Chef Mavro will be cook­ing up the very best of Provence and Hawaii!

Fresh Truf­fles flown in from France, Caviar & Big­eye Ahi in an updated Chef Mavro clas­sic, sautéed Foie Gras, Lob­ster with a chorizo puff, a great­est hit from a recent menu, 100% Wagyu, and for the grand finale a Fan­tasy of White, Milk & Dark Chocolate.

Pre­mium wine pair­ings selected by som­me­lier Todd Ash­line includ­ing Ries­ling Auslese, Cham­pagne Rosé, Sauternes, Morey St. Denis, the rare Bor­deaux Château Chasse-Spleen, and the unique Hun­gar­ian Tokaji with your dessert.

Bou­quets of gold and black bal­loons float above each table cre­at­ing a mag­i­cal effect. Also a civ­i­lized and lux­u­ri­ous ambiance away from la “foule,” the smoke and the cacoph­ony of fire works.

This is exactly what you’ll get on Decem­ber 31st for Chef Mavro’s New Year’s Eve Gala Dinner.

Where: Chef Mavro Restau­rant, 1969 South King Street, Hon­olulu on the beau­ti­ful Island of Oahu.

Cost: $170 with­out wine pair­ings; $90.00 for our som­me­lier selec­tion wine pairings

Reser­va­tions from 7:30–9:30 p.m. Call (808) 944‑4714 or chef@chefmavro.com

MENU

FIRST WINTER TRUFFLES FROM HAUTE PROVENCE
cod bran­dade, coun­try bread crou­tons
JOH JOS CHRISTOFFEL, 2004 RIESLING AUSLESE, URZIGER WURZGARTEN

AHI TARTAR WITH CAVIAR
big eye ahi, pad­dle­fish caviar, taro chip, ponzu sauce
HENRI BILLIOT, BRUT ROSÉ, CHAMPAGNE

SAUTEED HUDSON VALLEY FOIE GRAS
oven dried grapes, raisin bread, foie gras jus
CHATEAU GUIRAUD, 2005 SAUTERNES

KEAHOLE LOBSTER CHORIZO PUFF
kahuku cream corn, essence of lob­ster
LIGNIER, 2005 MOREY ST. DENIS

100 % WAGYU BEEF
strip loin and braised short rib in bur­gundy, cel­ery root purée
CHATEAU CHASSE-SPLEEN, 2000 CRU BOURGEOIS, MOULIS-EN-MEDOC

pre-dessert
per­sim­mon kanten

LE GRAND DESSERT 2010
a choco­late fan­tasy, mint white choco­late ice cream cone, rose­mary milk choco­late malasada, dark choco­late flan
GROF DEGENFELD, 2000 TOKAJI ASZU 5 PUTTONYOS

Mahalo for another good year
AAA Five Dia­monds again for 2010
18/20 Gayot’s top rat­ing in Hawaii again for 2010

One more Christ­mas in my new home town.

I was born in Mar­seille, cap­i­tal of Provence.  Mar­seille is a big city (on the French scale) more than 1 mil­lion inhab­i­tants.  Grow­ing up in Mar­seille is like grow­ing up in a small vil­lage, every­body knows you and you know every­body.  If you haven’t seen a friend for a while you think “maybe is dead!”  Nobody (except me) leaves Mar­seille, born, grow, work and die some time in the same house.

Peo­ple from Mar­seille are very wel­com­ing, always smil­ing and jok­ing. Nobody (except in the restau­rant busi­ness) works very hard. When it takes one year in Paris to cre­ate a new road; it takes 10 years in Mar­seille to do the same road. But nobody really cares or complains.

In Mar­seille busi­ness is tough we always say “this is the price of the sun.”  We are not rich but happy. On bad times we think about the “pôvre” (mis­er­able in Mar­seille dialect) inhab­i­tants of Paris and Lyon and we feel better.

Now, replace the word Mar­seille by Honolulu…Is that not amaz­ing?  I am home guys.

23 years in Hawaii and I don’t take any­thing for granted. I am, like the first day, still enjoy­ing the morn­ing run around the Punch­bowl as well as the Mon­day swim at Kaimana Beach fol­lowed by a lunch at Ono Hawai­ian Foods. Every time I eat ogo I cel­e­brate like this is the best thing I have tasted in my whole life.  Same for local mango, water­cress, lilikoi, guava, papaya, ahi, gin­ger etc.

Day-Boat Catch
Provence herbs, black olive, con­fit lemon & capers, caramelized fen­nel
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Hol­i­days are here and we are ready.  The Hol­i­day menu is offered through Jan­u­ary 2nd (7 days a week).  We will fea­ture a spe­cial dessert to cel­e­brate Christ­mas Eve and Christ­mas Day.

Our Day-Boat catch is the cel­e­bra­tion of Provence.  Crusted with Provence herbs cured black olive, con­fit lemon and capers, it’s served with a caramelized  fen­nel bulb and a bub­bling lemon thyme emul­sion.  This recipe is a very good bar­gain.  It is going to make you fly to Mar­seille with­out leav­ing your seat.  The wine, very crispy, cit­rusy, peachy, apri­coty with long acid­ity (all the words in “y” even the one doesn’t exist).  I am talk­ing about the Domaine de Chatenoy, Menetou-Salon from the Loire Val­ley, selected by our wine pair­ing committee.

What is espelette and how good is the Tamarind Roasted Sable­fish?
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Back to Hawaii with the Tamarind Roasted Sable­fish.  It per­haps looks like a mis­oy­aki but­ter­fish but it is not.  Tamarind glazed, the fish is gar­nished with salad of cucum­ber, red radish and cel­ery, tossed with a yogurt-cilantro extra vir­gin olive oil dress­ing.  The sauce: a puree of gar­lic fla­vored with espelette.  What is “espelette?”

Thank you for ask­ing.  Before this menu I was myself not sure exactly what it was.  Kevin Chong dis­cov­ered the espelette while vis­it­ing years ago the Basque Coun­try between France and Spain.

Basques are won­der­ful peo­ple, they don’t want to be French and they don’t want to be Span­ish either.  They are Basques…The cui­sine is won­der­ful, Chicken Basquaise, Piper­ade etc. What hap­pens in Basque coun­try stays in Basque coun­try. Next door in Provence we don’t hear about it.

Sorry I for­got; you ask what espelette is?

Espelette is a dried basque chile, not too hot with very spe­cific fla­vors some­thing like maybe cayenne and paprika.

Chal­lenge for the wine? Not really; we all picked up a Pouilly-Fuisse from Chateau Pouilly which was cre­ated for this recipe with dried-fruit fla­vors that work very well with the espelette.

Fois Gras “au tor­chon,” mar­cona almonds, fig bal­samic, Por­tuguese sweet­bread
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I talk too much and I have almost no more room but I want to tell you about the new Foie Gras.

The foie gras is poached “au tor­chon” (inside a towel in order to squeeze the foie after cook­ing to remove the excess of fat).  The foie is topped with spiced mar­cona almonds (from Spain).  The dish is gar­nished with a mar­malade of granny smith toma­toes (not apples), accented with baby mus­tard cab­bage leaves.  Then served with a fig bal­samic vine­gar, toasted house Por­tuguese sweet­bread on the side.

The wine is not a Sauternes which makes me happy because I think that as fan­tas­tic as this wine is, it is too sweet for Foie Gras ter­rine. The wine is a Ger­man Gewürz­traminer Spätlese from Fitz-Ritter. This is a per­fect bal­ance of sweet­ness and acid­ity that doesn’t over­shadow the foie gras.

Our Win­ter Menu will start Jan­u­ary 5th fea­tur­ing new dishes such as Lamb, Date Tarte, Big Island fresh Goat Cheese…But this is for my next letter.

Please check our com­plete hol­i­day menus and our New Year’s Eve gala dinner.

Aloha,

George Mavrothalassitis/Chef Mavro
Chef Mavro Restau­rant
1969 S. King Street
Hon­olulu, Hawaii 96826
(808) 944‑4714

Big Island Goat Cheese

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Our som­me­lier and restau­rant man­ager Todd Ash­line is also a fea­tured colum­nist for The Hon­olulu Adver­tiser. Read his Raise a Glass fea­ture story on gift sug­ges­tions for wine and food lovers (scroll down to pre­vi­ous blog post).
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Truf­fles, Lob­ster, Wagyu Beef on New Year’s Eve Menu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Of course the high­light of the Hol­i­day is our New Year’s Eve gala din­ner with gold & black decor and favors.  This menu spot­lights the ingre­di­ents that you dream about for this occa­sion:
fresh truf­fles, caviar, foie gras, lob­ster, wagyu beef and the grand dessert of 2010!
We cre­ate a fes­tive oasis and a civ­i­lized way to dine for New Year’s Eve, yet close to Waikiki if you plan to fin­ish the night with fire­works and dancing.

  By Todd Ashline. from The Hon­olulu Adver­tiser, Raise a Glass, Decem­ber 16, 2009 

 Just before the hol­i­days, guests at Chef Mavro start to ask me for gift advice for wine lovers. Of course, a solid idea is always a gift cer­tifi­cate to your favorite restau­rant with a per­sonal note recall­ing a wine pair­ing you enjoyed.

 Here are some of my best ideas for the food and wine lovers in your life.

 First, books. Most of them aren’t too expen­sive, and they will get tons of use. Wine books are per­fect for the inquis­i­tive and the exper­i­men­tal types. Some of my favorites are: “The New Sotheby’s Wine Ency­clo­pe­dia” “Red, White and Drunk All Over,” and “The Oxford Com­pan­ion to Wine.” Pocket wine guides can be a good gift too.

 Wine para­pher­na­lia and acces­sories are always wel­come gifts, and there are numer­ous choices: tags to mark indi­vid­ual glasses at par­ties and wine tast­ings; aer­a­tors to help a wine open up faster; boards, coast­ers, and triv­ets made from corks; wine refrig­er­a­tors; elec­tric corkscrews; wine buck­ets — the list is end­less. Wine pre­server sys­tems, pumps and sprays are nice for those who like to save a lit­tle wine for another day.

 Wine glasses are another great gift idea for the wine enthu­si­ast. You can buy dif­fer­ent types of glasses for just about every dif­fer­ent type of wine. Then, of course, there are glasses for beer, mar­ti­nis, sake, scotch and bour­bon, and snifters for brandy. Some wine glasses are even sup­posed to help the wine breathe and open up faster, too. Wine glasses range from those that hold a few ounces to some that will hold more than a full-size bot­tle if you are really thirsty.

 Decanters make nice gifts, and you can get a wine bas­ket or cra­dle to accom­pany it. Decanters are used to sep­a­rate the wine from its sed­i­ment, and also to help a wine aer­ate and open up faster. They are gen­er­ally used for big red wines, old red wines, or tight, full-bodied whites. They can also be used to dis­play a nice cognac or scotch. They range in style from sim­ple square boxes to lit­tle roundish vases to elab­o­rate “duck” decanters. With any decanter, a good clean­ing kit would be a nice addi­tion as well.

Then there is the ever-handy wine bag or wine car­rier. Some come with insu­la­tion to keep those pre­cious bot­tles at the right tem­per­a­ture when you are trans­port­ing them, and wheels to save your back and arms car­ry­ing heavy bot­tles. You can find them in single-bottle totes and multi-bottle pull-behinds, and most are under $100.

 This leads us to maybe the best gift yet: wine. How can you go wrong with a bot­tle of wine or spir­its for those spe­cial friends and fam­ily mem­bers? Pick up their favorite wine or spir­its in a local retail store, or ask the pro­fes­sion­als there for some advice on intro­duc­ing your loved ones to some­thing new and excit­ing. Dur­ing the hol­i­days, I usu­ally leave the every­day bot­tle on the shelf and opt for some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent or more spe­cial. You can never go wrong with a lit­tle bub­bly around the hol­i­days, either.

 A few wines I’ve seen around town are:

 • Georges Duboeuf Beau­jo­lais Nou­veau 2009. This wine is sea­sonal, released in mid-November. The grapes are picked, fer­mented, bot­tled, and shipped within a few months so the wine is extremely fresh and fruity, with juicy berries, a nice wine for brunches or ear­lier in the day, and it’s under $15 a bottle.

 • Charles Hei­d­sieck Brut Non Vin­tage Cham­pagne. This is a fuller-bodied style of cham­pagne , with green apple, toast, lemon and min­er­al­ity for about $60. For a splurge, try a vin­tage “Cham­pagne Char­lie” from Charles Heidsieck.

 • Pierre Fer­rand Ambre Cognac. It’s aged 10 years and a great cognac for the money, smooth with nice flo­ral notes, orange and cit­rus fla­vors and fin­ishes with vanilla. It retails for around $50 a bottle.

Todd Ash­line is director/sommelier of Chef Mavro restau­rant. www.chefmavro.com; 944‑4714.