiger prawns ($13) and ahi poke presented in miniature waffle cones ($15), but you will need to make plenty of room in your heart for new dishes destined to become favorites.
At the top of this list would be Suicidal Chicken Wings ($12), glistening with a sticky, spicy, party-in-your-mouth fireworks of a sauce incorporating Thai chilies, garlic, Manoa honey, chopped peanuts and cilantro, with sweet chili sauce slathered on for good measure.
Much tamer is the grilled octopus ($15) with barbecue garlic kochujang sauce that is nowhere near as spicy as the wings but craving-inducing nevertheless, due in part to the tenderness of the hee.
And his baked Forbidden Sticky Rice ($13) gave me a nostalgic taste of my childhood, growing up in a Chinese household. The rice is tossed with lup cheong, dried shrimp and roasted chestnuts, then layered with juicy pork belly, a premium touch that didn’t happen at my home.
Foie gras chawan mushi ($18) bears little resemblance to the delicate Japanese savory egg custard. Chai’s version is more like a creamy, buttery terrine that is hard to resist if you can imagine foie gras spread over toasted brioche and topped with blackberry-lehua honey.
Chaowasaree’s nod to his roots in Thai cuisine is reflected in a dish of mild red curry with roast chicken ($13), and the creamy roasted kabocha pumpkin bisque ($10) is a perfect fit for the fall season.
I love that beyond presentation, he’s thought about what actually works with table size. Too often, chefs aiming to impress opt for large presentation platters too big for tables, leaving guests to deal with overhang. With the curry and rice dish, Chaowasaree has opted to go vertical with a taller bowl. It’s an elegant solution and makes it easy to pass the bowl around.
Grazers will love the shareable pupu, making this a place where one can dine affordably on a spate of appetizers or extravagantly with the full-meal route. This being the season of splurges, my picks would be the poached Kona lobster ($40) layered over Hamakua mushroom and truffle risotto, and the braised Kurobuta pork osso buco based on Chaowasaree’s mom’s recipe. It’s made tender by slow-cooking for 16 hours in a five-spice demi, making it a bit reminiscent of kau yuk, Chinese roast pork, without as much sweetness.
Dessert covers the gamut from fresh fruit (Frankie’s Nursery honey cream white pineapple) to a decadent shredded coconut cheesecake with Tahitian vanilla anglaise ($10). I love pears and had to go with a juicy poached pear Melba ($9) sitting atop vanilla ice cream in a pool of raspberry sauce.
At the end of the meal, you can shop in the marketplace for Chaowasaree’s curated selection of edibles, a holdover from his former cafe and market. I’m glad he was able to respond to diners and change course, delivering one of his best restaurants in recent years.
Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@ staradvertiser.com.
