Tag Archives: Hawaiian food

Trailblazer Tavern — A Fantastical Taste of Hawaii, and Beyond

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Fried chicken -- Trailblazer Tavern-style.
Fried chicken — Trailblazer Tavern-style.

San Francisco’s Trailblazer Tavern — a collaboration between home-grown Chef Michael Mina, Honolulu chefs and husband-and-wife Wade Ueoka and Michelle Karr-Ueoka, and Marc Benioff’s Salesforce — is full of whimsy from the get-go.

Enter through the Salesforce East building’s lobby and be greeted by a lifelike LED-projection of fish swimming overhead, giving the impression of being at an actual aquarium. There are also playful, cartoon-ish sculptures of a bear, goat, Albert Einstein, and Astro — all part of the official Salesforce Trailblazer Crew, who are meant to represent how the company blazes new trails.

That extends to the restaurant, which opened in late 2018 to serve modern, upscale Hawaiian food in the heart of downtown San Francisco.

Part of the Trailblazer Crew.
Part of the Trailblazer Crew.
So, apparently, is Einstein.
So, apparently, is Einstein.

This is not the first partnership between Mina, Ueoka, and Karr-Ueoka, The couple also opened Burger Hale inside Mina’s The Street Food Hall in Honolulu.

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Taking Hawaiian Food To Another Level at Aina

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So tender, the meat literally does fall right off these divine ribs at Aina.

So tender, the meat literally does fall right off these divine ribs at Aina.

 

When dear friends recently visited from the Midwest, I knew I wanted to take them somewhere to dine in San Francisco that would give them a taste of something new, fresh, modern, and fun.

The choice, of course, was Aina, because the odds were that they hadn’t experienced much Hawaiian cuisine in Wisconsin, and certainly none on this level.

This small gem in the Dogpatch neighborhood is always packed. In fact, at brunch, there is almost always a line out the door.

Owned by Chef Jordan Keao and his wife Cheryl Liew, and assisted by Chef de Cuisine Chris Yang, Aina’s flavors will be familiar to anyone who’s ever visited Hawaii. But the form that they take has been refined considerably, as our party found on a recent Saturday night when we dined and paid our own tab.

A taste of Hawaii in San Francisco.

A taste of Hawaii in San Francisco.

The chef's counter offers a tasting menu.

The chef’s counter offers a tasting menu.

While the counter seats are reserved for Aina’s tasting menu, the regular dining room orders off the a la carte menu.

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A Whale of A Gift

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Delicious whale tail-shaped cookies from Honolulu Cookie Company.

Delicious whale tail-shaped cookies from Honolulu Cookie Company.

 

Bypass all the craziness of crowds at the mall today — and still give a whale of gift to friends and family this holiday season.

Honolulu Cookie Company’s newest creation is exactly that — a shortbread cookie shaped like the tail of a Hawaiian Humpback whale.

The Hawaiian Islands boast one of the most important Humpback whale habitats on the planet. The whales migrate to Hawaii each year to reproduce.

The cookie company will be donating a bevy of its whale cookies to fund-raising and educational events hosted by Pacific Marine Life Foundation, a non-profit that supports marine research and conservation in the Pacific basin.

Besides drawing more attention to the whales, the cookies are just plain delicious, as evidenced by the sample I recently had a chance to try.

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