Chef Mavro and Kim Kar­alovich of The Wine Stop joined HPR’s Judy Neale on air  this morn­ing to encour­age lis­ten­ers to call in sup­port.  The restaurant’s annual Christ­mas in Provence din­ner on Decem­ber 3 is sold out and promises to be another fes­tive gath­er­ing of HPR fans.

Chef Mavro restau­rant won the cov­eted “Critic’s Choice” award at the Hon­olulu Advertiser’s ‘Ilima award gala show last night, Octo­ber 12, at Dia­mond Head The­ater. Accept­ing for the restau­rant was Chef de Cui­sine Kevin Chong accom­pa­nied by his son Matias already dressed in a mini chef jacket!

Kevin Chong & son accept Critic’s Choice award for Chef Mavro restaurant

I was in France for the last days of sum­mer. Sep­tem­ber is the best time to visit Provence. Half of the tourists are gone, the tem­per­a­ture aver­age 75. I found myself relax­ing on the beach in Saint Tropez before hav­ing lunch at the Club 55. This is nearly impos­si­ble between June 1st and August 31st if you are not Johnny Depp or make a reser­va­tion 2 months in advance.
The taste of the last figs and white peaches is still lin­ger­ing in my mouth. I had the last grilled sar­dines of the sea­son. But you know what I like the best about the end of summer…the begin­ning of fall.
We were in the mid­dle of lunch on a ter­race in Col­lo­bri­eres in the “Mas­sif des Mores” when we got caught by the rain. My wife asked me if it was the end of this beau­ti­ful weather? I said no this is the begin­ning of the cèpe mush­room sea­son. I was right. Two days after every restau­rant in the region had cèpes in the menu. Just sauté with extra vir­gin olive oil and a touch of gar­lic (I am going to cry…).
Fall is also the sea­son of shell­fish, oys­ters, sea urchin, mus­sels, clams and… “vio­lets.” I am not aware of any trans­la­tion for “vio­lets” that you can find only in Provence and Greece. It is a small shell­fish looks like a dark stone but is soft. Spilt with a knife and you find inside the bright yel­low to saf­fron color “vio­let” which taste like noth­ing else in the word. Eat­ing “vio­lets” is like eating…let me see…eating in one bite all the con­tent of the seas and the oceans of the planet at once. If you visit Provence in autumn don’t miss this oppor­tu­nity, go to the port of Cas­sis try “vio­lets” with a glass of white wine and you can say “O temps sus­pend ton vol et vous heures prop­ices sus­pendez votre cours …” trans­la­tion, “oh time please stop…,” by Lamar­tine. I drive my wife crazy, she con­sid­ers fall as the most roman­tic sea­son of the year and all I can dream about is mush­rooms, game and shell­fish.
So happy to be back home in Hon­olulu after a fam­ily vaca­tion in Provence. Time to start the fall menu, of course we are in Hawaii and not in Provence but with Kevin Chong our Chef de Cui­sine we find a way through local ingre­di­ents to have you enjoy the fla­vors of the Mediter­ranean with the beau­ti­ful fla­vors of Hawaii.
No “vio­lets”? Let’s use Big Island abalone, mar­i­nate in escabeche and serve with manchego cheese cro­quette and Ser­rano ham. The com­bi­na­tion of ingre­di­ents attracts a Ger­man Ries­ling from Voll­rads cho­sen by our wine com­mit­tee. The white peach over­tone of the wine matches per­fectly these Mediter­ranean fla­vors.
What about Maitake mush­rooms instead of cèpes? This time the dish has a very strong Viet­namese influ­ence from our sous-chef Andrew Le. The maitake are sautéed with green papaya shav­ings, mush­room broth fla­vored with galan­gal and kaf­fir lime, served with Sum­ida water­cress. No won­der we call this recipe “Indo­chine,” we can­not deny the French tech­nique of the exe­cu­tion. The spicy Ital­ian Pinot Gri­gio from Jer­mann was the best pair­ing.
But let me talk to you about our best Lob­ster recipe ever (not again…yes). Kevin Chong who worked in Mex­ico came back home with some strong His­panic inspi­ra­tions. Kevin pro­poses this out­stand­ing Lob­ster Paella. The lob­ster as always is cooked “à la coque” (in the shell). The essence of lob­ster fla­vored with Chorizo and the gar­nish made of roasted red bell pep­pers, green olives and Eng­lish peas is quite tra­di­tional. The rice fla­vored with saf­fron is not any rice but puff rice flakes served table side and float­ing lightly above the dish…wow (sorry to get so excited). The wine is…red,I guess because the inten­sity of the dish and the pres­ence of the chorizo. Every­body voted for this Aus­tralian Pinot Noir, Saint Clair, 2006 Vicar’s Choice from Marlborough.

(if you would like to receive the entire let­ter high­light­ing addi­tional recipes, please send us an email with “Request Fall Menu let­ter” in the sub­ject line).