Not all food forays go as planned. The Japanese-based Blue Marlin opened last July in the Marine Surf Waikiki Hotel with the intent of emulating Vintage Cave, but the reality was a confusing fusion of local, Japanese and faux Spanish/ Mediterranean cuisine. It didn’t impress anyone, including the restaurant’s owners. On my second scouting visit, I learned the bad news that they would be throwing out the concept by the end of August and starting over with a new menu.
At that point I couldn’t write about a restaurant that might be gone at any moment.
Nearly a year later the change has finally come, and in Blue Marlin’s place is the Cajun-inspired seafood-boil restaurant Crackin’ Kitchen. For foodies the announcement came as a bit of a letdown because it’s a concept "so three years ago" for the local market. Nevertheless, keeping an open mind, I thought they might surprise us all and bring in a Southern crab house style in which the crab itself is the focus, steamed and served with drawn butter and a sprinkling of Old Bay or other simple seasonings. It’s not the gooey, oily mess of the West Coast-style crab boil that arrived here en masse in 2012.
It turns out that what we have now is more of the same, although Crackin’ Kitchen is the first restaurant of this type in Waikiki. To rise above competitors, the restaurant’s management enlisted Takeshi Omae — who was executive chef at Morimoto XEX in Tokyo when the restaurant received its Michelin star in 2008 and 2009 — to create its menu. Never mind that a satisfying crab boil doesn’t require a Michelin chef.
The resulting $70 Ultimate Combo of red-, black- and white-sauced seafood boils will tell you all you need to know about this restaurant. You’ll be plied with three bags full of shrimp, clams, calamari, mussels, snow and king crab legs, plus chunks of potato, Spam and homegrown corn, in the respective sauces. You can pick spice levels of mild, hot or XXX. The "hot" level was enough to create the sort of burn painful when paired with warm food.
The white sauce is a sort of throwaway, with a basic sauce of Maui onions, ginger and lemon butter, for those who like plainer, jolt-free meals. The flavor hints more at Chinese than Cajun cuisine.
Diners are lured into a friendly battle over red sauce or black sauce, with staffers gushing over the black sauce, which blends coffee, black pepper and Hawaii cacao. Every once in a bite, you’ll come across a nib of chocolate. Does it actually enhance the crab? I’m not so sure, but it tastes great with the pieces of potato and slices of corn. By the time I ate these as leftovers its complexity had grown on me, but it would be nicer to have such a potent sauce on the side so diners can control how much they want with each bite.
I was drawn to the spicy red sauce of garlic and Hawaii chili, although how it evolves in the kitchen is anyone’s guess. It’s already different from when Omae presented it a month ago, more paste than liquid, and with less nuance in the chili flavor.
If you can’t afford $70, you can toss out one of these sauces and get the other two via a king crab combo ($55) or a snow crab combo ($40). I find the snow crab legs easier to manage than the spiny king crab legs, and any flavor or textural difference is not an issue. The crab essence is buried by sauces.
The Ultimate Combo will feed three to four people, and your meal can be augmented with a handful of equally hearty appetizers. Any guilt for what you are about to eat can be assuaged with the green of a grilled Romaine Caesar salad ($12). Lobster dip ($12) seems promising and has improved since I first tried it, proving that they are listening to customers’ complaints and suggestions. In the beginning it was a bland mush. Shredded lobster now tops the avocado. Even so, the dip is overpowered by the potato chips that accompany it. It comes with a single lime wedge that goes a long way in bringing out the lobster’s flavor.
Market-price oysters on the half shell are also offered, but when I visited, tiny Fanny Bays weren’t worth the effort. Guava soy chicken wings ($12) are reminiscent of Nagoya-style chicken wings, but I’d skip these. You’ll find better elsewhere.
My favorite of the appetizers was the decadent chowder fries ($9), which embrace all manner of foods that kill, from baked potatoes to poutine. Here, french fries and mashed potatoes are blanketed with a thick New England chowder and topped with bacon and cheddar cheese.
Dessert doubles as entertainment with the presentation of "Sweet Art," at $12 for two. This dessert seemed designed for the Instagram/Facebook set as servers pour a rainbow of sauces over the paper-covered table, ultimately layering pieces of chocolate, miniature malasadas, powder blue sugar and tropical fruit to create a Waikiki beach scene. It’s delightful to look at but doesn’t quite hit the spot.
For a video of the "Sweet Art" in progress, visit honolulupulse.com/takeabite.
Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com.
BITE SIZE
Lanikai Juice puts squeeze on obesity with weekly run
Lanikai Juice owner Pablo Gonzales, pictured below, grew up in Argentina with the notion that fresh fruit and juice were not just part of a healthy lifestyle, but a routine and pleasurable part of everyday life.
"My mom, she used to put apples, bananas in my bag every morning when I went to school," he said. "It means when I stop working every day, the first thing I do is go pick up fruit at a warehouse and bring it to my house. It means fruit and vegetables, we’re not afraid of it. It’s part of our regular diet."
When he arrived in the United States, Gonzales witnessed the obesity problem and in 1997 launched Lanikai Juice to ease people into the joy of juicing. Two years later he started a series of educational programs that he took to schools and hospitals.
Most recently he launched the Lanikai Running Club out of Waikiki’s Lanikai Juice at JTB Travel Plaza in the basement level at Waikiki Shopping Plaza, 2250 Kalakaua Ave.
The community is invited to join a weekly 3- to 5-mile run held 6 p.m. Wednesdays. Refreshments are served after the run, along with a raffle of Lanikai Juice gift cards. There will also be free monthly seminars on running, nutrition and wellness.
Call 262-2378, and check out the Take a Bite blog at honolulupulse.com for a video.
Bite Size focuses on the small, the new, the unsung.
