My recent dining options have included deep-fry specialists and rice artists. I love deep-fried food more than I should, but I like to mix in healthier options, so I really have to be in the right frame of mind and body conditioning to tackle big batches of tempura, tonkatsu and kushikatsu.
THE RICE PLACE
725 Kapiolani Blvd.
Food ***1/2
Service ***1/2
Ambience ***
Value ***1/2
Call: 799-6959
Hours: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:30 to 9 p.m. Mondays to Fridays, Saturday brunch 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and dinner 6 to 9:30 p.m.
Cost: Lunch about $10 per person; dinner about $50 for two; BYOB
Ratings compare similar restaurants:
**** – excellent;
*** – very good;
** – average;
*- below average.
As for rice, I am the rare, weird, Hawaii-born-and-raised Asian who hates rice. This started when I was a year-old, natural-born food critic. I still remember my father’s angry face and tone as he tried to feed me spoonfuls of rice mixed with minced steak. The texture was squishy and awful, the flavor bland, so I would sit in my high chair crying for what felt like an hour with the wad of food in my mouth, refusing to swallow.
Over time I insisted that white rice was not food, but merely something to fill the belly, and science has proved me correct regarding polished white rice’s absence of nutrition. Even so, compared with deep-fried fare, it seemed the lesser of two evils, so off to The Rice Place I went, and I was won over, despite also being a carb avoider.
Yes, rice figures prominently in most of the dishes, but instead of the “two scoops” variety, rice here often refers to rice vermicelli and delicate lacy rice flour or noodle wraps that bring sensory joy to the palate — about as far from my squishy baby pablum as can be.
Owner Trinh Vo delivers a unique, contemporary twist on Vietnamese and other Asian fare, and although she modestly tells everyone that she’s just a home cook who wants to serve the foods she enjoys, the level of cooking here exceeds that of many a pro.
When pressed, a fuller story emerges. Vo’s mother ran a catering business and, at one point, five food trucks in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Vo always provided an extra hand. Unlike her two other siblings, she found food preparation fun instead of a chore.
Coming from outside Hawaii, Vo introduces a sensibility different from those who’ve grown up here eating at the same restaurants, going to the same schools, being trained by the same chefs.
This is not street fare, so flavors are more muted than your typical Chinatown Vietnamese restaurant. At times I missed the intensity of in-your-face fish sauce and Asian herbs heaped on unapologetically, but there is a spare elegance at work here that is a breath of fresh air and gives us a glimpse of the Asian cuisine of the future.
Rice Place is in the space formerly home to Ah-Lang, better known as Angry Korean Lady because of its brusque owner. Vo is the complete opposite, welcoming and friendly, often coming out of the kitchen to talk story and discuss her dishes. Her passion for food is obvious.
As for the space, gone is the expletive-laced graffiti on the walls, and given Rice Place’s spare but polished look, no one would dream of writing on the walls again. There’s not much room for decor, but a back shelf is graced with jars filled with different varieties of rice.
During lunch, stop in for such grab-and-go items as shrimp-, greens- and rice noodle-filled summer rolls and Bang Bang Rolls ($7), essentially summer rolls remade with beef bulgogi.
Many of the lunch dishes also appear at dinner, but unique by day are more traditional lunch plates of meat jun ($8), teri-garlic barbecue chicken ($9.50) and Thai-style lemongrass and garlic pork skewers ($10). All these sets are served with choice of rice or rice noodles, and a side of lettuce, mint and cucumber salad, and come with a vegetable soup of the day.
In the evening, appetizers take on the moniker “conversation starters,” and they do speak volumes.
A Trio Appetizer Set ($22) features the Bang Bang Rolls, Bae Bae Cakes of sticky-rice cakes topped with char siu and lup cheong, plus golden Imperial Rolls that I wish were offered as a stand-alone appetizer. These are glorious, juicy and sweet pork and shrimp dumplings tucked in an impossibly thin rice noodle wrap with a beautiful, brittle crunch. Both flavor and textures are fantastic.
Another specialty here is the bahn xeo, described as “Lettuce Wrap Rice Flour Crepe” ($13). The name translates as “sizzling cake” because of the sound made by the batter when it is poured into a hot skillet. Although it looks like an egg crepe, the rice batter cools up extra crisp, a nice counterpoint to the soft, savory filling of shrimp, pork belly and bean sprouts. It’s served with lettuce and mint for wrapping, plus a sweet garlic-chili sauce for dipping. Again, the sauce is mild, appealing to those who can’t stomach the strong flavors of more traditional outlets.
At this point Vo has gotten me to like two things I’m not particularly fond of: rice and cucumbers. Those cucumbers take the form of capellini-thin “noodles” in The Refresher Deluxe ($13). The cucumber pasta is tossed with lotus root, grilled ika and poached shrimp in a light vinaigrette, the perfect salad for summer weather. It can be shared by two to four when dining family style.
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner ($25) is the restaurant’s take on Hainanese chicken and rice ($25). It’s great if you’re a fan of the dish, but I’ve always found this style of chicken uninteresting. I’d order many other dishes here first, such as Pesto Boat Noodles ($15). The flat rice noodles are a revelation. They look like a thinner version of look funn but are so much lighter, you’ll forget you’re eating carbs. The pesto contains no nuts, to address potential nut allergies.
Asian Cajun ($33) is a Louisiana-style seafood boil re-imagined as a spicy tom yum, melding flavors of lemongrass and lime leaves with paprika and multiple peppers. This fiery stew of head-on shrimp, Portuguese sausage and corn cob slices must be eaten last, or it would overwhelm the other dishes. Get that with black assam tea ($3.50), which is every bit as sweet as Southern sweet tea.
Meat dishes here include a grilled tri-tip steak platter ($13.50) with honey-garlic sauce, and Carnitariam ($15), grilled rib-eye-wrapped asparagus. But this is a rare restaurant that had me craving rice dishes more than meat.
For dessert, condensed milk gelato ($5) is exactly as rich as you want it to be.
Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com. For more photos from this week’s restaurant go to takeabite.staradvertiserblogs.com