excerpts from “The Boys are Back in Town” by Martha Cheng, Hon­olulu Mag­a­zine June 2010
“When we [Chong and a hand­ful of other Hawaii cooks], all left Hawaii we were all say­ing we don’t want to do this Pacific Rim stuff,” Chong says. “That’s why we went abroad, to learn other things.” In his time away, he worked his way from “the bot­tom of the bottom”—cooking for the chef’s dog at Le Cirque in New York—to open­ing a Le Cirque in Mex­ico at age 26 and super­vis­ing a brigade of 60 cooks.
As soon as he got mar­ried, he returned to Hawaii, and for the past five years, he’s been Chef Mavro’s chef de cui­sine, bring­ing global fla­vors to Hawaii Regional Cui­sine. These days, he says “some dishes may have Moroc­can, some Indian, some maybe Viet­namese, Korean or French.” Is it Pacific Rim? An escabeche of abalone with Manchego cheese cro­quette, ser­rano ham and sun­dried tomato sauce, inspired by time spent in Spain, is not. The betel-nut kurobuta pork loin with green papaya salad and lemon­grass pork jus, with its Viet­namese fla­vor­ings, is. For Chong, now 33, expe­ri­ence, a Viet­namese sous chef and Chi­nese pas­try chef have tem­pered his dis­dain for Asian fusion. “I love Pacific Rim,” he now says. “It’s just how you inter­pret Pacific Rim.”
Do all paths in Hawaii lead to Asian fusion? Will all chefs suc­cumb to the tyranny of Pacific Rim? Sure, it’s deli­cious, but isn’t a lit­tle vari­ety good? Even Chong con­cedes that he might wish for a “real Ital­ian trat­to­ria” in Hon­olulu, per­haps of the sort his best friend Tony Liu, also a local boy, helms in New York, Morandi.
Chong says, “Cooks from Hawaii have a good rep­u­ta­tion in New York. We work harder, we’re the first ones in, last ones out … We didn’t travel all that way to fail.”
“As soon as I got mar­ried I decided to resign and go back to Hawaii,” Chong says, “because Hawaii is more laid back, peo­ple are more laid back. In the restau­rant busi­ness it’s not as chaotic and com­pet­i­tive as New York and other coun­tries. I thought I would have a heart attack every day work­ing in a big brigade, big kitchen, with 60 cooks. I’ve reached my goals and now it’s time to do what I want.” He finds his posi­tion at Mavro ideal: “I really touch the food and cook.”
The cur­rent menu at Mavro is mostly free of Asian flavors—instead, offer­ing up Indian vadou­van, Basque espelette and Mid­dle East­ern tahini in dishes that are still grounded in Hawaii via their use of local prod­ucts.
Chong believes in a bright future for Hawaii chefs and cooks, par­tic­u­larly those who travel, work out­side of the Islands, and return. He sees their Pacific Rim-educated palates as one of their great­est assets: “Cooks from Hawaii have the best palates because they know Japan­ese and Viet­namese cuisines, [which have] a bal­ance of fla­vors: sweet, salty, sour, umami, bit­ter … [and] not just a bal­ance in fla­vors, but in tex­ture and tem­per­a­ture, cold, hot, crispy, soft.” This sort of food cul­ture, cou­pled with work and travel to mas­ter clas­sic tech­niques and taste new cuisines, gives Hawaii cooks a strong foun­da­tion. “They should come back and pro­duce what they learn and mix things up,” Chong says. “When I ask some cooks from Hawaii on the Main­land: You ever plan on com­ing back to Hawaii’? It’s ‘No, there’s noth­ing there.’ What do you mean there’s noth­ing? If you want to do things dif­fer­ently, you do it.”

Kevin Chong suc­ceeded in the trial-by-fire kitchens of New York City, then returned home to become Chef Mavro’s chef de cui­sine. Photo: Olivier Koning

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).