Where small kid-time flavors come to life

June 7, 2011

Mari Taketa,

It’s hard, hard, hard to review a restaurant anonymously these days, when new media has reviewers blogging, tweeting, facebooking, doing video and in general all sorts of handstands to keep up with the digital age. It’s not that I mind life as a marginal media personality, but it does spawn odd and even stalker-like behavior sometimes.

Like this day at Heeia Pier. I’ve come to the Windward side in pursuit of the flavors I hear are coming out of the kitchen at the newly renovated, reopened Heeia Pier General Store and Deli. A Vertical Junkies project (they opened V-Lounge), this two-picnic table place lets Mark Noguchi, a product of the kitchens of Mavro and Town restaurants, fulfill his vision of locally sourced plate lunches.

I know this because Noguchi and I follow each other on Twitter. But we’ve never met, so I figure I have a good shot at an anonymous review. I see my chance when a catamaran disgorges a load of Japanese and Korean tourists onto the pier. I hide among the big hats and cameras, lurking in the background and snapping pics while a friend goes up to the counter to place our order.

Which she leaves under the name Mari.

‘Order up for Mari! Mari?’

Noguchi sticks his head out the pickup window with my plate of luau stew and sees me with my camera. I freeze. ‘Eh Mari, aurite!’

He runs through the kitchen and out the general store. I get a hug, a welcome toast, a complimentary cheeseburger (see video below) and a doubling of my subsequent takeout order of luau stew. Noguchi introduces me to his sous, Ricky Goings from Izakaya Aki no No, and tells me to stick around, because dessert’s on the house.

The review is off. And what a relief. For once on the job I can eat without critique. I can just. eat. A simple, genuine two-table find can stay just that, with nothing to pick apart and no reason for doing so. With only the two tables, strangers end up at my elbow, tourists and old-timers and Windward peeps just hanging out, and if language isn’t a barrier we end up shooting the breeze, especially when a sudden rain sweeps in from the bay and holds us all prisoner under the dripping eaves, talking and eating and passing the time.

In the car on the long drive back to town I unleash my pseudo-fury on my friend. Go and blow my cover! What were you thinking?! She tells me I should thank her. And the truth is, for the unexpected gift of a mellow, pulse-slowing afternoon on a pier on the Windward side, she’s exactly right.