Aloha!

5/15/10 - Sold-out within 24 Hours? I guess that's what happens when the Donald stamps his name upon any property!

Only, is it really a Trump Tower? The name is there, but Donald Trump himself actually had nothing to do with the building or marketing of this property! He did license his name out, but because there is a contractual possibility that his name could actually be pulled-out at any time, a number of investors have since filed suit, citing inadequate disclosure! I have no idea how such a pull-out could ever legally occur, or if the parties have since settled their differences, but I'd hate to spend boo-koo bucks on a Trump Tower suite, only to have it re-named the following year as just another luxury Waikiki hotel! Waddaya think would happen to your bottom line?

Whatever the case, it's still a Trump Tower today, and with or without the name, it's still a gorgeous property!



And in another possible misconception, BLT, the name of the fine-dining Steakhouse and premier restaurant of Trump Tower Waikiki, does not stand for bacon, lettuce, and tomato! No, it's Bistro Laurent Tourondel, thank you, the famous French chef who has worked with some of the best in the industry, including Claude Troisgros', Jacques Maximin, and Joel Robuchon. Currently based in New York, he now presides over an empire of restaurants all over the world in the BLT name, expanding in award-winning fashion by creating BLT Fish, BLT Prime, BLT Burger, and BLT Market!

But for today, we'll concentrate on some serious steaks as well as a whole mess of impressive sides here at BLT Steakhouse in Waikiki:


I had assumed parking would be expensive at the Tower itself, so I originally planned on leaving my car at the Ft. DeRussy lot across the street. It was Big Al, however, who actually confirmed with the restaurant that there's free valet parking at the front lobby, a much better option. Reserving a crisp five-dollar bill for tip later, we were aaalll set, excited and ready for a grand 'ol experience, Trump-style!

Arriving right at the opening bell at 5:30pm, it was a perfect time for not bothering other possibly nervous customers with picture-taking. Though sophisticated and classy, there's also a very relaxed, casual nature about this place, no doubt because this is Hawaii, after all! Instead of dimly-lit corridors, cherry-wood bookshelves, Tiffany lamps, and Victorian overtures, complete with soft piano music playing in the background, this place bustles with activity and noise, pumping-out beats to the tune of Beyonce, Michael Buble, and Green Day! Aaai like it!

A long row of comfortable booths are situated on one side, with more tables scattered throughout the rest of the dining room, as well as in an outdoor section taking advantage of the cool island breezes flowing through Waikiki's concrete jungle.



Near the entrance is an accompanying bar area. After the sun goes down, we'll come back for a few more shots in this vicinity, including a couple from the cool-looking iced displays front and center!


After being seated by our kind hostess, and before our orders were even placed, a complimentary bread opener began the show, only, not quite in the same fashion as your typical bread and butter basket. No, this one came with a few thin slices of crisp, toasted  bread along with, of all things, a spread of chicken liver! Of course, say the word chicken liver and it'll probably make you nautious, but say chicken liver pate, and aaaah, that changes things drastically, doesn't it? The very word pate makes me feel like donning a suit and tie, but then again, I quickly remember that I don't own a set. Oh, well. Aloha shirt enough?


Though not particularly the biggest fan of organs of any kind except for foie gras, my absolute number one food on the planet, this chicken liver pate was great as a spread. Its flavors were very strong and exotic, yet not as gamey and wild as I half-expected, with a rich, buttery, creamy element that not only tempered the sharp, cutting flavors of liver, but also complemented it well, adding much more depth and character to the dish and filling my entire palate with quite a presence, indeed!


Joining wifey and I on this very fine evening was not only Big Al, but none other than one Kirk Matsumoto, big-wig banquet department manager at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, and one of my best buddies on earth. Outspoken, eloquent, and very comfortable in atmosphere's such as here at BLT, he smoothly requested a little taste of their roasted beets, which are cooked and prepared in-house from the real thing. Not something I'd feel very comfortable doing, but I guess I should count myself lucky dining with the big guy and receiving such perks!

A regular order of roasted beet salad also comes with endive, walnuts, and Mauna Kea goat cheese, but this one was just a free sampler, and nope, it's definitely not of the canned variety!


With a number of salads and appetizers offered, such as lobster cobb salad ($29), Kamuela tomato salad ($13), jumbo shrimp cocktail ($18), crabcakes ($17), and double-cut bacon ($9), we started instead with a dozen oysters. There were several varieties available, but we chose a set of Kumamoto oysters, which are smaller in size, coming with about as much meat as a large clam. No worries, though, as they are amazingly clean, refreshing, and some of the best-tasting oysters you'll ever find! One little note I find interesting is that though Kumamoto oysters are reasonably well-known here, I don't know of anyone from Japan who actually considers Kumamoto oysters a hot commodity. In fact, despite my wife Kumi growing-up in an area close to Kumamoto itself, we still don't know of anyone who has even heard of the term, actually!

Anyhow, on the side were sauces of ponzu, cocktail, and Tabasco, all perfect with a splash of lemon juice. At $34, this platter was very pricey, but for such freshness and such a gorgeous presentation, none of us were left grumbling, lemme tell ya!



As beautiful as the platter was, our next dish, though much smaller, was perhaps even more impressive to behold. When our ahi tuna tartare arrived, the first words popping into my head were - wow, then wow, pre-e-tty. I mean, these small chunks of beautiful, bright-red ahi were shaped and molded into an absolute charmer of a symmetricaly pleasing mini-tower, standing tall and proud upon a base of avocado and a topping of crispy, tempura-like bits.



If that doesn't impress you, I don't know what will! Each chunk of ahi seemed off-the-boat fresh, and mixed with the soy-lime dressing pooling below, was like a rich-man's version of a fancy poke!

Here's a shot after the tower partially came down, still very much pretty and perhaps even more revealing of the freshness of this fish:


In addition to starters and salads, there are a number of sides also available, any of which can be treated as an appetizer. All are listed at $8 except for the hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, which stand at $14 and are another name for the very-expensive maitake mushroom so popular and revered in Japanese cuisine. Some of the $8 sides listed are roasted tomato provencal, grilled asparagus, onion rings, creamed spinach w/nutmeg, jalapeno mash, gnocchi pomodoro, potato gratin, and lemongrass sticky rice. And yes, of course, there are giant spuds here as well, but it was the spicy bbq Kahuku corn that came highly recommended by our kind waiter:


And I see why, too. Right off the bat, you could tell the sections of stuck-together, golden-yellow kernels were sliced straight from the cob in the back kitchen, and not only was the sweetness of the corn highly apparent, but its sauce also highly complementary. It was like a marriage of bacon-laced baked beans and the freshest of kernels, only slightly tossed in bbq sauce at the very last moment in order to maintain its taste, crispiness, and over-all integrity. A folksy dish with a modern, quality-oriented approach, it was indeed masterful in every way!

Poached green beans, or dare I say, haricot vert, were also done in excellent fashion, arriving perfectly-cooked and mixed with garlic slices and fresh tomato salsa:


Another interesting and complimentary dish, served just before your steak, is a popover. I'm not aware of any other fine steak house here carrying it, but I sure haven't seen it elsewhere on the island before. The large, poofy bakery product looked very much like an oversided muffin made from bread dough, and kinda tasted like a giant creme puff, minus the cream! Despite the enormous sizes, however, they were all but hollow inside, and tore easily apart in large, yet airy-light pieces. With their golden-brown, crispy crust and soft, moist, warm insides, they were a charming, rustic complement to our soon-arriving steaks.



As you can see, night-fall has descended upon us. I decided to re-visit the bar area, taking a few quick snaps along the way:




Besides the beautiful displays of lobster, King Crab, oysters, and shrimp portrayed, not to mention all the other seafoods already shown, it does seem that BLT Steakhouse definitely pulls on its expertise from BLT Fish Restaurant, as well, as there are some truly mouth-watering fish and seafood choices listed on the menu. Listed here at BLT Waikiki are acacia honey marinated Alaskan black cod ($32), spiced tuna citrus ($34), Pacific moi grenobloise-style ($30), sauteed dover sole in soy caper brown butter ($50), and crispy opakapaka Cantonese for two, at $29 per person. No, we passed on fish on this very fine evening, but I couldn't help but showing you this amazing and truly show-stopping picture of a whole, crispy opakapaka, courtesy of Dawn J, on Yelp:


Sure wish I was there with Dawn on that particular night!
 
But here at BLT Steakhouse, and as good as all the fish choices sound, it's steak that most come here for, and there's no shortage, lemme tell ya! For starters, there's a hangar cut ($29), which, along with flank and skirt, is one of those historically under-rated sections that are quickly becoming more valuable for its slightly tougher, yet very flavorful, fatty meat. Others are staple cuts you'll come across in any fine steakhouse, such as NY ($37 per 14 oz, $43 per 16 oz, and $49 per bone-in 20 oz), Porterhouse for two ($85 per 40 oz), ribeye ($36 per 14 oz, $45 per bone-in 22 oz), and filet mignon, or tenderloin ($34 per 8 oz, $42 per 12 oz). There is also a Black Angus hamburger w/fries ($16), a Wagyu skirt steak ($52 per 10 oz), and the Hawaii Regional Cuisine restaurant staple, braised short rib, at $33, shown here:


Excellent, excellent, excellent! Sorry, this shot is only a portion of the entire piece, which was presented in a large, jet-black, sizzling-hot kettle about quadruple the size of the meat itself. It's just that my shot of the entire presentation happened to fail miserably! As for the succulent, tender meat, which tore apart like a hot kalua pig straight out of the imu, everyone at the table was duly impressed. First of all, the portions were huge, and it wasn't drowned-out in heavy sauces either, as can often happen at some Hawaii Regional Cuisine restaurants. No, the pure taste of beef itself was showcased, almost like a simple, salt-seasoned steak off the hibachi, only softer, its sauce more like a rich jus than anything else. When arriving in groups, I highly recommend this dish as a shared appetizer - all you'll need is a fork to separate portions!

But the one thing concerning me here at BLT regarding steak over-all is that the menu and website says their steaks are either USDA Prime or Certified Black Angus. One of their informational cards, however, states that all of their beef is USDA Certified Black Angus Prime. Big difference! Certified Black Angus requirements specify that not only does Prime qualify for such a standard, but also up to 35% of the top USDA Choice cuts, as well. Prime, being only 2% of the entire beef market for consumption, is obviously beyond reproach, but Certified Black Angus, though coming from some of the best cows in the world for meat, doesn't always meet the 2% grade. But then again, I am kind-of a steak snob, so maybe I should just move-on!

After all, our steaks were fantastic, including our final cut, a 14 oz ribeye, and my favorite steak in the world!


Arriving in a large, jet-black, sizzling pan, our gorgeous steak came with an herb-butter that quickly melted down into the steak and also an entire bulb of roasted garlic. All's you needed was a pinch at the bottom of each clove or section of cloves, and out came a delicious paste of pure roasted garlic, perfect for slathering on steaks, popovers, crispy breads, or whatever else you've so chosen.

Though we ordered our steak rare to medium rare, I actually prefer medium, sometimes even medium-well on a quality cut. I know many will disagree, but personally, I think anything bloodier than medium leans a little too chewy-tough, tastes more like tartare than steak, and doesn't melt in your mouth nearly as divinely as a medium. Pink? Perfect. Red? Eeeh, maybe just a tad-bit in the centers, at most. Though this one was a little too rare for me, with its consequentially chewier cuts, I could still taste the seasonings, flavors, and most of all, the excellence of the meat itself, which was stellar.
 
A bevy of sauces are also served alongside, such as Roquefort, three-mustard, bearnaise, red wine, horseradish, and chimichurri, but each of us sitting at the table tonight preferred our steaks without the aid of any of them, opting for the purer, more old-time flavors of good ol' salt, a hint of creamy butter, and the steak itself, instead. Can't say the sauces wouldn't have been great with an order of onion rings or crabcakes, though!


Thumbs-up? Absolutely! It is very pricey, though, as you might expect, so just be careful, is all!

Oh, and before leaving, there's one more thing I highly recommend doing when visiting the Trump Hotel Tower, either before or after dinner. From the lobby, make sure you take a quick elevator ride up to the 6th floor, because that's where you'll find Wai'olu Lounge, a classy, yet casual and very relaxing nightspot for a few quiet drinks or pupus. Though our orders took horrendously long in arriving, both for our drinks and our desserts, the managers were very kind and helpful, stopping by to chat and wish us well. Once again, the menu can be pricey, with bottled beers arriving at a dollar more than downstairs at BLT Steakhouse and our single round of B-52 shots, at $12 a pop! Small dishes are also served, with choices like poke martini (20), Alaskan King Crab roll ($20), edamame hummus ($15), and Trump onion rings ($14).
Didn't have enough money nor room left to try any of them, but the gorgeous atmosphere and view are reason enough to stop-by. And for a slam-dunk date night? Every Friday evening, not long after sunset, the Hilton Hawaiian Village features a fireworks show on the beach, and yes, it is clearly visible from your perch here at Wai'olu Lounge! Add-in large, comfortable sofas that your behind will adamently refuse to separate itself from, and we're talking about a Fabio story-book evening for the ages (is that guy still around?)!

Check-out this cubicle, one of several along the open side of the lounge:


And with that, gang, thanks for stopping by!

Take care, and Aloha till next time!

Aku

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