Kaimuki’s XO marks the spot for local with a twist

Don’t let the provenance scare you from giving XO restaurant a try. Chefs Kenny Lee and Aleina Chun most recently cooked at the acclaimed Senia, where extravagant tasting menus come to mind, but their approach in this breakout effort is all about comfort and conviviality.

It’s the kind of place for family and friends to gather over filling shared plates. Bring a date only if you’re at a point in your relationship where seeing a potential mate gorge on a colossal plate of adobo fried chicken won’t be a deal breaker.

The Kaimuki restaurant is in the space near Ninth Avenue that was a long-time home to Hung Won Chinese restaurant, followed by Taste of Thai. Traces of Hung Won remain as part of the decor, which is a little off-putting. Those who require harmony of theme and ambience may experience a sense of disconnect when spying the remnants of old-fashioned chop suey house artwork, given the contemporary menu.

I don’t mind this kind of discrepancy as long as the food is good, but it does give an impression of impermanence. I understand this startup must have a shoestring budget, but all that’s immediately needed is to take down the artwork and repaint one wall to make a clean break from the past and establish this restaurant as one that’s here to stay versus one that looks like a pop-up.

IT DOESN’T help that the restaurant’s name also gives off a Chinese vibe — as in XO sauce — when the menu is not overtly Chinese. That said, you do get a sense of the Chinese contribution to our local heritage in the dishes here.

Bring at least three of your friends to get the most out of the family-style menu. You’ll need at least that many to help you polish off XO’s signature buttermilk fried chicken ($21) served with an irresistible pool of adobo-butter sauce. I could have eaten a lot more if there weren’t so many other temptations on the menu.

XO is exceptional when it comes to the deep-fry, as with a trio of buttermilk fried oysters ($15) that are great whether eaten alone or dipped in the accompanying curry aioli, a pairing not usually seen here, but one that works.

The chefs introduce a lot of twists on familiar foods, such as in an appetizer of assorted pickles ($4). While the local standards are pickled vegetables and mango, here you may find anything from pickled shimeji mushrooms to grapes, lychee and cantaloupe. The lychee was a surprise, but I loved the grapes best.

The menu is short but sweet, and is geared toward heavy eaters, hitting on such popular mains as sous vide duck breast with berry gastrique ($27), scallops, pork belly and New York strip steak. The scallops ($27) are a highlight, finished with the restaurant’s namesake XO spicy seafood sauce, minus the usual dried scallops.

Also rooted in Chinese cuisine is tender pork belly ($21) steamed in a soy-ginger scallion sauce with Chinese vinegar and hint of star anise. It arrives on a platter capped with a single housemade chicharron so big it makes the dish look like banh mi. Don’t let it sit so long it loses its crispness.

WHETHER YOU consider them sides or starters, other dishes include a baby spinach Caesar ($10), shrimp and avocado ceviche ($13), stir-fry of asparagus and cauliflower with brown butter vinaigrette and cured egg yolk ($11), and wok-stirred vegetables ($7) that when I visited comprised green beans, red bell peppers and onions.

A couple of carb dishes were also big hits during my visits. At the top of my list would be the Loaded Potato Au Gratin ($16) combining the best of the French classic and a baked potato. It’s a labor-intensive dish with the potato sliced and arranged to look like mille-feuille pastry surrounded by a baked cheese crust and topped with sour cream, green onions and crumbled bacon.

Also wonderful was the house ginger fried rice ($13), made silky with the addition of two 63-degree slow-cooked eggs, their runny yolks and whites stirred into the onion, mushroom and pea-studded rice.

For dessert there’s a brown butter chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice cream a la mode ($8), which doesn’t sound unusual until you get to the nam pla, or fish sauce, caramel. I didn’t sense the fishy notes, but the sauce does give the caramel a nice touch of salt.

On the drink menu are a selection of $4 beers, wine and a few spirits.

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