a Sansei Trip report.

While traveling through Hawaii I stopped by the famous(?) seafood restaurant Sansei Seafood Restaurant and Sushi Bar in the Waikiki Marriott Resort and Hotel.  This restaurant is one of many creations of DK Kodama a local restaurateur and proprietor of Hiroshi, D.K Steak House and Vino.

I visited Hiroshi two years ago and absolutely loved my meal.  I definitely recommend visiting the place if you’ve never been there.  Back to Sansei.  So admittedly my guests and I pulled a “Hawaii time” [a.k.a CP time a.k.a  Filipino time] and came to our reservation 15 minutes late.  The restaurant said no problem and placed us in what had to be the worst table in the restaurant.  A quaint four-top around the corner from the main dining room.  We collected the menus and ordered waters once we sat down.  Quickly my party and I began to notice an unpleasant order in the area.  We weren’t sure if it was mildew or body odor but something was definitely off.  I saw a door for something a few feet away so my hypothesis was that their probably was a moldy mop behind that door.  So we politely asked the waiter if we could be reseated somewhere else.  He said ok, and politely showed us to another table.  Before leaving our new table he added a parting dagger:

Are you guys from here?

Uh, yeah

Well that smell was the ocean, when there is a southern swell, Waikiki smells like that [This is after previously saying that he didn’t smell anything.]  Its called the Ocean.

Oh, ok

Give me a break, the ocean!?!  Um, our new table was 6 feet away from the old table and it didn’t smell like that.  Maybe the Mauka winds were also blowing the smell through the old table or maybe there was an A’ Ala Park stowaway hiding under our table.  I guess any excuse that cites implicit knowledge of Hawaii will suffice. Waiters in Hawaii, please don’t play the I’m more local than you card with me.  Looks are deceiving.  So back to the food.

We decided to do the meal freestyle which meant we just ordered random dishes at random times and ate them in no particular order.  Here are the items we ordered with my notes attached:

Japanese Calamari Salad- Deep friend calamari served in a wonton wrapper bowl on top of mixed greens.  Can’t go wrong with fried calamari right?  True, the calamari’s were lightly breaded and tossed with what I assumed to be Sweet Thai Chili Sauce mixed with vinegar and more mild red chili.  The calamari were pretty good.  The wonton bowl cried for help, it was drenched in oil which caused it to get soft and mushy.  The greens were fresh but so dry.  They looked like they were straight out of those mixed lettuce bags.  Possibly prewashed sometime last week somewhere in the mainland.  I think a little acidic vinaigrette tossed with the greens would have contrasted nicely with the ubersweetness of the squid.

Sansei Special Roll-  I’m still trying to figure out what was special about this.  True, you don’t see furukake on sushi all the time, but you certainly see spicy imitation crab salad, avocado and cucumber[the menu said cilantro also but I didn’t see it] made into sushi. The roll was served on a pool of Sweet Thai Chili Sauce.  I think the combination worked ok.  It tasted like your standard California Roll in my opinion.

Caterpillar Roll-  Unagi maki sushi roll covered with avocado and tobiko, served on top Unagi sauce.  What’s not to like?

Matsuhisa Style Butterfish-  Sake and shio miso marinated butterfish fillet; lightly grilled.  WOW, this dish was amazing!  From the title of the dish my guess is they cribbed the recipe from the Nobu cookbook.  Well, fuck it!  its good.

Sashimi Plate -Salmon, Tuna, Octopus, Surf Clam, Hamachi and Ebi(Sweet shrimp)-  Pretty standard, all the fish was very fresh.  The tuna pieces were kind of pake but what can you do?

Panko crusted Ahi Sashimi Sushi Roll- Tuna wrapped in spinach leaves, wrapped in nori then battered with panko and deep fried.  Served on top of what the menu described as soy-wasabi butter sauce.  First off I loved this dish.  The combination of flavors was amazing.  The sauce was definitely a big part of it.  I’m going to have to call the secret ingredient as being beef demi glace.  Although they don’t say, I’m going to have to call there was a definite beef/gravy going on in there.  I really liked it.

Rock-Shrimp Dynamite- Deep fried shrimp covered in a sweet Thai chili sauce and served in a wonton bowl on top of greens.  First since I was experiencing deja-vu, I was afraid that someone might have changed the programing of the Matrix, but then I realized this was the same preparation as the Japanese Calamari Salad[see above.]  Comments on Yelp about this dish leads me to believe its also a recipe appropriated from the genius of Nobu.  Only in Hawaii I think it would be ok for a restaurant to blatantly use a recipe from another restaurant.

Overall I think the restaurant is good.  Our new waiter was capable, friendly and yes, he did fit my previous sushi waiter paradigm.  I think the restaurant should try to stray from the comfortable embrace of Sweet Thai Chili Sauce but other than that, the food was good.  I personally would have tried to create a menu more diverse than something that could [and might] be recreated at a chain restaurant like TGI Friday’s.  I also noticed as the night progressed the bar began to fill out.  It might be interesting to visit the restaurant eat and get drunk.  I’m sure a lot of the fried food would go well with some beers.

I didn’t have my camera with me during this trip so the photos are all gathered from the web. 

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