DON’T BE MISLED by first impressions of Belltown’s Ohana, particularly if yours run along the lines of “give me a fuckin’ break with the ‘Surf’s Up!’ thing.” Tiki Torch madness prevails, with its customary mixture of madcappery and noise (even with a relatively small crowd), and we were ready to take a quick hike. Lucky for us, we hung around; Ohana’s tweaking of Hawaiian-style fusion adds depth and grace to a cuisine with rich traditional emphasis on comfort and value, but which is sometimes short on élan.
Pupus (Hawaiian-style appetizers) and plate lunches provide the conceptual one-two punch at Ohana (which basically means “family” in Hawaii). Once we got past the kitschy bullshit and settled into the comforting shelter of a booth, the simple and attractive parade of food won us over. Ahi Poke ($7.95) served as the grand marshal. This salsa-like compote abounds in Hawaii, and Ohana’s version sparked memories of sitting on a planter in Honolulu’s Manoa District, eating poke from the Safeway deli and gazing at the Koolau mountains just beyond the store’s parking lot. The accompanying fried taro chips provided a crisp and crunchy base for the poke’s cold, firm mixture of raw ahi, green onions, soy sauce, sesame oil, and lime juice. (Georgetown’s Kauai Family Restaurant is another local purveyor of good poke.)
Next up were Lumpiang Sariwa ($5.95), Filipino-style spring rolls, filled with chilled green papaya bean sprouts, garbanzo beans, carrots, cucumber, and cabbage, all wrapped in stretchy rice paper and served with a vinegar-based garlic sauce. Refreshingly light on salt and long on garden-fresh snap, the spring rolls smartly balanced the richer poke. We passed on Spam Musubi, a bountiful hunk of rice and Spam wrapped with nori seaweed. Spam Musubi is literally everywhere in Hawaii, including 7-11. Eating Spam Musubi serves as a rite of passage for newcomers anxious to attain “local” status. When in Hawaii, beware of the pidgin-talking haole boy in the aloha shirt, loudly proclaiming his love of Spam Musubi. He probably arrived in the Islands last week.
Chef Dennis Odea is a mathematician, but the kind who knows that one plus one sometimes equals three. His Beef Skirt-Steak Teriyaki ($10.95) starts with thin strips of marinated beef and lots of rice-cooker-perfect white rice — the Hawaiian-style basics. What makes the dish special is Odea’s unique method of addition and subtraction: The beef is cut-it-with-your-elbow tender, lacking the brassy sweetness of most local teriyaki. Alongside the beef lay a row of baby bok choy cabbage, simply steamed.
The soft cabbage flavor supported the modestly sweet beef superbly, bringing to mind Kuhio Bar and Grill, Honolulu’s classic (and long defunct) pupu palace. Just down the road from the University of Hawaii, Kuhio Bar and Grill was always packed with hard-drinking college (and high school!) students, and would keep complimentary plates of pupus rolling as long as you drank your ass off. One of the best was pupu standby corned beef and cabbage, with a pale and soft cabbage cooked just like Ohana’s bok choy. Plate-lunch teriyaki has much to offer, but beautiful sides of vegetables is usually not one of its calling cards. Ohana’s successful effort to embellish the old school adds gleam to this sturdy food style.
Odea continues to build on tradition with Tonkatsu Porkloin ($10.95), another reconfiguration of a plate-lunch favorite. Breaded with a thick and airy panko crust, the pork interior’s delicate texture contrasted sharply with typical pork katsu’s use of chewy, low-end pork cuts. Ordinary plate-lunch-style food can disguise such corner-cutting with copious amounts of brown gravy, and Ohana’s refusal to follow suit upgrades the genre nicely. The accompanying slaw packed a spicy wallop, again showing that well-prepared vegetables need not be hidden from diners with the aloha spirit. Coconut ice cream ($3.95) soothed our gums, still stinging from the spicy slaw.
Ohana is a postmodern salute to the plate-lunch mecca that is Hawaii. There is a near-reverence in lovers of this kind of humanistic food — many returning islanders are familiar with the tradition of rushing to Honolulu’s Rainbow Drive-In straight from the airport — and Ohana’s clever respect for its traditions truly shines.
Ohana, 2207 First Ave, 956-9329. Lunch, Mon-Fri 11:30 am-3 pm; dinner daily 5 pm-1 am. Full bar.
Postmodern Hawaiian
Postmodern Hawaiian