Miro Kaimuki
This has been a very slow year in terms of notable eats due to the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. Never before would I have thought that I would go through such a global event. COVID-19 has really changed the world in many ways. Fortunately, the only major effect this event has had on me so far is the cancellation of my travel plans including trips to Japan and Switzerland. The state of Hawaii has also been on an overall lockdown with a stay-at-home order since late March. Many businesses have been forced to close or suspend services during this time. Among the shutdown orders and most notably for me and this blog, restaurants were ordered to suspend dine-in service.
It’s been about ten weeks since these shutdown orders were put in place. Over that time Hawaii has thankfully shown a low occurrence rate of COVID-19 cases. The low infection rates and case numbers have finally allowed businesses to begin reopening, albeit in controlled phases. Tonight, on June 5th, 2020, restaurants were allowed to reopen for dine-in services with additional safety and social distancing guidelines in place.
As someone who dines out very frequently, it’s been a very long stretch of time of cooking at home and getting takeout or delivery. On this, the first night of restaurants opening again, I was invited to check out a preview tasting of Miro Kaimuki’s prix fixe menu. Miro, which is the latest restaurant project from Chris Kajioka and Justin Park, was actually set to open just before the shutdown order hit back in March. Kajioka, Park, and their partners took over the space of the old Cafe Miro and transformed it into a refreshed neighborhood bistro with a focus on French cuisine. I was joined by a handful of local food writers and social media marketers for a full, socially distanced tasting of the menu that diners can look forward to when Miro opens on June 10th.
The following are the dishes we tried tonight. Unless otherwise noted as a “supplement”, all these dishes are part of Miro’s $65 prix fixe menu.
Tuna, smoked oyster, lentils, chile oil
(Supplement) Foie gras torchon, lychee, strawberry, pepper
(Supplement) Escargot, garlic, and butter. In the background house made sourdough bread with butter and marjoram.
Egg yolk, celery root, bacon, parmesan
Hot smoked salmon, ratatouille, calamansi
(Supplement) Gnocchi Parisienne, corn, uni
Wagyu beef check, green farro, brassicas
Yuzu, buckwheat, cream
Although we were lucky and got to try a few of the supplemental dishes that can be added to the prix fixe, the multi-course prix fixe menu itself is a steal for the price tag. I am hard pressed to think of another restaurant in Honolulu that serves a menu of comparable quality at this price point. The portion sizes are also generous for the level of ingredients used (that wagyu beef cheek was 2x the size I was expecting) which further adds to the value of the menu. The dishes were all well executed and very refined; a testament to the skill of Miro Kaimuki’s Chef de Cuisine Trevor Webb, Pastry Chef Beverly Luk, and Chef Kajioka.
This was a fantastic way to break the nearly ten week hiatus from being able to dine out!
