TheBuzz
TheBuzz
An odd Hawaii connection to events of Sept. 11 in New York: Maui restaurateur Bob Longhi said his Lahaina and Wailea restaurants go through 300 to 500 Maine lobsters per week -- and a Longhi's-bound shipment was aboard one of the flights that crashed into the World Trade Center. Don’t complain about
not getting your lobsterLoathe as your columnist is to write about who was seen eating at which restaurant, Longhi left Honolulu yesterday after conducting some business and was asked where he dines while here.
"I like the ethnic places," he said, naming Chai's Island Bistro and Yanagi Sushi. He also favors Michel's at the Colony Surf and Matteo's, among a list of others.
Longhi praised Hoku's at the Kahala Mandarin Oriental for the several-course meal he'd enjoyed the night before, describing it in specific detail, "and I'm hard to please," he said.
So hard to please, in fact, that his Maui restaurants use only fresh basil and asparagus grown on Maui. He also boasts that he has fresh raspberries year-round.
"There's not a restaurant in the world that has better melons than we do," he adds. Four different varieties, he said.
Speaking of restaurants
Nick's Fishmarket doesn't have Pat Bowlen to kick around anymore. "Pat has quietly divested himself of ownership," said former Managing Director Fred Hemmings (who also happens to be the Republican state Senator for Kailua and Waimanalo).The more than 30-year-old Waikiki eatery was the only one of the Nick's -- in Lahaina, Chicago and Philadelphia -- with which Bowlen had involvement, Hemmings said.
Bowlen is "devoting 110 percent of his energy to National Football League franchise known as the Denver Broncos (which he owns)," Hemmings said, but maintains a residence in the islands and comes here in the off-season to golf, canoe-surf and work out.
Hawaii is "a great joy for him," Hemmings said.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com