'Majestic' Menu Wins Over Diners
Our eyes widened with anticipation as glistening sashimi slices of snapper, salmon, bluefin tuna and other fruits de mer arrived at our table on a wooden plank, followed by a number of traditional and creative presentations including a simmering pot of sukiyaki, a ceramic porringer of shimmying black sesame tofu crowned with uni and sprinkled with a chiffonade of nori, a sizzling platter of tonpeiyaki (Japanese pork omelette) drizzled with okonomiyaki sauce and a coating of bonito flakes, and an earthenware vessel of seafood and vegetables bubbling in a miso butter. The seductive aromas, restrained aesthetics, and harmonious flavors rekindled memories of some of the many pleasures COVID-19 extorted from my wife and me, including our regular dining sessions at Rinka, a restaurant that has withstood other transitional challenges prior to this pandemic.
Since sprouting in 2012, Rinka—Japanese for “majestic flower”—blossomed as one of Honolulu’s quintessential Japanese restaurants in a competitive market where countless others have failed, possibly due to exorbitant prices, a lack of authenticity, or neglect in evolving to meet changing customer demands and widening generational gaps. Although
it had to surmount rebranding issues associated with increased prices and a dramatic transformation from a once-humble eatery to an illustrious dining room—replete with high-vaulted ceilings, an opulent kinetic globe and wavy pendant lighting fixtures surrounded by textured three-dimensional wood slat walls—Rinka quickly re-established the patronage of local residents, Japanese transplants, and visitors from abroad. The restaurant’s broad appeal and its deft ability to adapt to the Hawai‘i milieu while maintaining Japanese sensibilities with regards to taste and presentation paved the path for this rebound.
Rinka’s lunch and dinner menus provided the nurturing foundation for its success, extensively featuring a cross-pollination of styles to include well over 100 washoku (traditional Japanese cuisine with a deep reverence for nature including the sustainable use of ingredients) and yoshoku (Western-influenced cuisine dating back to the Meiji Restoration) selections, encompassing sashimi, sushi, salads, simmered, grilled and deep-fried offerings, donburi, noodles, soups and small izakaya-style dishes. Customary dishes such as crab and salmon roe chawanmushi (warm savory custard), miso-marinated black cod (butterfish), beef shabu shabu, cold inaniwa udon (cream colored noodles slightly thinner than regular udon), and hamaguri clam red miso soup were available alongside foreign-inspired flavors such as beef tongue curry soup in a bread bateau, ribeye steak with a soy reduction, tender black pork loin cutlet and even the Hawai‘i-inspired ‘ahi poke topped with an onsen tamago (soft-cooked egg).
Despite the pandemic forcing the restaurant to abridge its menu, Rinka still managed to offer six dozen selections, plus another 10 daily specials. Although there was a temporary moratorium on our favorites—such as the crab and cabbage dumplings rolled with beancurd skin wading in a basin of warm dashi, savory lotus root manju (Japanese confection) in thickened soy-based ankake sauce, starchy mountain yam French fries dusted with nori flakes, and the buttery textured tamago kake gohan (raw egg on hot rice) veneered with slivers of roast beef, uni and a dab of wasabi—my wife and I were thrilled to discover that Rinka retained the tempura fried fish cake rolls wrapped with nori and stuffed with cream cheese, golden-crusted snow crab cream croquettes, and the Deluxe Natto Roll featuring pungent fermented soy beans tempered by takuan (pickled daikon radish), kaiware (radish sprouts), cucumber, and aromatic shiso.
Rinka’s refined flavors and presentations, each embellished by a distinctive ceramic or earthenware, all revealed the erudite culinary acumen of Chef Masahiro Kawanishi, who hailed from Hiroshima by way of Osaka. His 14 years of experience at the Michelin-starred restaurant Naniwa Kappo Kigawa in Osaka prepared him for his move to Hawai‘i, a locale where he had never visited prior to being uprooted. After spending time understanding the regional palate, he cultivated a menu that maintained chaste approaches, with creations that were also appealing to locals, insulating the restaurant against the sudden plunge in visitor numbers to Hawai‘i.
Further contributing to the restaurant’s enduring survival was an influx in takeaway customers, partly attributed to the popularity of its daily-changing bento, such as hamburger steak, salmon or saba shioyaki, tonkatsu, butterfish and ginger pork, and fried mixed seafood, affordably priced between $10 and $18.50. Also, Chef Kawanishi continued to develop daily specials incorporating transient ingredients to offer glimpses into the flavors of Japan’s four seasons, a principle of washoku that is occasionally forgotten by Hawai‘i residents who experience a perennial summer. Snapper, una-don (freshwater eel rice bowl), matsutake dobin- mushi (pine mushrooms steamed in soup) with forest floor aromatics, silver-skinned kohada (gizzard shad), and takikomi gohan (Japanese rice cooked with vegetables and protein) were a few of the selections he featured at different times throughout the year, keeping the menu engaging.
Just as a flower requires proper conditions to thrive, Rinka ascribes many nurturing attributes that helps brace it for various environmental impacts. With its roots now planted firmly in Ae‘o at Ward Village, we can only hope that this prized Japanese bloom will weather the storm that the pandemic brings and come out smelling like a rose.
Rinka, 1001 Queen St., (808) 773-8235, rinkahawaii.com