Benjamin Henion

All Said and done, it was a VERY LONG DAY, but it finished nicely with this wine dinner featuring Rombauer Wines. We had a fun time creating these dishes and I believe the hard work paid off. We had 3 emersion circulators going for the Kangaroo, Veal and the House Dry Aged Beef Tenderloin Brochettes. Thank you to all who attended the dinner, and especially to my great team for making it happen tonight.

Here is our current scallops dish from the menu. It is a cumin and corriander dusted U10 scallop, with roasted bell pepper-potato puree, cilantro chimichurri and fresh lilikoi sauce. We serve it with local pohole ferns from our good friends at Hana herbs. Such a nice scallop dish.

I have the luxury here on Maui, to buy my fish from the fisherman rather than from a large company. We have many licensed  fisherman come to the kitchen, often at odd hours, with fish they caught only hours before. Most of the time they come straight from the water to the restaurant, eliminating the middle man and the time it may sit in the fish companies refrigeration. In the islands we get some of the freshest fish in the world, that on the mainland has to be shipped overnight, then distributed to the fish companies, before being fileted then sold. My point is, the fish I'm getting is as fresh as you're going to find.

The restaurant has been known for comfort food for awhile, and chicken and waffles was one item almost always on the menu. I will admit, the previous version was rather boring, so I removed it completely to rethink the dish. I decided to do a BLT version of chicken and waffles for a special and it was a hit. Chances are likely it will make it on the new menu, coming soon. This BLT consists of a southern spiced battered and breaded chicken thigh, maple lacquered and peppercorn crusted applewood smoked bacon (my favorite part), fava-maple aioli, kamuela tomato and baby iceberg lettuce in between 2 Belgian style, crispy waffles. I served it up with sweet potatoe French fries. It was a hit.

This was the special the other night, and it went over well. I blackened the Ahi with Cajun spices then sauteed andouille sausage, onions, fingerling potatoes and mushrooms. The honey-lime butter is garnished with Chili oil and the fish is topped with fresh roasted bell pepper and grilled Maui onion guacamole.

This giant pork shank is one of the newest additions to the Joe's menu. I serve it with fresh fava beans, both cheddar and purple cauliflower, baby romanesco, hericot verts, roasted tomatoes, and corn shoots. A smoked pork jus give the dish a serious burst of flavor and really rounds out the flavors of this summer time dish.

Here is a shot of my house grown baby lettuces. I have a nice variety of red and green romaine, tango, mizuna, baby arugula, and green oak leaf lettuces. There is nothing like a salad made from lettuces picked just minutes before!

Tonight's special turned out really nice. We brought in some good looking fresh monchong caught locally off these Maui shores. I served it with fennel and watermelon radish slaw, seasoned with fresh squeezed lime juice, white coral Hawaiian sea salt and keiffer lime leaf. The citrus red quinoa turned out really nice and compliments the mango butter nicely. The Chile oil adds a touch if heat to round off the flavors in the dish. It was well received by our diners tonight.

In November, most places in the world, the temperatures are dropping and frost or snow become killers of gardens until spring. Not on Maui. Today I took a few minutes to walk through my home garden an snip just a few things. I have starfuit, bright lights chard, lemongrass, garlic chives, eggplant, red okra, mojito mint, (opal, cinnamon, lime, kafro, and Genovese) basils, and a nice variety of peppers that were right for the pickin'.

Yukon potatoes are taking off! I planted these sprouting potatoes less than a week ago and they are everywhere.

I planted this small statfruit tree about a year ago and the fruit is finally growing. From the look of it, this little plant should produce quite a bit of starfruit as well.

We are now running a roast night on Sundays featuring herb crusted prime rib, house made porchetta, and while rotisserie roast chicken.

This is Ahi and kajiki that is I bind together, seasoned, seared and sliced. It's pretty cool to have two different fish in the same slice of sashimi. This will give a new look to our weekend buffets.

These salmon stuffed scallops were just for fun tonight to show the guys how to use "meat glue". They came out nice though, with a really great texture and just a subtle salmon flavor. The lemongrass butter adds a citrussy richness that compliments both the scallop and the salmon nicely. This may not be on the menu, but the gears are turning in the heads of my cooks tonight.

Here are a couple pupus I made for a couple clients the other day. Kalua pork tacos and schichimi seared Ahi tacos to start their lunch out right.

One of tonights specials is this braised pork belly. It's served with sauce made from reducing the braising liquid, adding demi and finishing with butter. I served it with creamy polenta balls, grape tomatoes and a roasted hearts of palm and mushroom pico de gallo.

I just got in a few new items to try out some new molecular recipes. I finally got the "caviar" stopper so I don't have to make them one drop at a time. I also brought in more tapioca maltodextrin that i have used in past posts, but would like to do more experimenting with. Powdered agar, pectin, soy lecithin and Carrageenan are also additions to my shelf, so I plan to work on some new, fun stuff for our different restaurants. I am excited to liven up our menu a bit with some unusual components.

Another nice appetizer to get your mouth watering. This is a simple, popular dish that I really enjoy. We wrap U-10 scallops in thinly sliced Italian prosciutto and pan sear. They are served on a house grown basil pesto infused polenta cake. The morel broth is hit with tomato and shallots, and of course, finished with whole butter.

Killer feedback on this dish. My new favorite entree. We take a medium 2+ Hawaiian caught Ahi filet and clean it to just the beautiful center cut. We coat the entire loin with hand crushed black pepper, hawaiian sea salt and extra virgin olive oil and sear the whole thing rare. We cut a 6 oz portion to order and give it one final sear before serving. The combination of the high quality ahi, molokai purple potatoes and the vanilla and cherry demi makes for a very well rounded entree.