HOORAY for the owners of Zia's Caffe, who realized Kailua ain't big enough for three expensive Italian restaurants. Pasta priced just right,
at Zia’s CaffeStick to Assaggio's and Baci Bistro for special occasions. Zia's is more of an every day place, with a top entree price of $9.95 for shrimp scampi.
The cooking can best be described as home style. If you want to get swell-headed about it, Zia's pastas will probably spur you to brag about your own. Nevertheless, no one wants to cook every day, and this is the perfect place for a quick hit, a no-nonsense meal at a fair price.
Meals start out with bread and a small portion of garlicky olive tapenade, pureed to a fine consistency. If they doled out any more of the delicious tapenade, they'd have patrons stuffed with bread and little else.
An appetizer of mussels marinara ($6.95), steamed in garlic water, then stirred with a tomato-chianti sauce, rivals that offered by Assaggio's. Most pastas ($4.95-$6.95) are handled simply, tossed with a little olive oil and Parmesan, or a light marinara sauce. One of the more successful pasta dishes is the clam with garlic ($7.95), with chopped clams of canned origin.
The plain pasta is OK when accompanying a house specialty of robust eggplant parmesan ($7.95), but seems lacking when paired with the aforementioned scampi -- five pieces of shrimp sauteed in white wine with garlic and a little butter -- atop a vast starchy field of spaghetti with barely a hint of flavor.
And forget the chicken piccata ($8.95). The dry chicken fingers could be mistaken for pieces of driftwood that land on Kailua beaches.
Maybe you'll have better luck trying one of Zia's Italian baked potatoes, stuffed with three of your choice of ingredients -- such as roasted garlic, sauteed mushrooms, roasted red peppers, Sicilian sausage, and more -- for $4.95.
I'd also return for the excellent sausage, pepper and onion sandwich ($6.95), a Spadaro Italian sausage tucked into an Italian roll with green peppers, onions, tomato sauce and melted mozzarella.
Zia's Caffe: 201 Hamakua Drive (near Jaron's)
Hours: 5 to 9 p.m. daily; 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays through Fridays
Prices: About $20 to $25 for two, without drinks
Call: 262-7168
When a beloved restaurant disappears, patrons need a period of mourning. Such is the case with Kailua's Kolohe Hawaiian Restaurant, whose owner retired, taking with him a bunch of memories and photos off the wall of customers past, including occasional customer Jason Scott Lee. Cheap eats!
Many who enter Kolohe's space now that it is Kikue Restaurant have been walking out utterly confused, checking next door to find out if they've absent-mindedly walked into some kind of twilight zone.
They're not prepared to see Hawaiian plates on the same menu as okazu, saimin and American breakfasts as cooked up by a former Suehiro employee.
Once they recover from their shock, they'll find the deal here is breakfast. A mere $1.45 will buy you three large, if dry, pancakes. It's nothing a heavy dose of syrup can't fix. I prefer to get the $2.25 breakfast with a scoop of rice, hash brown, an egg prepared your way and two pieces of Spam.
Kikue is at 442 Uluniu St. Call 262-9040.
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Nadine Kam's restaurant reviews run on Thursdays. Reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Bulletin. Star ratings are based on comparisons of similar restaurants:
-- excellent;
To recommend a restaurant, write: The Weekly Eater, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802. Or send e-mail to features@starbulletin.com
