Town

Town, along with 12 Avenue Grill, has helped to revive the dining landscape in Kaimuki.  The recent additions of these similar, but different approaches to American-style bistro cuisine give diners a few more options when it comes time to eat.

Here are a few photos of my most recent visit to Town.  I've been here on a couple of ocassions and I must say that the food is quite good.  The menu changes daily, so what I had today, might not be available tomorrow or even next week.  That's a good thing, I suppose, as it keeps things fresh.  Anyway, I like not knowing what to expect -- sometimes.

According to the hand typed menu, the restaurant's motto is "local first, organic whenever possible, with Aloha always".  That means fresh, healthy (somewhat) and served with a smile, or should I say guaranteed to put a smile on your face?  Anyway you look at it, the restaurant tries to promise a lot, but does it deliver?

I had been told by a friend that I should definitely come for dinner one night.  So I invited a friend and I made it a point to come on a mid-week night when I thought it wouldn't be so busy.  As we walked through the door, I saw that the restaurant was packed full of people, both at the bar....

...and inside as well.  I stood near the podium and waited for the host(ess) to arrive.  As the minutes wound down, there was no one in sight.  After waiting for about 5 minutes, I flagged down one of the servers and asked him if I could be seated.  He returned with an older woman, who seated me, but neglected to apologize for keeping me waiting.

The interior is full of hard surfaces (concrete floors, stainless steel tabletops) which amplify the slightest noise.  That meant that our conversation was drowned out by the noise of the other diners and also meant that I could not hear, nor be heard, when trying to carry on a conversation.  I was seated on the banquette along the wall.  The seat is not padded and was uncomfortable to sit on.

After looking over the menu and placing our orders, one of the runners brought us bread, butter and olives.  The first serving is complimentary.  If you want more, it'll cost you US$2.00. 

I couldn't believe that they would charge if we wanted addtional bread, but then again, there was more than enough bread here for the two of us anyway.  The idea of combining whole olives with melting butter was great and one that I would consider using at home.  The olives provided a tasty counterpoint to the slightly sweet and creamy butter.

We started with a salad.  There were actually three different choices on the menu and this seemed to be the most interesting -- roasted pears, endive, arugula, ricotta salata, walnuts (US$8.00).

Crunchy walnuts, thin creamy slices of cheese, and tender roasted pears -- the flavors bitter, salty and sweet were all present here, and were complimentary and pleasing to the palate.  There was a light dressing that coated the greens, nothing too overpowering, and that helped this salad remain refreshingly simple with great texture and taste.  I felt that there could have been more endive in the salad though.  After we ate our way through the entire dish, we discovered that there had been only 3 thin slivers of the stuff.  Wasn't it supposed to be one of the main ingredients?

I ordered the 1/2 chicken, torn bread, roasted grapes, tatsoi, pancetta (US$16.50).

Moist and flavorful, the roasted chicken was delicious.  The crisp skin provided a nice balance to the wonderfully tender and succulent meat contained within.  The bite-sized pieces of torn bread were crunchy, and crouton-like in appearance and flavor.  The roasted grapes provided a bit of sweetness to this dish, as the pancetta provided a slight saltiness.  The real surprise was the tatsoi, an Asian green that is rarely seen on menus here.  The tender, slightly spicy sautéed tatsoi leaves added another dimension of flavor to an already complexly flavored dish.

My dinner guest ordered the fresh hand-cut pasta, lamb and mushroom sugo, pecorino (US$17.00).

The pasta was cooked al dente and was perfect.  The lamb and mushroom sugo (sauce) had that homey comfort food sort of flavor with the pecorino giving this dish a slightly more savory flavor. 

After dinner, we decided to look over the menu.  There were five items on the dessert menu with two of them being a sorbet and a gelato.  Since I've been busy at home with my ice cream maker, we decided on the following desserts.

The first dessert was the mango tart, cream cheese, toasted almond crust (US$6.00).

Layered inside the toasted almond crust was a thin layer of cream cheese topped with sweet slices of mango.  When eaten together, I somehow felt like the flavors were a little "off".  If I ate the cream cheese and crust alone, they were fine.  The flavors did not match the overripe sweetness of the mango too well.

Second, and my choice, was the bittersweet chocolate and apple banana panini (US$6.00).

Creative, fun and delicious are the words that would best describe this dessert.  Bittersweet Richart chocolate and thinly sliced apple bananas are sandwiched between two slices of sweetbread, then grilled to form a dessert panini.  Served with some whipped cream and lemon zest on the side, this makes for a rich and sinful dessert.  While I enjoyed this dessert, I do wish that either there were more bananas or less chocolate here as I could barely taste the tartness of the bananas with all the chocolate that was in the panini.

Overall, the food here at Town is very good to excellent, however, I don't think much of the ambiance or the service.  The wait staff didn't seem too attentive to our needs at all.  We waited for several minutes before being greeted upon entering, our water wasn't filled at regular intervals and no one really came around to question how we were doing.  During dinner, the noise was so loud that we stopped talking so that we wouldn't be shouting at each other.  Maybe that's why I'll stick to lunches here.  The food is great, but the noise is a little more subdued.

Town
3435 Waialae Avenue Suite 103
Telephone:  808.735.5900

Comments

[Big BoK]

Hey..Reid,
Sounds and look awesome..!! everything looked awesome..!! I need to go find a good meal..!

[AugustusGloop]

I like the sound of a dessert panini! What a great idea.

[Reid]

Hi Big BoK,

It was really good, especially the chicken and the dessert! I'm definitely going to keep coming here, though maybe not for dinner.

Hi AG,

I almost thought of not posting the picture of that dessert panini so that I could save the idea for later. I think I'm going to try to do something like this really soon.

[Kirk]

Reid - The food looks fabulous, that pasta had my stomach growling! I really don't understand the "cold" atmosphere though. Seems like great food bad design concept.

[Midge]

The food looks wonderful and I found the idea of a dessert panini more than a little intriguing.

[clare eats]

Wow I bet your relative is annoyed! at least they will find out why there service stinks :P
at least the fod was good though ;)

[James]

Food looks great Reid! But where was the Aloha? Looks like a really nice place though... I might have to check this place out next time i come up. Thanks for the review!

[lance]

Whenever I drive by, I thought it sure looks like a "social place". I guess I was correct about the level of noise. Glad to know the food's great. They sure look good and by your review, I've got to try it. Like you said though, probably for lunch.

[Gail]

Hi Reid,

How would you rate it for value overall? Also, if you had to choose, do you prefer 12th Avenue Grill or town? That chicken looks fabulous. Nice write up again and good to get your perspective.
The noise would drive me nuts.

[Reid]

Hi Kirk,

The food looked good and was really tasty too. The interior was nicely appointed, however, it just didn't have that cosy feel to it, you know what I mean? The employees' nonchalant didn't help either.

Hi Midge,

Nice to hear from you again! The food looked good and tasted even better. The panini was the only thing on the dessert menu to really stand out. I'm glad I tried it.

Hi Clare,

Yes indeed. At least the food was good. =)

Hi James,

The food was good, but it didn't really strike me as a "local" sort of place. I hope you do get to try the food here on your next visit to Oahu.

Hi Lance,

Yes, at night it can get to be very crowded and very noisy. To think I was eating out on a Thursday night! The food is good, but I like the more subdued atmosphere of the lunchtime crowd.

Hi Gail,

For overall value, that's a hard one. I'd have to say that the food here is excellent, but the service and the ambiance brings the entire experience down several notches. Taking all things into consideration, I would give it a 7.5 out of 10.

For anyone that hasn't been, but wants to try, I would suggest a visit during lunch when it is much quieter. Ask for a seat away from the bar, preferably not along the wall. You really don't want to sit on that banquette for the duration of your meal.

To be perfectly honest, I prefer the food here to the food at 12th Avenue Grill. And yes, the chicken was really good. It was perfectly cooked and seasoned.

BTW...the noise did drive me nuts, it was almost unbearable.

[Jimmy]

I haven't been to his restaurant yet, but I hear great things about the food that Ed Kenney is putting out at Town. Ed Kenney use to be the executive chef/general manager at the restaurant I work at before he went on to open Town.
Ed wanted me to work for him and create desserts for his restaurant because the desserts I created for him when he was working with me were desserts that other restaurants weren't serving and more inline to Ed's philosophy on food, which is to keep things simple. (He is a supporter of the Slow Food movement).
That chicken he serves is the same chicken that he use to serve when he was working at the YWCA. The SECRET to that great chicken is to brine it. Very simple.

[Jo]

Yep, I'm a brining fan myself. Don't bother trying a beer brine though. Not enough flavor to make it worth the cost.

[Julia]

The food here look and sound really fantastic, especially the roasted chicken. The dessert panini is an interesting idea too.

I can empathize with you on the noise issue. There was also this popular eatery that I went to that had terrible acoustics. All the furnishings had hard surfaces, and my friend and I had to shout to even hear ourselves. It wasn't a pleasant experience even though the food was pretty good.

[Reid]

Hi Jimmy,

Thank you for visiting my weblog. I don't normally read other reviews of restaurants and I try not to familiarize myself with individual chefs. I have not heard of Ed Kenney before dining here so I'm not sure where he cooked at previously.

That said the food here is quite delicious as are the desserts. Perhaps you might want to reconsider working for him as I think he has a really good thing going for him right now. All he needs to do is get his waitstaff up to speed and install some noise calming features in the restaurant and he'll be good to go.

I had a hunch that the chicken was brined before cooking. It had a tender juiciness to it...

Thanks for stopping by.

Hi Jo,

I know exactly what you mean!

Hi Julia,

For me, eating out is the complete experience and even though the food here was really good, I probably wouldn't come only because I can't stand to eat in all with all the noise. It's actually quite annoying.

The dessert panini was actually the most interesting here. I think I'm going to try to do something similar sometime. =)

[cheryl]

I completely agree with you about the service. Me and my mom had a horrible experience. Service was slow and instead of bringing my rock shrimp pasta they put a lamb ragout thingee. He just dropped it and left immediately so it took me almost 5 mins to flag someone down to tell them it was the wrong order. He left it in front of me while he went to tell the waiter who still didn't remove it for another 5 minutes. They gave a half hearted apology and that was it...was hoping they would comp me something but oh well. The table next to me was so frustrated because they couldn't get wineglasses for the wine they brought even after asking the waiter three times. One of the customers got up and got them from the bar himself. They really need to fix the service issue for the prices they charge. The food was good but I would never go back.

[Reid]

Hi Cheryl,

I'm sorry that you had a bad experience there and I'm glad that mine was not as bad as yours was. If you really like the food there, try to visit for a late lunch. It is much different then. It's quiet and the service is better.