We recently celebrated a birthday… ok, one of my many birthdays but who’s counting? Anyway our good friends wanted to take us to Café VIII ½ in downtown Honolulu. VIII ½ translated is Otto e mezzo from the 1963 Fellini film of the same name. The chef/owner obviously is nostalgic – in a good way – from the name of his restaurant, to the philosophical dialogue adorning the walls to the listing of menu specials simply scribed on cardboard and hung on cross wires. The walls are also adorned with several old jazz stills in the style of Claxton and Wolff. But it’s not the ambiance that’s the draw… it’s the food. If you do a web search for Café VIII ½, you’ll see a lot of rave reviews on the food. And I was aware of the food reviews… however I also was aware of the possible ranting and raving by the chef himself usually directed at his wife. You see, Café VIII ½ is a small family run restaurant with the husband back in the kitchen and the wife running the front end. And older reviews in Yelp commented on great food and sometimes unnerving cussing from the chef. Our friends assured us that they never experienced the dark side of the chef after multiple visits… therefore let’s dine!
The restaurant is located just before the parking ramp to Alii Place (where public parking is available) and is open on weekdays for lunch. However they recently started offering dinner service on Saturdays though Saturday dinner is a preset dinner menu selected by the chef. It is a BYOB establishment though you do have to provide your own wine glasses or you’ll end up using the restaurant’s plastic cups. We started the evening with an assorted antipasti dish consisting of marinated kidney beans, fresh mozzarella and tomatoes, black olives (I think they were Nicoise), salumi and batter coated deep fried beets. We also enjoyed the chef’s fresh baked bread which was a cross between focaccia and dinner roll. Since your truly was celebrating his birthday weekend, we also uncorked a Charles Heidsieck Reserve and Bellefon Cuvee des Moines Rose. The Heidsieck paired nicely with mozzarella/tomato while the Bellefon’s creamy texture was the perfect foil to the kidney beans and cleansed the palate between bites of salumi.
We were then served the pasta course, fresh linguini with peas and bacon in a cream sauce. Like the classic peas and pancetta, I think the smokiness of thick cut bacon balanced the cream sauce better than pancetta. We were still finishing the Champagne though we also uncorked a 2004 Jessup Cabernet Sauvignon. The acid in the Champagne and the tannins in the Cabernet both served the same purpose, to cleanse the palate between bites. Delicious bites that is.
The main course was bacon wrapped beef tips – they looked like tenderloin tips and were cooked a perfect medium rare and were served with turkey breast scallopini and sautéed local mushrooms (Hamakua?). The Jessup fulfilled its mission by matching and complementing the big flavors of beef and bacon in the entrée and did an admirable job.
For dessert we were served vanilla ice cream with fresh berry compote and my only regret is not bringing a complementary dessert wine to round out the meal (aged Auslese Riesling perhaps)?
We’re already planning when to make a subsequent visit to Café VIII ½. It would make the perfect holiday party venue as long as the list doesn’t exceed 20. It would also make a great choice for a wine dinner. And when you have the passion of a chef who doesn’t compromise (he explained that he grinds his own beef for Bolognese since you can’t trust what’s in pre-packaged ground beef) and bakes his own bread, you can’t go wrong. And no cussing was experienced during our visit.
Café VIII ½
1067 Alakea St
Honolulu, HI 96813
(808) 524-4064
Comments