We recently sampled another one of Vino's Ala Carte evenings where Chef Keith is up and center producing small plates that you select off of a cart like you'll see at dim sum restaurants. The evening's menu looked like this:
Cold items--$11.50 each
Big Eye Tuna Crudo, with chili pepper water aioli & ogo
Tako “Salad” , with Kerry Kakazu’s ice plant & lemon-herb vinaigrette
Chilled Jumbo Prawns, with cocktail & Hau’ula tomato gazpacho & horseradish crema
Room temp items--$9.50 each
Beef “Tartare”, served with fried capers & Naked Cow dairy goat cheese, balsamic reduction & micro arugula
Grilled Kahuku Corn served with chili aioli, garlic bread crumbs & herbs
The Kahuku didn't come with freshly shaved truffles... a diner at the next table generously shared his "black gold" with us...
Compressed Watermelon “Salad”, served with prosciutto de Parma, grape tomatoes & crispy mozarella
Hot items--$10.50 each
Roasted Pork Ribs, served with Kahuku corn relish & peppercorn demi
Braised Pork Belly Bacon Bacon, served with watercress pesto, pea sprout salad & kim chee
Fennel sausage Bruschetta, served with Hau’ula tomato confit & Kahuku corn
Since the I's were joining us, we simply sampled one of every plate. Of course, some vino is in order so we sampled a 1996 Verget Mersault 1er Cru "Les Charmes".
Along with a 2009 Furst Spatburgunder (Pinot Noir)... I love German Pinot Noir with their perfumed nose and refreshing acidity and Furst is a great vintner - he also makes the CF Muller Thurgau.
We also sampled some of the Hiroshi specials including the Bacon Wrapped Negi with nampla sauce and sunny side quail egg ($8.95)
And the Braised pork with galangal, scallion and hoisin aioli and konbu musubi ($5.50)
I also uncorked one of my new acquisitions, a 2011 Foradori Morei Teroldego.. which was still very young but paired nicely with the fennel sausage bruschetta...
The girls finished with the Yuzu Strawberry Cream Cake with toasted coconut, yuzu meringue and strawberry yuzu sorbet ($7.95) from Hiroshi.
Of course, as dinner progressed we were treated to multiple samples of wine from the neighboring table (same table that the fresh black truffle originated)...
It's a good thing that I took the next day off with all of those vino samples...
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