TheBuzz
TheBuzz
To partake of
Parisian pastries is
preferable to parlezThe original French festival will go on and one needn't speak the language to participate.
It won't be the huge, all-things-Francaise, town-wide "capital F" festival where even the light poles are festooned with Eiffel tower banners. Rather, La Mer at Halekulani is pressing forward with the French Week culinary tradition it started a full year before the grande festival event began.
The ante-room at the top of the stairs just outside the restaurant is filled with an intoxicating aroma of chocolate emanating from a large chocolate replica of the Eiffel tower topped with nonedible Hawaiian, American and French flags.
Joining La Mer chef de cuisine Yves Garnier for French food frolicking are chef de cuisine Joel Garault of Hotel Hermitage's Le Vistamar Monte Carlo and corporate pastry chef and professor Benoit Perruchon-Monge of the Technical School of Hotel and Tourism in Monaco.
The chefs have combined to prepare special, limited-time dishes that have been added to the La Mer menu and will be offered starting this evening.
From appetizers to entrees, French Week fare at La Mer includes a young salad with ricotta and prawn rolled in zucchini at $24 and John Dory fillet glazed with anise, broccoli-hazelnut puree and panisse fries for $36.
A regular feature on the La Mer menu is Washugyu, beef which is the result of breeding Japan's famous Kobe-beef bulls with U.S.-favored Black Angus cows.
In Hawaii it is served exclusively at La Mer, typically in three different preparations on a single plate for $48, according to Gerald Glennon, executive assistant manager of the hotel.
Tomorrow chefs Garault and Garnier begin three days of sold-out workshops teaching preparation of multicourse gourmet meals in the kitchen at La Mer. Participation cost $150 for each 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. session and with class size limited to 12 students, the Nov. 2-to-4 workshops quickly sold out. Eighty percent of the students are local residents, said Joyce Matsumoto, Halekulani director of public relations.
Some seats are still available for a demonstration by professeur de patisserie Perruchon-Monge from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday Nov. 7; admission is $50.
The 2002 French Festival was canceled not long after the 2001 event last November, which suffered a decline in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. The 2001 event was staged at a cost of $2 million, shouldered by 15 to 18 core businesses involved.
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