TheBuzz Erika Engle

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Hilton Hawaiian Village is offering a Food Network Travel Package

HILTON Hawaiian Village is one of 11 Hilton Hotels properties nationwide kicking off a special promotion with the Food Network this week.

The hotels are offering a Food Network Travel Package that includes a four-course tasting menu with wine pairings, specific to each destination, an autographed menu and tote bag containing Food Network goodies.

The tasting menu for two will be available exclusively to guests who have booked the special travel package, which starts at $459 the first night and additional nights for $249. There are no kamaaina rates for the promotion.

At Cityscape at Hilton San Francisco, the menu will include ahi and won ton chips. Not so exotic to us local folk as might be the piroshkis stuffed with beef tenderloin, Maine lobster and Cornish game hen that will be served by Nikolai's Roof at the Hilton Atlanta.

At Hilton Hawaiian Village, Bali by the Sea will be presenting a menu created by Executive Chef Daniel LaGarde.

At the beginning of service, guests will receive a chef's explanation of the repast in their future -- and the sommelier or wine steward also will visit the table to discuss the oenology of it all.

The first course, titled "A Taste of Hawaii," features lump crab cake, ahi and Kona kampachi sashimi, roasted beet salad and sugar cane-crusted scallop, paired with CF Muller Thurgau Eurasia.

Next up, Bali by the Sea Salad with Manoa and butter lettuce hearts, avocado, sweet Kamiya papaya, and poached, chilled shrimp with Bali champagne dressing, served with a glass of CF Euro-Asian Riesling.

Not for nothing, the CF in front of the wine name indicates it is the private label wine of local boy and master sommelier Chuck Furuya. How many local boys do you know with their own wine label?

The entree features sautéed opakapaka and petite Black Angus filet mignon. The fish is the restaurant's signature entree, crusted with macadamia nuts and cilantro with kaffir lime sauce; the beef, with marchand de vin sauce. The surf and turf is plated with Molokai purple sweet potato, fresh island vegetables and Hamakua mushrooms. The main event will be paired with Au Bon Climat Pinot Noir Santa Barbara.

Dessert will be the Grande Finale Sampler of Hawaiian vanilla bean creme brulee, chocolate tower with raspberry coulis with macadamia nut ice cream and seasonal berries. Gotta get that five-a-day, after all.

An autographed commemorative menu will be presented at meal's end, and guests also will receive a travel guide, a travel-and-food focused DVD and cookbook from Food Network Kitchens titled, "How to Boil Water."

A show by the same name was one of Food Network's first programs -- it was a show from which then-budding celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse was fired for being "overqualified," he said in a long-ago interview.

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Bus bidding

On the Net: » www.govliquidation.com

By the time you read this, bidding may be hot and heavy for five, 48-passenger Saab-Scania buses in Kapolei -- but don't run out to your car to drive out there just yet.

The auction is online, being handled by Arizona-based Government Liquidation LLC. The company liquidates surplus military stuff from computers to helicopter rotor blades, in partnership with the U.S. Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service.

The three-day auction on the late-1980s buses will end at noon Thursday, Hawaii time.