The Weekly Eater
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"Fully Committed": Playing at 8 p.m. today and Wednesday through Sunday at the ARTS at Marks Garage, 1159 Nuuanu Ave. Tickets: $15. Indigo dinner-show package available for $48. Call 521-9699 to reserve. A funny solo stage show
resonates with the eatery beatAh, the dinner reservation. Nothing to it, right? In certain cities it can be a monumental task as starlets, social climbers, nouveau riche, old money and out-of-towners struggle to attain that Holy Grail -- the best table in the house, the height of socio-gastronomic achievement.
I can understand the dilemma of being an out-of-towner trying to nab a special reservation for the brief time you're in a new city. At the Herbfarm outside Seattle, reservations are taken only a few days a year for up to six months in advance. I drove there anyway before lunch, hoping for a cancellation -- hah! There's a daily waiting list for the waiting list -- only to be left staring at the lucky diners and llamas in the yard.
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At Gary Danko in San Francisco, the restaurant was booked, but coming in at 6:30 p.m. got me a seat at the bar next to Mayor Willie Brown, who was waiting as staffers scrambled for better accommodations.I never even bothered trying to get into America's No. 1 must-do restaurant, the French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., where the reservationists are bribed, threatened and forced to listen to countless sob tales of dying relatives' last wishes to eat there.
In Honolulu it's relatively easy to get a reservation anytime, so I don't quite understand why some have dropped my name to make reservations, though, as one businessman 'fessed up, he uses my name because "it's fun."
Dude, you need a new tactic! And anyone who wants to hear more about the reservations game or who loves restaurants absolutely must take in Tim Bostock's production of "Fully Committed." Playwright Becky Mode's experience as an actress, waitress and coat-check girl put her on the sympathetic end of the reservationist's phone line, resulting in a feast of laughs. The comedy was rated one of the year's 10 best plays by Time magazine in 2000.
ANDREW MEADER'S work in the one-man show was so convincing, I felt as if I had just put in a full day at the office during the course of his character Sam's workday at a four-star New York restaurant. At the low end of the food chain, Sam the reservationist doesn't have the luxury of being snappish as he navigates the treacherous terrain between irate diners, impatient magazine editors, important food critics, demanding celebrities and richies, a tyrannical but insecure chef and snobby French maitre d'.
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Meader and Greg Howell share the role of Sam. On opening night Wednesday, Meader acted out all 47 callers on a stage set up like a small office at Christmastime. So distinct were his accents and changing demeanor that it was easy to visualize at least 30 developed characters, each with their own demands and eccentricities. Other callers are simply people who respond with an assured "Sure" or resigned "OK" when put on hold.Sam must weigh the merits of seating one Bunny Vandervere at Table 31, already reserved by an oil sheik. "How much of a VIP is Bunny Vandervere?" he calls on the Intercom.
"V-V-V-V-V-V," is the response.
Another person wants to know what the menu is like, and upon hearing entrees of "jicama-smoked Scottish wood squab poached in a ginger broth and wrapped in wilted spinach" and "herb-crusted grouper speckled with fresh hyssop oil on a bed of wild ramps" is relieved to hear the word "chicken" come up, only to bid a quick goodbye when told the average cost per person is $100 to $200.
Then there's fussy supermodel Naomi Campbell, whose ebullient assistant, Bryce, must relay a string of demands including a "no fat, no salt, no dairy, no sugar, no chicken, no meat, no fish, no soy, tasting menu," not to mention soft lighting and no female wait help.
Along the way, the audience feels Sam's pain, sighing along with his disappointments as he tries to take care of his personal life, and holding their breath as the chef demands to know which dummy forgot Tim Zagat's reservation. And who's this Ned Finlay whom the chef banished from the restaurant? It's never made clear, though the man sounds friendly enough.
As convincing as he is in the role, Meader said he never worked in a restaurant, though he does help man the phones at Marks Garage. "The characters aren't as eclectic, but I do end up basing them off people I've talked to on the phone. For sure, everyone uses their own tactics to get what they want."
A pre-theater dinner is offered at Indigo. It starts with a dim sum trio of lumpia-wrapped shrimp with chipotle aioli, goat cheese won tons with a fruit sauce and shiitake mushroom and chicken bao with raspberry hoisin.
Choose from entrees such as grilled chicken breast with peanut sauce, grilled rib-eye steak, delicious miso-and-black bean marinated seared salmon or my favorite, the grilled Hawaiian shrimp with Thai macadamia nut pesto.
The dinner-show package is $48 per person, which breaks down to $33 for dinner, including dessert after the show.
Dinner service starts between 6 and 6:30 p.m., and the earlier you show up, the better, so you can be out by show time at 8, as Indigo is usually fully committed itself.
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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:
To recommend a restaurant, write: The Weekly Eater, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802. Or send e-mail to nkam@starbulletin.com
excellent; very good, exceeds expectations; average; below average.
