Artizen’s diverse offerings cater to town workers

Most restaurateurs seem to have their hands full managing just one restaurant and are content at stopping there.

Not MW Restaurant’s culinary power couple, Wade Ueoka and Michelle Karr-Ueoka, who always seem to be adding to their already full plate.

They added a special-events room to their restaurant to house wine dinners, guest chefs and other events. They regularly invite local and visiting chefs into their kitchen for collaborative dinners, sometimes with so many back-to-back events they have confessed to “what were we thinking” moments coupled with amazement that everything worked out. One of their most recent events reunited colleagues who met working side by side in the kitchens of Alan Wong.

With these two it seems that no good idea should go unexplored. Now they’re expanding their reach downtown with the opening of Artizen in the Hawai‘i State Art Museum building.

They’re addressing the area’s working crowd with options of sandwiches, salads and bentos packed to go, as well as a dine-in menu.

In the interest of saving time and energy, they’ve done away with the table service and plating offered by the space’s two former tenants, Downtown @ the HiSAM and Grand Cafe &Bakery.

Everything is packaged to go, and while that’s fine with bowls of chili or Korean potatoes, it’s a little disconcerting to unwrap a saucy burger or mixed-plate sandwich and eat off that wet paper.

The reason, I was told, is they learned over time that diners are fickle and prone to change their minds in the 10 or so minutes it takes for food to materialize. Either they say they’re eating in and request to take their meal out upon receiving it, or they ask for their meal to go and end up staying and eating on-site.

At any rate, Artizen offers a nice mix of dishes that will sate your hunger without being so heavy you’ll be nodding off at your desk.

Starting light, there’s a Farmer Salad ($6) of Ili‘ili Farms mixed greens and a local egg; a Caesar salad that starts with Kula baby romaine ($8); and a somen salad ($7) with Kula baby romaine, ham, local egg and soy-yuzukosho dressing. If you’re feeling a little naughty this season, you can also get somen topped with mochi-crusted opah ($15). I’m not usually a fan of the cold noodles, but these noodles are fine and delicate, not chewy or bouncy, and I’m a sucker for the tart yuzukosho. Pair it with the crispy fish; this dish is a winner.

For your medium-size hunger, there are mildly flavored braised pork tacos ($9) and a batch of bowls. A spicy tuna bowl and spicy Korean pork bowl are $10 each. The pork has that combination of light spice and sweetness that wins over the local palate. I tend to like more fiery dishes, but I’d order this again.

And move over, Zippy’s, Artizen will probably win a following for its chili bowl ($10) with the works — cheese, short rib and onions — and then some. It’s topped with its own little salad of corn and green beans, a nice finishing touch that adds color and a little more texture and crunch.

I met a couple of friends here for lunch one day, and we placed separate orders. By the time my order came, one of them had already managed to devour the entire Artizen burger ($11). When he came up for air, he said he’d order it again. I didn’t know how soon that would be, but I ran into him there again two days later, when I was sampling that burger myself. I could taste why it was so crave-worthy — juicy local beef topped with bacon and smoked Gouda.

You can also pick up a mixed-plate bento or get it in sandwich form ($13): a reddened stack of kalbi, fried chicken and spicy Korean pork. Sandwiches are accompanied by namul that I like to think of as a Korean-style ratatouille of oozy, slippery eggplant and cucumber. It’s one of my favorite things here.

Side dishes include fries ($4), barbecue fries ($5) topped with powdered potato chip-style spice, a kim chee potato salad ($3) and a kale and quinoa salad ($4) that’s more quinoa with a few bits of torn kale.

A few dishes are added and subtracted each day to keep things interesting. One dish that recently vanished is butterfish croquettes (four for $5) that I’d like to see return often.

Last, since Karr-Ueoka is one of the island’s top pastry and dessert chefs, you’ll always find a rotating selection of at least five desserts to choose from. These take the form of cakes and tartlets — without the intricacy of her work at MW but still with artistic flourishes in keeping with the setting.