Sweet Basil, Poke Stop / Chinatown’s food options seem to be diversifying daily. The latest entrant in the pho-rich neighborhood is Sweet Basil, its sign proclaiming ‘Neo Thai Restaurant.’ Oh no! Kooky fusion menu? No, ‘neo’ simply refers to an accommodation to local tastes, says owner Thip Nguyen. (Yes, the name is Vietnamese, but her husband, Thui, hails from Bangkok.) Her family ran Cafe Siam in Wai’alae in the 1980s, and now owns Columbia Inn. She cites bringing down the heat as an example, though the kitchen will turn it back up on request.

Open just a few weeks, the small, casual restaurant is already jammed at lunch (the only meal it serves). Come in early or after 1pm, because there’s nowhere to cool your heels.

The menu is a familiar one, with spring rolls and satay on the appetizer list. Fried crab claws are actually extruded seafood made to look like crab claws, with a single toothlike blade of claw protruding eerily from the orange fried ball. Seafood McNugget. Chicken wings stuffed with pork, chicken and long rice, then fried, are a better option. Beef larb, that meaty salad, is tame spice-wise compared to other versions found at, say, take-out spot Malee in Maunakea Marketplace.

But things get much more interesting with entrÈes like the nice renditions of red curry chicken and almond-crusted softshell crab with panang sauce. The restaurant uses high-quality ingredients–pieces of fresh tender chicken breast and young crab–bringing food up a notch.

A dish that really stands out is the bowl-lickin’-good short ribs braised in massaman curry. The spoon (cause that’s what you’ll want to use to scoop up all the sauce) sinks into the long-simmered meat smothered in thick curry in which you can clearly make out the cardomom and cinnamon. Roasted peanuts add sexy texture.

Three-item combination plates feature dishes not available ‡ la carte, such as honey-garlic pork chops and Thai-style New York steak. While those are affordable, lots of lunchers make a beeline for the daily buffet–all you can eat for $8.95. While the offerings look good, they don’t look as good as the cooked-to-order menu dishes.

The Nguyens are considering opening for dinner, but want to play it safe with the guaranteed day shift. They’ll likely find that if they open (at night), the hungry will come.

Sweet Basil
1152A Maunakea St between Pauahi and Beretania Sts (545-5800)
Hours: Mon-Fri 10:30am-2pm
Starters: $4-$7.95
EntrÈes: $7.50-$11.95
Recommended dishes: Massaman curry shortribs, butter garlic prawns, house-made lemongrass pork sausage, red curry chicken
Payment: AmEx, MC, V

Back to his roots

Some people scratched their heads: Why was the Sam Choy’s Diamond Head Restaurant star chucking it in to open a takeout joint? One visit to Elmer Guzman’s new Poke Stop proves he’s not crazy. With a master plan, the Waipahu guy has joined the ranks of haute plate lunch places like Kaka’ako Kitchen, and does them one (or two) better.

Enter the space to confront a chilled case holding all kinds of poke–limu ‘ahi, furikake salmon, creamy mussel–made in small three-pound batches so they are always fresh. Then there are finger foods such as peel-your-own shrimp and Portuguese sausage-topped oysters (nods to his three-year stint as Emeril’s sous chef in New Orleans). Grab-and-go items like ‘deconstructed sushi’ (blackened nairagi, kim chee ‘ahi, tako, tobiko shrimp and pickled ginger over rice) are innovative meals in a bowl. Containers of poi and pickled onion, bags of dried aku (made by a cop)–the eyes get bigger than the stomach at Poke Stop. Oh, and after 2pm, Guzman puts out ready-to-cook fresh fish (dressed with ginger, scallions and fermented black beans, for example) and on weekends he makes ‘higher-end’ poke, using ingredients such as hamachi.

‘I take the norm and bring it to another level,’ says the boyish Guzman, pointing to his edamame–coated with a chili-garlic sauce.

Facing the counter, turn to your left to see hanging boards listing the regular menu. But for something made by Guzman in the open kitchen, order from the specials. On a recent day options included fried ‘ˆpelu with Hawaiian chili water and crisp white flounder with pineapple sweet-sour sauce. Guzman sears two thick pieces of opah, so they have a slight brown crust, and places them in a deliciously salty broth chockfull of Portuguese sausage chunks and cabbage. So what if it comes in a plastic bowl?

‘In a restaurant, people expect a lot because of the money they will spend,’ says Guzman. ‘Here, they don’t expect a lot, but when they taste the food, they say, ‘Wow.” But what he likes more is the fact that now he has more time to see his kids. The restaurant life was ‘wearing on me for the past seven years. I had fun, but I had to better my life,’ says Guzman, who lives about 10 minutes from Poke Stop.

Soon Guzman will put up umbrellas on the adjacent faux-stone lanai, so people won’t wilt in the sun sitting at the handful of tables and chairs. Waipahu never had it so good. –L.G.

Poke Stop, Waipahu Town Center, 94-050 Farrington Hwy, mauka side, next to Sizzlers (676-8100). Mon-Sat 8am-7pm, Sun 8am-5pm.

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