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It’s time to open my mailbag and reply to questions from readers about local restaurants.
Teppanyaki
Kendrick Lee asked me about the teppanyaki style of cooking and when it came to Hawaii.
‘Teppan’ refers to a heated metal plate, usually by butane, and ‘yaki’ means grilled. It can refer to grilled meat, vegetables or seafood.
The cooking style was created by Shigeji Fujioka in Japan in 1945, many say, but is not a traditional style of Japanese cooking. Fujioka’s restaurant was named Misono.
“It has never been that popular in Japan. Americans, however, love the cooking skills displayed by Japan-born U.S. chefs,” Lee says.
“The root of teppanyaki in the U.S. was ‘Rocky’ Aoki, who opened the first Benihana of Tokyo in 1964 in New York, then kept adding other cosmopolitan U.S. cities.” He called it “eatertainment.”
It featured tables and chairs around a flat iron cooktop, with chefs at each station putting on a show of their theatrical knife and cooking skills as they quickly cut, flipped and cooked vegetables and meat or seafood and served it to the patrons.
Teppanyaki came to Hawaii in 1968 at Chaco’s Steak House, next to the Oasis nightclub on old Waialae Road, if you go by the ads in the newspapers.
It said it was modeled after Chaco’s in Tokyo and that the head chef in Hawaii, Katsunori Hosoi, had trained there.
Chaco’s said each group of customers had its own chef and kimono-clad waitress. It was there about 18 years and closed in 1986.
The next place I’ve found to offer teppanyaki, in 1970, was Ideta, at Dillingham Boulevard and Kohou Street in Kalihi. It offered teppanyaki, sukiyaki, shabu shabu, tempura and sushi. Shiro Matsuo was one of its chefs. A 1973 ad says the Big Island’s Kona-Tei and Maui’s Yaesu restaurants were part of their “chain.”
In 1971, Benihana of Tokyo opened in Hilton’s Village Bazaar. It was in a 200-year-old Japanese farmhouse from Kyoto, built without nails or screws, and held together with pegs, that was dismantled, shipped to Hawaii and reassembled. Dinners were $5.50 to $10.
A year later, in 1972, Isamu Hayashi and Nobuteru (Eddie) Takai opened Maiko in the Ilikai. It had a waiting room that was designed as a Japanese garden with bamboo, a waterfall and huge crimson “higasa” (parasol).
“Maiko” are teenage novice geisha. “Maiko” means “dancing girl” in Japanese. She never appears in public without her parasol.
Several other teppanyaki restaurants opened that same year: Ryu Teriyaki Steak House and Manno’s Japanese Steakhouse in Waikiki, and Restaurant Fuji in the Hilo Hotel.
Furusato Restaurants in the Waikiki Grand Hotel and Waikiki Biltmore Hotel advertised teppanyaki in 1973. One of their ads takes credit for introducing teppanyaki to Hawaii but offers no other details.
Rick Tanaka opened Tanaka of Tokyo in 1976 in the Waikiki Shopping Plaza. It still has three locations open.
Others got in on it, too, including Restaurant Suntory, Kabuki, Kobe Japanese Steak House, Shogun and Naniwa-ya.
Le Roy’s
Craig Kutsunai asked whether I remembered Le Roy’s Cafe in Kakaako. His parents had their wedding reception there, he told me.
Le Roy’s Cafe was at 667 Ala Moana Blvd, which is where the Pacific International (formerly the Gold Bond) Building is today, between Coral and Keawe streets.
It was founded by Le Roy Fry in 1944. Fry was previously a manager of Petrows restaurant at 1030 S. King St., which had Hawaii’s first smorgasbord. I wrote about that last year.
The Ala Moana site was the Ramona Cafe from 1937 to 1944, owned by Saburo Takata and K. Kaneshiro, well-known restaurateurs and chefs.
Le Roy’s offered steaks, chops, fried chicken, seafood and, later, Chinese food.
George Lum and his mother, Elsie, I believe, bought it in 1945. They offered dining and dancing to Henry Spencer and His Orchestra, and a floor show, such as the Mendonca Trio Acrobats.
Le Roy’s Cathay Restaurant was part of the building and could accommodate up to 500 people.
Le Roy’s closed in 1964. The Gold Bond Building, a 12-story, 200,000-square-foot structure, opened in 1966.
It was named for the Gold Bond Stamp Co. of Minnesota, whose 6,000-square-foot, ground-floor Gift Center was the anchor tenant.
Retailers as far back as 1891 gave “trading stamps” to customers as incentives. Customers filled books with them and could then redeem them for merchandise at their gift centers. Typically a book held 1,200 stamps, representing $120 in purchases.
The Gold Bond Gift Center was the largest store of its kind in the world, Edward Brennan, Gold Bond division manager, said.
Magic Mushroom
An anonymous reader remembered there was an unusual bar on the ground floor of the Gold Bond building called the Magic Mushroom in the early 1970s.
“It only opened on Fridays and Saturdays from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.,” he said. “You paid about $10 to enter, and you could drink all you like, with dancing to live bands.”
Admission was $10 for men and $3 for women. It offered a “no-limit, no-host cocktail dance party.”
“Magic mushrooms” was a generic term for a variety of mushrooms containing psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychedelic. The club’s motto was “Wanna Take You Higher.”
I’m glad I don’t have to explain to young people how that name and motto somehow seemed appropriate in the 1970s. The club closed around 1975. Now it’s just a colorful part of our past, receding into our rearview mirrors.
Pawaa Fountain
“When I was attending Washington Intermediate school back in 1963, there was a coffee shop/ fountain on the corner of Kalakaua and King Street across from Cinerama Theatre,“ Jan Santos wrote. “Now there is a gas station and Jack in the Box.
“Could you find the name of that establishment? It was where I got my first fountain-style cherry Coke.”
It was the Pawaa Fountain, at 1529 S. King St., owned by Jane and Asayo Tanigawa. It opened in 1948.
Pawaa is the area of town between the Sheridan Tract and McCully. The word means “canoe enclosure,” according to “Place Names of Hawaii.”
King Richard’s Drive In
A reader named Sandy told me she moved to Kaneohe in the 1960s. “I can’t remember what restaurant was where Zippy’s is now, on Kamehameha Highway, just outside Windward Mall.
“I do remember it had a Knights of King Arthur theme. They had good food, and I was sad to see them go. What was their name?”
Wayne Sumida said he and his wife have been residents of Kaneohe since the early 1960s and remember King Richard’s Drive In being where Zippy’s Kaneohe is today.
“The food at King Richard’s was pretty good. I also remember that on the Kahaluu side where Windward Mall is today was an open field that had horses.”
Do any readers remember these restaurants or have a story about them?
Bob Sigall’s “The Companies We Keep 5” book contains stories from the past three years of Rearview Mirror. “The Companies We Keep 1 and 2” are also back in print. Email Sigall at Sigall@yahoo.com.
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