Locavore Day 4 - Town

You'd think that with some of the best coffee in the world grown on these shores, Hawaii coffeeshops would be tripping over themselves to serve local beans. It just ain't so. I'm something of a bedouin, working most of the day from a handful of coffeeshops around town. There's only one name in my circles reliably features Kona coffee and that's the Honolulu Coffee Company. Kudos to them. Today however I landed at Covenant Books & Coffee where the brew of the day was... Sumatra. Distance between Honolulu and Sumatra: 6871 miles. Once I explained my locavore intentions to the staff they were very cool about brewing up a cup of Kona just for me. Kudos to Covenant.

It was one of those super busy work days where time got away from me. Somewhere in the middle I had a banana and polished off the last of the poke from Tamura's. Then the clock showed quittin' time and I hadn't put a second's thought into what to make for dinner. Rather than slog through grocery store lines at pau hana time, we made reservations at Town.

I like Town for three reasons:

1. They serve great food,
2. they source locally whenever possible, and
3. they don't seem to mind when I show up multiple days in a row.

We explained to our server the desire to avoid any non-local food and then basically said, "omakase." Bring us what you want and we'll share around the table.

The food and service at Town have always been good, but this time they were off...the...hook. Truly amazing. Plates came one after another at the perfect pace with just the right amount of explanation. To start, a salad of Maʻo greens (Waianae), Kau orange (Big Island) and beets topped with ricotta insalata and almonds. Neither ricotta insalata nor almonds are available from Hawaii, so those were permissable by our ground rules for the evening. (We bent the rules slightly for products unattainable locally.)

On the heels of our salad came island pork agnolotti served with a pepper jam made from red peppers grown in front of the restaurant. In the words of Chef Ed as he brought it out, "It doesn't get more local than that!" The unbelievably fluffy pork filling made this our favorite of the evening.

Next up was a pork sausage, papaya (Kahuku) and house-stretched mozzarella antipasto. The flavors blended well, and we were impressed that the chefs had broken down a whole boar to make their own sausage. For our pasta course we were presented gnocchi with kabocha squash (Maui) with sage (Palolo Valley). The gnocchi were pillowy and smooth. Man, I love gnocchi.

Finally, we ended with island moi on a bed of greens (Waianae) and long squash (Waimanalo) with tomato and strawberry radishes from Kahuku. The skin of the moi was perfectly crisp, as it should be, and topped with salsa verde.

Considering the quality of the food, the price for the evening was very reasonable at just $78 for four people before tip. More importantly today, it was also entirely within the spirit locavore week and a timely reminder that eating local doesn't mean giving up on great food.

Track progress through the other six days of locavore week.