FOUR SEASONS CUISINE ON LANAI

It is not well publicized, but Bill Gates and Prince Alwaleed bin Talai of Saudi Arabia own 95% of the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts.  They just fired their CEO because they wanted to expand from 90 properties in 36 countries to 150 as fast as possible.  No one has yet been selected.

The best of the Four Seasons in the USA include, #1 The Lodge at Koele, #3 Hualalai at Historic Kaupulehu and #4 Maui at Wailea.  Frankly, I thought the Manele Bay Resort was better than Koele, except for one glitch at the end.  I opened my lanai door to have breakfast, and a fly flew in.

Depending on who you ask, there could be up to 40 million hotels in the world.  Of the top 100, 20 are Four Seasons.  Anyway, this posting focuses on food, which began with brunch at Koele:

I ordered a Bloody Mary with a Lanai Loco Moco, which featured generous aounts of mushrooms, Portuguese sausage, a small patty of pork burger and eggs over easy, covered with a gravy that was not particularly distinctive.  But this was the good part.  I kept getting attacked by at least six flies, some of them really large.  I wondered how could the best Four Seasons in the U.S. allow this?  The last time I was confronted with this situation was at a Holiday Inn in Mumbai when the city was then called Bombay.  My posting yesterday goes into detail on where these flies originated, which is disgusting.

For dinner I went to The Dining Room, where I occupied one of only two tables being served.  Something is just not right here.  Why so few?  It's an excellent restaurant, and most of the people staying here are rich.  I ordered three preliminaries:  sweetbreads, Kahuku corn soup and a Caesar salad, with a glass of Cabernet.  All in all, okay, but the sweetbreads need something else to perk it up.

I joked with the waitress that what I really wanted was Spaghetti Bolognese, but it was not on the menu.  So she said, come back tomorrow, we'll fix it for you.  So, of course, I had to return:

This was the best Spaghetti Bolognese I've ever had.  Even the noodles were appropriately al dente.  I re-ordered the Caesar salad.  I specifically asked for some sliced raw onions and six basil leaves to be placed on the spaghetti dish.  I had a beer with this truly terrific meal.  Now, on to the Four Seasons at Manele Bay.

There are now more than 33 Nobu's around the world, and I've been to half a dozen, including the one in Honolulu.

So I passed and went to:

Clearly, while the spaghetti meal was my most satisfying on this trip, my steakhouse experience has to be the best dinner. It's called One Forty because Lanai is 140.5 square miles and 140F is the ideal temperature for a medium rare steak.  I got personalized service from Executive Sous Chef, Marcus Stewart.  This means he is #2 to the executive chef, Kevin Erving.  I ordered the five course special with accompanying wines.  Sous Chef Stewart after delivering the first course (he personally brought most of them), an exquisite and unusual poke:

Then Chef Stewart delivered an exceptional bone marrow combination, the best individual dish I had on this Lanai tour:

I mentioned that Chef Emeril in his Las Vegas restaurant found a way to add taste to his marrow, something that was lacking here, but still enjoyable, for the parsley/capers salad provided a good balance.

The wagyu beef from Snake River Farms in Idaho was particularly worthy, with that special wagyu taste and texture:

This was a flat iron, the cheapest on the list, yet, very palatable and not tough.  Remember, the best Japanese wagyu can cost up to $250/pound, so, while the American versions cannot compare, for the price, I was impressed.

The fourth course was a plate of brie and 4 year old Gouda with fruits:

Finally, two strawberry lemon cream tarts and mango sherbet:

The accompanying wines and drinks were:

Cakebread Chardonnay

Coppola Sofia Rose

Hidden Ridge Cabernet

Port




Brandy, Grand Marnier, hibiscus syrup, heated and siphoned into orange peel, mint and cloves, then poured into a cognac glass with vanilla and a cinnamon stick.:






The show was a nice touch and the hot drink with cool dessert made a pleasing contrast to finish this extraordinary meal.



Unfortunately there were flies here, too, but they thankfully disappeared at the end of dusk.  This blog is about SIMPLE SOLUTIONS, and as no one here seems to care that much about this infestation, I would like to suggest some constructive ideas.  For example, as this restaurant is totally open to the elements, what about enclosing some space with sliding glass walls so that the customers can enjoy outdoor dining after dusk?  On the other hand, my brunch restaurant at Koele was somewhat enclosed, so this space needs to be hermetically sealed. 



I bring this subject up because you never know about how the media could treat this issue someday, especially if linked to, say, bird flu and leptospirosis.  Remember, these flies fly, but they spend most their life in things like shit, which can be found all over Lanai.  There are solutions that should be readied, and more so, to prevent a worst case scenario, as these external environmental conditions must exist in other resorts around the world, and I don't remember being inconvenienced at the Four Seasons Chiang Mai, nor the one at Hualalai.  Perhaps the answer can be found in Mauritius, where there is a Four Seasons.



Well, this is no way to end an enjoyable mini-vacation, so let me go on to lunch at Kailani:

I had a gazpacho and Nobu's seared ahi salad, with a glass of Bonny Doone rose.  All exceeded my expectations.  I then got a glass of Prosecco to sit at the 

shoreline:

How can life can get any better, you say?  Well, it did, for along came Jackie and asked if I wanted a foot massage:

My driver to the airport, Clive Cabiles, is quite an extraordinary indvidual.  He thinks he is the only person to completely walk around Lanai.  This took a little more than four days.  He also swam between Maui and Lanai in 12 hours.  His daughter, Samantha, is training for the Winter Olympics as a figure skater. 

The Mokulele check-in was so simple.  First, though, you can pick up free items:

Then, passengers do not need to go through security measures because there were fewer than 30 and 

we immediately walk to the street when we arrive in Honolulu.  The views were spectacular.  First, there is a sand beach on the West side of Lanai, the opposite 

side from Manele Bay.

Hanauma Bay and the coastline near Hawaii Kai:

Amazingly enough, Mokulele's flight pattern went right by my Manoa Campus 

office (eight story blue building in the middle):

And, also my apartment, Craigside (the tallest brown building in the middle):

See the circle?  You might someday on a Mokulele flight see me having 

an evening cocktail in the pie-shaped wedge between 3 and 6 o'clock.  

Then, I looked back and saw a beautiful rainbow emanating from Nuuanu 

Valley and extending over my building.

What a day!  What a trip!

-