This was a random Thursday dinner since Andrea was working downtown in the office and so we figured we may as well grab some dinner downtown. We were trying to go relatively low key since we had just been gorging ourselves in Las Vegas over the extended weekend. We ended up going to LihoLiho Yacht Club because Andrea had never been here before (I’ve been twice with vendors) and she likes their sister restaurant Good Good Culture Club (Andrea, Trisha, and I had actually eaten at LihoLiho when it was still a pop up in one of the spaces along the wharf).
The cuisine here is basically Pan Asian/Hawaiian primarily. We started with some cocktails of course. I had the Dream Sequence, a tequila based cocktail with grapefruit, and Andrea had the Midas Touch, an arrack (a Sri Lankan distilled drink made from coconut flowers or sugarcane) based cocktail with ginger, turmeric, allspice, pineapple, and lemon.
For our food, they mentioned that they had their Let Us Cook For You chef’s choice menu which had a smpling of dishes and was the best way to try a lot of different dishes. First came the Tuna Poke which was atop a nori cracker with a spicy aioli and some toasted sesame seeds. It was a nice bite and the fish was decent quality, so that was a good start. This was quickly followed by the Duck Liver Mousse and the Taro Puff. The duck liver mousse was atop a little piece of banana bread and was topped with a bit of kumquat and spicy seasoning. It was interesting, but not our favorite presentation of duck liver (and not as rich as foie of course). The taro puff was interesting. The puff and texture were great and a very unique presentation of taro, but it was also a bit of a sponge and quite greasy.
The next trio of dishes were the Red Endive Salad, the Gulf Shrimp, and the Kanpachi Sashimi. The endive salad had some fennel, sunflower and cocoa brittle (which gave a bit of savoriness) and it all made for an interesting spin on an endive salad. The gukf shrimp included longanisa, black rice, a slices of satsuma, and chili crisp which Andrea loves so she certainly enjoyed this dish. The kanpachi was a bit different since it included some grape slices and some macadamia nut salsa macha. For me, it was a bit complicated and I prefer a cleaner taste of kanpachi.
The trio of mains included the Scallion Rice Noodle, Swordfish Katsu, and American Wagyu Zabuton. The rice noodle came with some mushroom and green bean and some sauce. It was good, but nothing spectacular. The swordfish katsu was atop a japanese curry. I enjoyed this dish quite a lot (hey it was swordfish with a nice crust and crunch on top of a curry), but Andrea didn’t care for it much at all. Lastly the wagyu was a sort of steak-and-potatoes dish; the wagyu was topped with a type of chimichurri and on the side were japanese sweet potatoes with a mild horseradish sauce. The steak was prefectly cooked and was a decent dish as well.
For dessert, we were given the Baked Hawaii (their riff on baked Alaska I assume) which is certainly a striking looking dessert. Of course, one of the best parts of baked Alaska is if it is flambéed (as Beavis and Butthead say “Fire! Fire”. Also I have fond memories of this from prep school where this was a once a year treat), but alas this was just broiled. And in reality, I don’t really like baked Alaska and I didn’t really like this Baked Hawaii which was made with a POG (passionfruit, orange, guava) sorbet at the center atop an orange chiffon cake with some bits of coconut and orange to adorn the plate and some passionfruit sauce drizzled around. Personally, I don’t really like sorbet (just seems too much like sugar water and plus I was allergic to milk when I was young and could only have sorbet) and I don’t like meringue so this was going to fail with me regardless.
All in all it was an uneven meal with some hits and some misses, but it was something different (esp. for Andrea) and lowkey and decent enough for what we were looking although I think we both have preferred our experiences at Good Good Culture Club.
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