THE ULTIMATE COMMUNAL TABLE
A kamayan is a beautiful mess of a feast, and if you revere traditional Filipino dishes, it’s well worth digging in. For the massive family-style meal, all the foods are piled in the center of the table. You’ll share with friends and strangers alike, should you partake of the feast offered at Eating House 1849, 6 to 8:30 p.m. Feb. 23.
For the communal table, chef Randy Bangloy plans a spread to include shrimp lumpia, pork belly with crispy garlic, whole tai snapper sarciado, pinakbet, pancit Canton and desserts of ube flan and banana caramel lumpia. Bangloy hopes to hold the dinners monthly.
Cost is $65. Call 924-1849. Eating House, part of the Roy Yamaguchi family of restaurants, is on the third floor of the International Market Place in Waikiki.
VALUE WINES WITH PEDIGREE
Foodland’s new Wine Finds program challenged wine buyer Marvin Chang to come up with a rotating collection of unique bottles that would sell for $15 and under.
“I want to find high-quality, good value — and these don’t always go together,” Chang said. “It’s pretty hard, actually.”
But he has risen to the challenge, and the first six selections are available at Foodland stores statewide, selling for below the stated goal, at $9.99 to $12.99 a bottle. New wines will rotate in every six to eight weeks.
Chang said he tasted 30 to 35 bottles to narrow the field, and enlisted his wife in the mission. “She rejects 95% of them.”
He was a bit more lenient, and identified several wines not widely available in Hawaii, from smaller or lesser-known producers or regions. His aim was balanced yet complex wines that would be approachable for novice wine drinkers yet interesting to more experienced tasters.
His favorite of the current batch: the Casas del Bosque Riserva Pinot Noir at $12.99, from the Casablanca Valley in Chile.
— Betty Shimabukuro, Star-Advertiser
