I got an e-mail the other day from a reader who was looking for a Hawaiian restaurant. I didn’t know of one (still don’t), but I was able to recommend Zinfandel, because its “American specialties” menu, which focuses on a different American region each month, is featuring “Hawaiian Soul Food” through Saturday.
The a la carte menu offers five appetizers and five entrees. Two appetizers and one entree are vegetarian selections.
For a good beginning, try the ahi poke, which is a tuna tartare, molded into a disc shape, with macadamia nuts, crispy tendrils of seaweed and sesame seeds over a tomato-miso dressing. The portion is tiny, but the flavors and contrasting textures are memorable.
Ginger-steamed shrimp dumplings taste no different from the offerings of any decent Chinese restaurant, but they’re tasty enough, served alongside a spicy salad of shredded green papaya; a tamarind-honey sauce matched nicely to the dumplings and the salad. Basil, cilantro and lime add fragrant flavors to a refreshing chilled summer melon soup.
Our waitress strongly recommended the pit-smoked Kalua pig, and who were we to argue? The pull-apart pork meat is silkily tender and gently smoky, sweetened with a hoisin glaze. Crispy cakes of mashed taro root add contrasting texture.
Steamed moonfish, light beige in color and firm in texture, is topped with lots of shiitake mushrooms and a sweet lobster-curry sauce with a ginger undercurrent that supported the meaty fish.
Absent any strictly Hawaiian desserts (though the regular menu features one confection made with Hawaiian chocolate), we opted to save a few calories.
Our waitress confided that Hawaiian food is featured every August. So if you don’t get to Zinfandel this weekend, mark your calendar for next year.
———-
Zinfandel, 59 W. Grand Ave., 312-527-1818.
