Alan Wong's Restaurant (Honolulu, HI)

As summer nears, I thought I should finish up my Hawaii posts, including one of my visit to Alan Wong's Restaurant in Honolulu. This particular restaurant of his is on the third floor of a nondescript office building in Honolulu and was rather hard to find. Make sure you're looking out for the street number!

Despite being hard to find, Alan Wong is quite famous, so the restaurant was full as expected. Some of the items here may seem passé coming from California, like the tuna tartar with wontons, but some are still rather unique to Alan Wong and the available/local fish is also quite different.

My favorite item was the “Mini Loco Moco”
Mochi Crusted Unagi Meat Loaf, Sunny Side Quail Egg, Wasabi Kabayaki Sauce

It is certainly distinct from a standard loco moco, with the sweet flavors of the unagi and the kabayaki (sweet soy-based sauce). I loved the chewy and lightly crispy mochi crust and the quail egg which has deeper flavors than a chicken egg.

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Italian Wines and Lunch at Firenze Osteria with Fabio Viviani

I confess, I actually don't really watch much TV, including Iron Chef, Top Chef and all that, but I do hear about the contestants and winners. Most Angelenos probably know of Fabio Viviani, a Top Chef contestant and now cookbook author and celebrity chef, who then opened up Firenze Osteria in Toluca Lake and Cafe Firenze in Moorpark. I went for the first time for a hosted wine paired lunch with Santa Margherita wines. Fabio was there to prepare our lunch and talk to us, and with his travel schedule, this was a chance hard to pass up.

The reviews seemed mixed. LA Times' SIV went in 2009 and didn't like it, but my friend Weezer Monkey went recently and loved it. My Last Bite also says it's one of her favorites in the area. It turns out based on this lunch I'm loving it too. Now, I can't tell you if S Virbila's dislike of this place came from the fact that she went when they had just opened, or because Fabio is actually here taking care of our meals, or because I rarely agree with her in the first place. All I can tell you is that we had a great lunch and that this is what this restaurant can be.

Fabio Viviani at his restaurant.

Now, a bit of background on how this lunch came to be. Antonio Terlato, founder of Terlato Wines, was the first one to introduce Pinot Grigio to the US. Fabio Viviani's partnership with Terlato (and thus Santa Margherita) began when he won a trip to Napa in one of the Top Chef challenges. He did a tasting with Terlato and they fell in love with him. He says he grew up drinking Chianti and enjoy cooking with them.

The main dining room.

Unexpectedly, this was to be a seven course lunch! And Fabio warned us that the portions will not be small, either. He's Italian, he exclaims. He also says in an Italian home, if a guest doesn't finish his/her food, s/he won't be invited back. Uh oh.

Bracing for the courses ahead, we started with some Crostino di Pancetta (toasted bread, burrata, grilled pancetta, crispy sage, brown butter)

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Finding the ROOT at BLVD Bar (Studio City)

The BLVD Hotel in Studio City recently opened up their intimate lobby into a bar called BLVD Bar.

I was invited to their launch party and tasted the drinks they offered. It's a small place so the bar itself is not big, but enough to offer an eclectic menu.

All the drinks are named after boulevards in Los Angeles. Many of them are vodka-based 'tinis, which are appropriate for the target audience. There's even one with layered colors called Santa Monica Blvd, undeniably pretty, but for those who have gotten bored of those, there is still something here for you. The La Cienega Blvd drink is one of the best margaritas I've had in town, made with Don Julio tequila, agave syrup, and lime.

An unusual bottle of spirit caught my eye during the party: ROOT. The label says this 80-proof spirit was a "certified organic neutral spirits with North American herbs and pure cane sugar."

The ingredients listed included birch bark, wintergreen, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and more. They use this in a drink called Ventura Blvd made with Root , Canton ginger liqueur, black rum, grenadine and mango syrup. It was a sweet and balanced drink with an unusual herbal undertone.
I wanted to try the Root by itself so they gave me a shot of it. Upon the first whiff my brain said "root beer." Unmistakably root beer. With the first taste, though, it was most certainly not. It was potent, fairly thick, with strong herbal notes.
I was very happy with this particular spirit discovery, and pleasantly surprised that I found this at BLVD Bar!

BLVD Bar
10730 Ventura Blvd
Studio City, CA 91604
http://www.theblvdhotel.com/cafe-bar-lounge/