Yes, trying to catch up on all my travel eating posts! Sheesh am I behind. Anyway, if you remember this post, well, we were "back home" in February. Since we spend so much time on the Leeward (that would be "west") side of Oahu these days, and were spending much more time there on this trip, I was on the lookout for new places to eat. Several years back, I had read about a new development near what we used to call "North-South Road" back in the day. I had heard that a hotel was coming up, which turned out to be a Hampton Inn. I had also read about a Foodland Farms opening in the shopping center. Now some of the folks I know scoff at the Foodland versus Foodland Farms thing, saying it's just a way of charging more, in other words, Hawaii's version of "Whole Paycheck". Though I will say that on our previous visit, we checked out FF in Pearl City and got some decent chicken wings and chicken skin there.
I had also read about a restaurant named Mahi'ai' (which I think in this context means Farmer) Table opening within the FF located in Ka Makana Ali'i which is the name of that shopping complex in Kapolei. We had gotten in at a bit after 1pm, so I thought once we got settled, we could just head over, order takeout, and do a bit of shopping and easily have dinner.
The shopping center is huge, so many shops, everything from movie theatres to Macy's to Olive Garden to Reyn Spooner!
The Foodland Farms seemed quite bustling. The restaurant itself is located right as you enter into the market.
The woman working was very friendly and it looked like a nice big space.
But we would be doing take out. So, I placed my order and went to do some shopping.
There was still a short wait after finishing up our shopping. The drive back to the In-Laws was less than ten minutes, so this is quite a convenient location.
And so we had an early dinner; it was quite a bit of food.
The Blistered Shishito Peppers ($14) weren't very "blistered".
There was "puffed rice" on this which brought a bit of texture to the dish; but the peppers weren't "charred" enough and the "umami aioli" just made it seem greasy. This was very bland as well.
The Lechon Style Brussel Sprouts ($13), featured delicious tomatoes, but were a bit too undercooked and we like our brussels crunchy, but this was hard! The sauce used also seemed to add a layer of unpleasant greasiness to the sporuts.
We like vibrant flavors on our brussels and this was too bland. And I was thrilled to see that the dish included crispy pipikaula; but really, one slice. Kinda manini!
We got the Soy Habanero Wings ($17), which were more on the sweeter side.
The wings also didn't keep it's crispness during the ten minute drive back to the house. Meaty wings; the flats were decent but the drumettes quite dry. I thought the addition of bubu arare was quite interesting.
We loved the greens that came with the Crispy Confit Chicken ($23).
Let's take a look at that chicken. It's a huge piece but does it look "crispy" to you? Also, it was fairly tender, but quite dry for confit, making it somewhat bland; the supposed nuoc cham edged to the sweeter side of the scale. The fried garlic was fine; but the garlic rice was super hard and dry. It was like trying to eat barely cooked rice. Now come on, how can you mess up rice?
The Sticky Ribs ($19) was probably the best item we had.
The ribs came off the bone cleanly and were fairly moist. The sauce, while again on the sweeter side of things still had enough soy and salt which combined with the porkiness of the ribs worked well. The pickled onions and namasu helped to balance out things.
I was so excited to see Mochiko Crusted Ahi Belly ($19) on the menu. Man, ahi belly, one of my favorite things. And while I didn't expect this to be better than my favorite version, but this wasn't even close.
Again the greens and tomato was outstanding. But take a look at that rice, it's the same as the "confit chicken" and the photo shows more clearly how hard and dry it was. Speaking of dry; you can add the ahi belly as well. It was dry, lacking in that rich, fatty, texture. It was also strangely fishy in flavor; the Missus had one bite and was done.
We were quite disappointed with this meal. Perhaps Mahi'ai Table is only for dining in; but I don't think it would matter in terms of dry and hard rice, fishy ahi belly, greasy brussel sprouts, and so forth. We did like the greens and tomatoes; so I guess if Bruddah is going to eat here again, it's going to be a salad? Not likely though.
I also had a good laugh in thinking that maybe all places named "Farmer's Table" has some kind of bachi?
It was kind of a bad start to our stay "back home".
Mahi ‘ai Table
91-5431 Kapolei Pkwy. Suite 1704 (Inside Foodland Farms)
Kapolei, HI 96707
Still, it was good to be back in the islands. And the meals would get better!
Stay Tuned!
We checked in and waited until we were walked over to our seats. The restaurant has sushi bar only seating. I counted a total of 15 seats for our dinner.
As you can tell by that photo, hairy crab was going to be in the first dish, which ended up being a wonderful savory chawan mushi.
These were those jumbo sized wings; the batter was really thick and more hard-crunchy than crispy. The seasoning was a good amount of salt and black pepper. The wings were moist, especially the flats, and looked to be of good quality. As whole, just way too much batter for me, but decent wings. It threw the entire proportion off and I really needed that cabbage with dressing and the mul kimchi, which hovered on the sweeter side of things to reset my palate.
The batter for this seemed a bit different; it was thinner, more lacquered, but still on the crunchy end of the spectrum. The menu says "aromatic and slightly spicy", I'd go with barely spicy and teeth rattling sweet and sticky. The wings were, as before moist and tender, but this was too much for me. I ended up needing the cabbage a mul kimchi to recover! Also, I had to request extra napkins, because of that sticky sauce. Perhaps they'll stock some wipes in the future?
My goodness; this consisted of six slices of akami maguro! Fresh, nice texture, no off flavors, refreshing. The young lady asked me if I wanted some wasabi and grated ginger and I answered with an affirmative. This just added another layer of enjoyment. The maguro was seared nicely; the fried onions adding a nice sweet-pungent-crispness; there could have been more ponzu, but this was quite good.
I also loved that the wing tips were attached; I just love gnawing on them, even though the sticky-sweet sauce got all over my hands. The batter was on the crunchy side, almost lacquered, and it held up for the entre meal. The meat was moist, had no off colors or flavors. The sauce was a bit too sweet for my taste though, but still, well worth the price.
The tacos were served on blue corn tortillas, that were very dry, tough, and really didn't add anything to the dish. Likewise the sweet chili sauce provided. 
thru nicely. I believe the the version from Soup du Jour (funny, I thought I did a post on the place, but I guess not?) is better both in texture and flavor.
This is what I unpacked at home. There was also two small containers, one with extra "shoyu", with very little shoyu flavor for that version of poke, I ended up not using it as it would have watered down the flavor even more. And the second, when I first looked at it, I asked myself "what the heck is Mul Kimchi doing here? This ain't a KFC place". Then I opened it and the fragrance hit me. I cracked up; it was haupia! A nice little touch.
The fish was decently, not overly coated, the quality, while not as good as HFS was fine. Not too salty, a decent version of Shoyu Poke.
The bread looked like a rolled French Baguette. It was quite crusty, though a bit more dense then what I'd call a typical banh mi. The jalapenos were really mild. There was a thin sliver of cucumber….though I must say that cucumbers are MIA in many banh mi's these days. There was a good ration of pickled veggies to mayo to pork.