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TheBuzz Erika Engle |
STAR-BULLETIN FILE
D.K. Kodama, Sansei chef-owner, entertained an audience at a November 2002 competition. Sansei is opening two restaurant concepts this fall in Waikiki.
Sansei expanding
to Waikiki, along
with a steak houseCHEF-OWNER D.K. Kodama is expanding his Sansei Seafood Restaurant & Sushi Bar into Waikiki, but there's going to be a steak house too.
The two restaurant concepts will have separate kitchens but a shared bar and will open in the old Third Floor and Acqua space in the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort this fall.
The more than 10,000-square-foot space has been vacant since November 2000, when Marriott International Inc. assumed management of the old Hawaiian Regent Hotel. The cavernous spot has been gutted to make way for build-out by Maui-based Mitch Kysar Construction, based on designs by Gerald Gambill.
Each restaurant will have 140 seats including the bar, a lanai and a beach view, but "it will feel like two different restaurants, except when you're at the bar," Kodama said.
"The furniture will be a little different; the flatware, tables, and china will be different." Each will have its own menu; no cross-concept ordering.
So why have two restaurant concepts in the same space?
"Sansei's concept is good for about 5,600 max," Kodama said. For the other half of the square footage, "a steak house is a perfect thing. People love steak."
Grueling research visiting the top five steak houses on the mainland helped cement Kodama's idea for his upcoming venue. It's going to be a traditional steak house. Period.
His steak sojourn took him from Texas, a state that knows its beef, to New York, where he ate at the famed Peter Luger Steak House, which serves dry-aged beef. He also had one of those famous $49 burgers at Daniel Boulud's DB Bistro Moderne, but fell back to the dry-aged beef.
"We're going to dry-age our steaks on-premises ... it's kind of a science but the flavor is so incredible and we're buying special broilers too, to seal in the juices and the flavor."
Keeping the two ends of the steak house spectrum in mind, from high-end to economy-priced, Kodama would watch people leaving the restaurants. The higher quality steak they'd eaten, the more customers would say "that was a great steak," he said. They'll forget the price after awhile and go back for more, whereas a mediocre steak might leave someone saying "gosh, that wasn't very good."
"Price definitely matters, don't get me wrong, but quality matters a lot more," said Kodama.
Chuck Furuya, Hawaii's only master sommelier, is overseeing all operations for the Sansei restaurants and Maui's Vino restaurant, in which he is a partner. Kodama referred to veteran restaurant manager Furuya as his chief operating officer.
Asked about the COO title, Furuya said, "was there an "L" at the end?" He prefers to talk about his synergy with Kodama and the ohana aspects of running the business.
Among Furuya's tasks in the expansion is building the wine program. Part of the service will include decanting the red wines in Riedel crystal from Austria. "Not just the expensive red wine, but every red wine. We're sort of taking a Napa Valley approach to that because wine is a serious thing," said Kodama.
Is that just another way to jack up the mark-up on a bottle of wine? They say no.
Both Kodama and Furuya are adamant about providing diners with an experience that includes really good wine at a great price. Each of them said it almost verbatim.
Where some restaurants sell a Silver Oak wine for $100 to $125, their Vino restaurant in Kapalua serves it for $65, Furuya said.
He is having a 16-spigot cruvinet built for the Waikiki bar; some will be dedicated to Sansei, the others, to the steak house, though "there will be some overlap," Furuya said.
Sansei has come up with, believe it or not, Atkins-friendly sushi. No rice. Really.
"When you think about it, sashimi is considered a style of sushi, so there will be poke-like things, or we incorporate different things, like gobo and hamachi with pumpkin seed oil," Furuya said.
The rice-free sushi items were prepared with wine pairings in mind, of course.
Sansei faithful also will have something to "wine" about at Restaurant Row in the coming months.
Late this summer, Kodama and Furuya will whet many Oahu appetites with a bit of cross-branding from Vino. Furuya rattled off the names of hard-to-find Italian wines such as Ischia, Granato and Sagrantino, which may be offered as part of the incoming wine bar at Sansei Restaurant Row. The wine bar also will offer small servings of Vino's menu selections.
Kodama referred to them as tapas, but Furuya wanted to make it clear that the food will be Italian, not Spanish.
The two are thinking about pau-hana operation of the wine bar, but that and other big ideas for the Restaurant Row location are still being tweaked.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
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
