Liholiho Yacht Club

Paul and I went out to Liholiho Yacht Club tonight.  I've heard about this place for a couple of years and I have been extremely eager to try them out.  So when the reservation was about to open up for today's date, I booked right away and snagged a 5:30 pm reservation.

We arrived a little early for our reservation but we were seated right away.  The restaurant has an open kitchen right in the middle and a contemporary vibe to it.  Our server was pleasant but a little distant, which was fine for me.  Servers that are too perky make me uncomfortable (I know, I'm weird!).  

Our server suggested we order 3 items from their small plates/appetizer section and 1 from their entree section as their dishes were designed for sharing.  We started with tuna poke, then moved on to beef tongue steam buns (my favorite), grilled short ribs with boned marrow and escargot, and a fried rice with bay shrimp, abalone mushroom, and... spam!  They make their own spam in house, not the kind that we buy from the supermarket.

grilled shortrib, escargo,
bone marrow, mushrooms

Surprisingly, the weakest dish for me was the short ribs.  It was tasty but I would have done the plate differently.  Maybe I was just not too happy with the bone marrow stuffed with escargot and covered with breadcrumbs.  When I order bone marrow, I like to taste the marrow, that delicate fattiness that coats your mouth.  But the bone marrow ended up tasting like escargot and bread crumbs; they are not bad flavors, but the marrow's flavor was just to weak to stand up against the other flavors present.  The short ribs was cooked perfectly but I felt like it was missing something that I just couldn't put my finger on.  

Don't get me wrong.  The short rib dish was still good.  Just not as good as the other dishes we ordered.  The tuna poke was perfectly fresh, served on a crispy seaweed.  My favorite dish was the beef tongue served with kimchi, pickled cucumber, in a poppyseed steam bun.  So delicious!  I'm going to try to replicate this dish at home and add it to my repertoire! =)  The fried rice was good and went really well with the short ribs that we ordered.  

beef tongue with kimchi, cucumber and poppyseed steam bun

fried rice with bay shrimp, spam, and abalone mushroom

It might seem like a lot of food but we had room for dessert!  We ordered the Baked Hawaii and it came with a little sparkler for the evening's celebration.  I saw this dessert on yelp and knew it looked really pretty but I had my reservations because I'm not a big fan of meringue (I don't like that eggy taste).  I'm glad I took the plunge with this dessert!  The meringue was perfect!  Not eggy at all! It was light and creamy and not overly sweet. 

baked hawaii - caramelized pineapple ice cream
vanilla chiffon
doesn't it look so pretty????

I would love to go back and try some more of their dishes.  But to be honest, I could just order those beef tongue buns and a glass of beer and be perfectly happy.  =)