JoJo Washburn serves red shrimp curry with pineapple at JoJo’s Kitchen. At left, the curry is part of a meal, accompanied by a green salad, brownies and a bottle of water.
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2019 October 29 CRV - Honolulu Star-Advertiser photo by Jamm Aquino/jaquino@staradvertiser.com
The red shrimp curry with pineapple at Jojo’s Kitchen on Monday, October 29, 2019 in downtown Honolulu. Lunches come as a complete meal, accompanied by a green salad with house made dressing, dessert, and a bottled water.
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After three years of catering upscale lunches geared to corporate offices, chef JoJo Washburn opened a small restaurant near the downtown Honolulu post office, so anyone can just drop by for one of her well-rounded meals.
JoJo’s Kitchen, which took the place of the Silk Road Cafe on Merchant Street in mid-October, features “gourmet boxed lunches,” each including an entree, side salad, dessert and bottled water. No items can be ordered ala carte.
“I find that it’s a unique concept,” she said of the package deal, and it has worked well for her catering business.
Washburn reasoned that an office worker would spend over $20 on the individual pieces of a complete lunch; whereas her highest price is $18, with all the trimmings.
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THE FOOD
Washburn describes her freshly made, multi-ethnic fare as “classy comfort food — it’s upscale, but not so fancy you don’t feel comfortable eating it.”
Her restaurant menu offers a limited number of her bestselling sandwiches, wraps, entree salads and hot entrees in box lunches. The menu will rotate monthly and be posted on her website.
In her opening month, Washburn made her signature dish, Thai shrimp curry with pineapple; a wrap of Korean barbecued beef with Asian slaw; and turkey club and Italian cold cut sandwiches, among other items.
“People love my vegan curry tofu with cashews,” she said of another bestseller. “Most people aren’t vegan, but once they taste it made with my yellow curry, garam masala, tofu, bell peppers and garbanzo beans — there are just a whole bunch of flavors going on in there that just make your taste buds dance in your mouth!” Also popular is her veggie curry hummus wrap on a vegan spinach tortilla. Those two dishes, she said, satisfy vegetarian, vegan and Middle Eastern flavor preferences.
Her dishes represent a broad range of cuisines. As a tribute to Aki Yuldashev, who featured foods of Uzbekistan as owner of Silk Road Cafe, Washburn made Yuldashev’s chicken kebabs, a customer favorite, for the first month. This month , she’s replacing the kebabs with a Peruvian pepper steak stir-fry.
Although Thai and fresh California cuisine are among her personal favorites, she said, “I can cook anything. I just love it all!”
Her holiday catering menu starts this month and is available until January, offering turkey, stuffing and other fall classics. In the restaurant, look for specials like an open-face turkey sandwich with stuffing and more baked goods. More often than not, dessert is a fresh fruit cup, depending on what’s available at the market.
THE BUSINESS
Of French/Thai ancestry, Washburn was raised by her grandmother in Thailand and learned to cook at her knee. Washburn then traveled, discovering different cuisines, then settled in California for 20 years.
She graduated from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in San Francisco, worked for the Ritz Carlton at Half Moon Bay and sold gourmet box lunches in the business district.
She’d always dreamed of living in Hawaii and opening her own lunch spot, and made the move here seven years ago.
After dabbling in real estate, Washburn returned to her first love and started a catering business in 2016 while working at the Hawaii Yacht Club as executive chef.
Her new restaurant and its catering arm are now her full-time concerns. She caters all kinds of events, including weddings, from the restaurant kitchen, with a menu that includes breakfast and a range of cuisines, among them Asian, Tex-Mex, Italian, Middle Eastern and Hawaiian.
Regular catering customers include companies like SSFM International, Hawaii Dredging Co. and First Hawaiian Bank, ordering 25 to 100 meals for special events. Washburn usually throws in extra items like a side dish of rice or extra container of salsa with her large orders, because “I like to take care of my customers like they’re family.”
Catering orders have a 15-person minimum, and as a promotion, she is waiving the minimum $25 delivery fee for businesses within a two-block radius of JoJo’s Kitchen. One of the good things about having a restaurant, she said, is there is no minimum, so people can come by for just a single order.
Menu items run $15 to $18, with $2 off all boxes on Fridays, when her daily special is a beer-battered fried fish sandwich with fries.
Washburn employs a few assistants, but wants to keep her operation small, to guarantee quality. “When it comes to making the food, I do it all myself. I love my food, and I want my customers to love my food, too.”
JOJO’S KITCHEN
212 Merchant St.; 585-8212
>> Hours: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays
>> Prices: $15 to $18; $2 off all boxes on Fridays
