Hawaii,part two--Roy's

My Regular readers (both of you) know what an expert I am on ballet. Today I will expand and share my knowledge of fine dining. This is not an knowledge I was born with. I can remember my mom wanting to walk out of a restaurant because the hamburgers were up to $1.99. I never ate at a restaurant with prices in double figures until Jan's parents took us to the Miramar in Santa Cruz. So all of my knowledge has been acquired late in life.

Yesterday we went to our obligatory timeshare preview. Jan and I wanted to look into the idea of an equity trade of our two bedroom for a 3-bedroom. Though we love our many friends, we felt none of them warranted the $20,000 it would cost to add another bedroom. Anyway, there are a number of "incentives" to attend the meeting, and we chose the $75 gift certificate to Roy's Hawaiian Fusion (bet you didn't know that was the full name). Jen and Jeff chose the same, and we were planning to get reservations for Thursday evening. They called about 6 while still at the beach, said they wanted to go at 7 Wednesday night. Jan called, was told we either had to come at 6:30 or after 8, and she chose 6:30. By that time it was 6:10 and the Russells were still at the beach. Rule #1 about fine dining establishments: When they tell you there are no spots left at a certain time, they are lying!!! We got there at 6:30, were seated at 6:45 and the Russells showed up at 7-at which time the restaurant was still nearly empty.

We were seated at a table right next to the kitchen (in the actual kitchen, not around back where the indigent wait for leftovers), and the other adults were very excited about that location. See, Jen, Jeff and Jan are fans of "Iron Chef" and "Hell's Kitchen" so they fully expected the chefs to provide the evening's entertainment. They were greatly disappointed for 2 reasons: 1. There was no voice-over description and critique of the food being prepared, or a discussion of the chef's strategy. 2. At no point did the master chef scream "Get out of my kitchen," and shut the place down. There was one chef who shouted out the orders, but there was no verbal confirmation that the instructions had been heard. So the only entertainment was watching Jolie and Jeslyn discover edamame.

Drink orders were taken, menus delivered, and it was obvious our gift certificates would cover about half the check. Rule #2: At fine dining establishments like Roy's, it is not a good idea to ask about substitutions. I learned this the hard way the last time we were there, and was told that the chef prepares each meal as a unit, and substitutions would be taken as a personal affront and probably result in the chef accosting me at my table. So I didn't make that mistake this time.

Jen and Jeff shared the potstickers, showing off by eating them with chopsticks. I ordered the tomato BLT soup, and as Jolie has inherited my tastebuds, shared it with her. Jolie loves her grampa--we shared the lanai for breakfast yesterday, and though not a word was spoken it was a great beginning to the day. So, her motto with food is, "If grampa likes it (or makes it) I like it." Jeslyn on the other hand has a pretty standard, "No thank you," when I offer her food.

Jen and I ordered the rib eye--which took care of one of the gift certificates. It came with something starting with "L" which we were told is a cube of french bacon that the chef can't be troubled to slice for you. (Asking questions about the sides is OK as long as you don't then try to change them). There was something else, which I was told was Japanese spinach. Now I had already decided to have the ribeye, so I decided that I would try the spinach. This represents great growth on my part--when I was 8 my friends mom tried to make me eat her boiled spinach, and shoved it into my mouth. Being the sharing person I am, I then deposited a little spinach on everyone else's plate, without even using my hands. There were also caramelized pearl onions, and as a bonus, some fried flaked potatoes that weren't even on the menu. The steak was topped by a mushroom burgundy sauce. I shared my mushrooms with Jen, but used my fork this time. (Fine dining rule #3 is ongoing throughout the meal--Don't even TRY to empty your water glass before a hovering steward comes and fills it back up.)

Jan ordered a filet, which was half the size of our ribeye and cost a dollar more. Her "sides" were two different dipping sauces. Also there were scalloped potatoes and beets. Even though she trained be in fine dining, she didn't eat her beets. Anyone who has even looked at beets knows that was a good decision.

To the left is 3/4 of Jeff's meal. He started by saying, "I have a craving for sushi." I blame his church friends. He elected something called "Fantastic Four" or some such name. Rule #4. Even fine dining establishments can have tacky names for their entrees. The meal consisted of 4 types of fish, including raw. His meal was a couple of bucks cheaper, probably because there were no sides. He pretended to love each type. Jennifer also tasted and raved about the Opah--why would they name a fish after a grandparent?

While we were eating the waiter brought the dessert menu. At fine dining restaurants you have to order dessert early because the chefs take a half hour to prepare dessert--probably because the master chef isn't screaming at them to hurry up. Our certificates came with complimentary dessert, so we tried to pick two that could be shared by all.

There is no picture of the first one, the macadamia nut tart, because Jeff finished it before we had a chance to get the camera out. It smelled pretty good. To the left is the other dessert, the chocolate raspberry souffle. You can see the raspberry swirl and the vanilla bean ice cream. The souffle consists of a chocolate crust, filled with (Hawaii being a volcano state and all) molten chocolate. I shared this with Jen, Jan, Jeslyn and Jolie. They all enjoyed their bite.



So, I had a bowl of soup, a 16-ounce steak which I finished, two 2-inch cubes of bacon, spinach, potatoes, and most of the chocolate souffle. Since I am gaining weight on the trip without eating dessert, I stepped on the scale this morning with great fear. Lost a pound.