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TheBuzz
Erika Engle
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Oahu gets a third Beard Papa, at Salt Lake Shopping Center
BEARD PAPA is growing in Hawaii. Oahu now has three locations where the faithful can pick up Beard Papa's cream puffs, and more are on the way.
They are wildly popular among devotees, who would wait for hours in line to buy a half-dozen of the choux pastry filled with various flavors of cream fillings.
A Beard Papa store quietly opened Aug. 12 in Salt Lake Shopping Center, right next door to another shop that opened the same day -- a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf cafe. Hawaii Beard Papa shops and local locations of Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf are owned by the
Sullivan Family of Cos., parent company of Foodland Super Market Ltd.
The Salt Lake Beard Papa joins the Waikiki location, which opened last summer inside the Food Pantry at 2370 Kuhio Ave., and Oahu's second Beard Papa in the Hawaii Kai Foodland.
It's odd to characterize them as such, but the Hawaii Beard Papas will have two new sister Beard Papas by the end of the year.
One will be in the Pearl City Shopping Center. There is a Foodland in that complex, but the Beard Papa there will be a stand-alone store, to be open by late September or early October, said Sheryl Toda, Foodland's director of corporate communications.
A Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf also will open in the center and will have a drive-through window, she said.
For townies, Beard Papa's cream puffs will be available at a stand-alone store fronting Ward Centre on Auahi Street by the end of the year. There are no plans to open a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf location in the Starbucks-saturated Ward complex.
Beard Papa's cream puffs one day will be served in Ewa Beach and in the under-construction Outrigger Waikiki Beach Walk project, according to the Web site of Muginoho USA Inc., the U.S. arm of Beard Papa's Japan-based parent company, Muginoho Ltd.
Oahu residents used to have to wait to go cream-filled choux-shopping until Muginoho's periodic treks to Shirokiya for product demonstrations -- and wait they did, in lines that would snake through the store.
The Salt Lake Beard Papa and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf shops will celebrate their grand opening from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. Coupons for free half-dozens will be given to the first 100 people and there will be "free samples throughout the day, entertainment, balloon animals and prizes," Toda said.
Not duck soup
Alan Wong, one of the 12 founders of the Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement, has gotten some more national ink.
Not in one of those highfalutin food and wine magazines this time, but in
Restaurant Business magazine, an industry publication.
The magazine asked industry insiders to name names when it comes to the best of everything, from burgers to steaks and pancakes to French fries, and the only Hawaii restaurant listed was Alan Wong's -- for its nachos.
For real!
Phil Roberts, an executive with Parasole Restaurant Holdings, a Minnesota-based restaurant development company, singled out the "roast duck and a sweetish sauce" of the Chinatown Roast Duck Nacho at Alan Wong's Restaurant.
Chef Wong says dining on the dish is "like eating Peking duck with avocado salsa. It's fun, different, but tastes great."
Alan Wong's Project Manager Leigh Ito said it was "fun to get picked up" by a national trade publication and flattering that "someone out there recognizes our efforts."
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4747, 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