Our team has been working on opening our restaurant in Shanghai for over two years now, and we’ve made almost ten trips there since we began this partnership with Tama Foods International. With every trip, we learn a little more. What we are most thankful for in embarking on this endeavor has been all that we’ve learned about Chinese food, about Chinese customs and business practices, about ourselves as a company and a team, and about all we are capable of creatively.
Opening a restaurant and creating a brand new menu for a new project is always a catalyst for me creatively. Our Chef de Cuisine Miya Nishimura and I have spent months in the kitchen doing menu development, and we’ve come up with hundreds of dishes, not only for our restaurant in Shanghai, but also in Honolulu. In working one dish, many times we come up with a spin off or an idea that would be great for our restaurant on King Street or The Pineapple Room. Over the last year, I’m happy to see that these sessions that started out with just Miya and I in the kitchen have evolved into a small team including our sous chefs and cooks, all interested in what’s new and what can be next.
Mahalo, Gang!
AW