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Not every restaurant is so fortunate as to hit its stride from day one, and when Kapiolani Seafood Restaurant opened in late September, I did not enjoy the experience.
The weird thing is, I’d never seen a restaurant so polarizing in online reviews. Once you toss out opinions of the petty aggrieved and the best friends and family, the public generally comes to a consensus. But here, the opinions back then ran from bleak to best ever.
I shared my experience with friends in real life and on social media, and urged them to try it firsthand and let me know when the food improved.
Around Thanksgiving came a promising sign when a friend whose taste I trust deemed it good enough for a retry. So off we went, and I found the experience now at 50-50, still hit or miss, but better than at the beginning.
I really couldn’t ignore the new restaurant because of its high-profile setting in the former MW spot between Kapiolani Boulevard and Makaloa Street, so I returned last week to find third time’s the charm.
My original problem with the food was much of it was devoid of flavor. I had the feeling this was already known by the staff when I requested that our server please inform the kitchen so it could be fixed. But she had no intention of doing so, simply saying, “Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Just add white pepper.”
Luckily, the cooking has evolved to flavors that are still fairly light, no longer missing in action but registering as fresh and clean tasting. I stuck primarily to the dim sum menu, available until 2:30 p.m. daily, but the full dinner menu is also available all day.
Popular pork hash ($6.50) with shrimp is among the highlights of the menu, the umami amped up by the inclusion of minced mushrooms.
Another favorite was the juicy Chinese parsley shrimp dumpling ($6.50) with the extra texture of chopped enoki mushrooms and bursts of cilantro throughout. I’m not sure whether they used stock photos in their glossy menus, but I was a little disappointed when these dumplings arrived in a wonton pi-style wrapper instead of the crystal clear wheat- and tapioca-starch wrap pictured, but disappointment turned into rapture with the first bite.
Shanghai xiao long bao (soup dumplings, $6.50) arrived in a small set of three, each in a foil cup to help prevent spills. The dumplings were quite heavy, stuffed with pork and a good amount of soup, so you might want to request a spoon to help with the lifting.
One of the options I particularly liked was that of a shredded taro cake ($6.50). I thought it was a healthier option than more traditional taro cakes bound by rice starch.
Beef balls ($6) were tasty with bursts of citrus rind and green onion throughout. The beef’s bouncy, gummy, pulverized texture was off-putting to me as a child who grew up with Western-style ground beef balls, and it took reaching adulthood to appreciate it.
Speaking of acquired tastes, I also grew up enjoying salted egg yolks with jook and inside moon cakes, so I had no idea others had an aversion to this delicacy until local Japanese friends let me know they would never try it out of fear of being sickened by the preserved egg.
Maybe they would be convinced to change their minds when offered fresh crab (market price, recently Dungeness at $37.99 per pound) stir-fried in a sauce of salted egg yolk off the dinner menu. It was one of the highlights, a welcome change from the standard ginger-onion or salt-pepper preparations.
Sauce accompanying shrimp look funn ($7.50) was too sweet for my taste. I preferred the saltier, brinier flavor of look funn stir-fried with dried scallop and seafood-infused XO sauce. Also enjoyable were the clean flavors of pork spareribs and look funn in a sizzling pot ($14.50).
Other dishes sampled off the dinner menu were Peking duck ($58 whole/$30 half) and Szechuan-style chili sauce chicken ($38 whole/$22 half). I was disappointed that the former lacked its prized crispy skin. I enjoyed the latter — think of it as cold ginger chicken with chili sauce instead of the usual ginger and green onions — but Szechuan enthusiasts might find the sauce too mild for their liking. It’s a good place for those unfamiliar with Szechuan cuisine to get acquainted with its broad flavors, without the unpleasantness of its tongue-numbing effect.
Finally, dessert was another go at salted egg yolk, this time in the form of a creamy salted egg custard baked into a fluffy white bun ($8.50). Egg custard tarts are another joy, but pricier than most at $6 for two pieces instead of the usual three.
Kapiolani Seafood Restaurant
1538 Kapiolani Blvd. Ste. 107, Honolulu
Food: ***
Service: ***
Ambiance: **½
Value: ***
Call: 808-946-8688
Hours: 9 a.m.-9:30 p.m. daily
Prices: About $50-$60 for two for lunch; about $100 for four for dinner
Nadine Kam’s restaurant visits are unannounced and paid for by Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Follow Nadine on Instagram (@nadinekam) or on YouTube (youtube.com/nadinekam).
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