Morimoto Maui is located at the high end Andaz resort and is on a picturesque property, adjacent to fantastic pools. On our walk there, we got to watch professional dancers performing a luau – a nice little bonus.  

The interior of the restaurant was crowded and similar to other nice restaurants in the area – geared more towards optimizing patron number rather than on delivering a fine dining experience. The tables were also a little narrow and long placing you farther away from your dining companion than ideal. Given this interesting confluence and the general noise level, it was actually easier for me to hear the person from the adjacent table sitting next to me, rather than my dinner companion sitting across from me. Guess that we were not here to talk anyway. As I usually do, I asked for a copy of the menu signed by the kitchen staff, which my waiter seemed happy to arrange – more on that later.

We started with the Morimoto signature appetizer, Toro Tartare, which is finely diced bluefin tuna belly and hamachi collar with five condiments (spicy plum,  cream, avocado, onion and rice cracker – we asked to omit the wasabi). This was served with a dipping sauce and a pickled plum as a post-appetizer palate cleanser.  We were instructed to use the paddle to take a scoop of fish, combine  with our favorite combination of condiments and then add a bit of dipping sauce. This was a dish that looked almost identical to the Napa counterpart (compare the pictures). This experiment was couldn’t have been more perfectly executed.

I have to admit, as I recall from before, this was a delicious dish. I couldn’t recall which condiment was my favorite, so I tried different combinations (pairs, then trios – oh how systematic). By the second to last bite, I had finally decided on plum, cream and onion as my combination of choice.  Just in time to be finished – I think this is a bit of Chef Morimoto’s famously understated humor coming through. 

The next dish was kampachi carpaccio, thinly sliced Kona Gold amberjack lightly seared and served with sweet garlic, kabosu sauce, diced local mushroom and mitsuba micro-greens. This was a satisfying combinations of tastes – tangy and savory with a balanced blend of textures.

We moved on to the soup course: lobster wonton, with a substantial piece of lobster claw meat in an al dente wrapper swimming in a surprising spicy lobster broth. The spicy kick was a nice change of pace from the subtle flavors we had thus far. I will note that the dish was at the limit of spiciness that I find pleasant so I’m not sure how many patrons enjoy this dish. 

The next course was a “risotto” dish – Alaskan king crab and house-polished sushi rice (thus the quotes around the risotto), parmesan cheese, edamame, sweet corn, micro greens and parmesan. This dish settled things down after the previous spice-fest. The sweet corn added bursts of flavor while the edamame added a nice textural element. I’m not sure how I feel about the sushi rice – it yielded a pasty (instead of creamy) consistency.

We then had a palate cleanser and my favorite dish of the evening – herb sorbet over a cucumber relish with a pipette of lemon gin for me to “titrate” while eating. I tremendously enjoyed this combination- minty herb sorbet blended with the sweet finely diced cucumber relish and the tangy gin. I wouldn’t have picked these flavors to insert into the middle of my dinner, but appreciate how well they worked. And having to add my own gin with the pipette, allowed me to control how strong the dish was – giving this dish an interactive element that’s always appreciated. 

We then moved onto the sushi course with  five lovely pieces of nigiri. Nigiri is the original form of sushi, created in Tokyo. It’s thought to have been invented as a type of “fast food” by an enterprising chef working in the area during the 1800s who decided to sell his freshly created morsels to nearby blue-collar workers for a quick snack. Boy, has sushi come a long way since then! I didn’t catch all the different fish, but the tuna (red) and the squid (translucent white) bookending the row of sushi were my favorite. 

The main course was called surf and turf but to me was more appropriately termed air, land and sea. It had a pan seared scallop, cooked to perfection over a bed of roasted brussel sprout with mushroom, dill mustard and beurre blanc sauce. This sat next to Rendang style slow braised Tajima wagyu short rib with Kula corn and heart of palm, all topped with crushed macadamia nuts. Next to the ribs, three slices of seared Muscovy duck breast with local citrus, star fruit and beet purée topped with duck jus. These three generous dishes were a bit more than I could finish, given that I wanted to save room for desert, which I had heard another table describe with high praise. So, I sadly left quite a bit of my plate unfinished.

For dessert, we had yuzu tapioca with coconut foam and mango sorbet with toasted coconut flakes and white chocolate square to garnish, adding an interesting textural element, and a toasted nuttiness. The creamy citrus of the yuzu tapioca added a bright element to this beautiful dessert. As you’d expect from mango in Hawaii: the perfect sweetness resulting from fruit picked at the height of ripeness. I’d have to agree with the other patrons – the dessert was worth waiting for and a wonderful conclusion to the meal. With dessert, we had serviceable island coffee, served in modern but elegant china. 

We got our signed copy of the menu (well some menu), but the main courses had been substituted (or otherwise switched out) and so were indelicately crossed out with the new dishes scribbled into the margins – err, I don’t even let my 10 year-old get away with that. Are you telling me it was too much trouble to print up the correct menu or was it just not worth your effort? This was obviously something I was going to treasure – I asked the chef to autograph it, after all. I also requested the chef to take a photo with us – and while he was kind enough to join us at our table and chat with us for a few min, didn’t seem open to a photo.