Food La La: Getting friendly at the Honolulu Festival

BY LINDSEY MURAOKA / Special to the Star-Advertiser

Last weekend’s 19th annual Honolulu Festival brought together people from Hawaii and around the Pacific Rim in an effort to promote harmony and understanding.

Part of the festivities was the festival’s annual Friendship Gala on March 1 at the Hawaii Convention Center, which was was filled with tons of food from 10 local restaurants as well as entertainment from Japan and Hawaii.

This is the booklet that everyone is given with tickets for each restaurant.

This was one of my favorite dishes of the night: salmon inari aburage stuffed with rice, ogo, fresh salmon sesame oil and pickled ginger garnish by Hakone.

Ruth’s Chris signature tenderloin with a very creamy garlic mashed potatoes enhanced with an au poivre sauce.

This is seared swordfish with wheat tabbouleh by Chef Mavro. I liked that the pieces of fish were thick. The tabbouleh was extremely citrusy.

This is braised short rib mushroom dumpling with Bordelaise sauce and a potato puree by Roy’s Hawaii Kai.

Another favorite and one of the interesting dishes of the night was a Hawaiian butterfish with black Thai rice, coconut-chili vinaigrette and a pickled jalapeno salad by Mariposa. The butterfish was very moist and went well with the slightly sweet and sticky rice.

Tiki’s Grill served paniolo beef short ribs with smoked taro puree, lomilomi tomatoes, and a luau leaf demi glaze.

A super tender lamb and local root vegetable ragout over soft polenta by 12th Avenue Grill.

A trio of fresh poke from Nico’s a Pier 38 included ahi limu, ahi shoyu, and spicy ahi.

I loved this heavenly soft strawberry cake by Honolulu Coffee Company!

I also enjoyed this intensely rich and decadent double chocolate mousse cake with choco-haupia sauce by JJ’s Bistro & French Pastry.

A lively dance performance by students from Sonoda Gakuen High School from Hyogo, Japan.

Local artist Anuhea performed three songs. She is amazing live!

I just had to take a picture with the worlds largest aloha shirt. It’s a size 400 XL!

———
Lindsey Muraoka blogs about food and drink for the Pulse. Contact her on Twitter or via email at foodlalablog@gmail.com.

Comments are closed.