Sigh, Nobu Restaurant: if only we were able to dine with you and indulge in your delicious cuisine without feeling our wallets go empty while our stomachs filled up.
Oh wait! Now we have another option.
Nobu Waikiki (inside the Waikiki Parc Hotel) has just launched a "European-style pre-dinner feature" called Apertivo to be served in the Lounge at Nobu:
Among his 21 globally-based restaurants, Chef Nobu has hand-selected Nobu Milano and Nobu Waikiki to celebrate this sophisticated pre-meal European-dining tradition. Available Monday through Friday from 5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m., Aperitivo will feature a tasting trio of the chef's selections of the day, served with a choice of a Nobu cocktail.
The price? $18 per person. Score.
So now you can say you dined at Nobu and nobody ever needs to know you just popped in for a little taste before dinner -- and, by the way, we were there a few weeks ago and the food was damn good.
Nobu opened inside the Waikiki Parc Hotel, a poor but not inelegant sister to the Halekulani, in June of 2007. Yet unlike the other Nobus across America, the food at this outpost got tepid reviews from local writers.
When I asked a friend who works there what the deal was, she told to me the chef was still feeling out the local purveyors and had not really localized the menu.
The restaurant had done well with tourists but locals took a lot longer to come around. So I waited and waited. And finally dove in two weeks ago. Verdict? Damn, that food is good.
We love this feisty little Hawaii hotel chain, Aqua Hotels, for taking a modern spin on Waikiki resorts. Alas, they've only been able to grab second-tier (and sometimes extremely second-tier) locations to showcase their chops.
But that will all change as the chain announced yesterday it would take over management of the Park Shore Waikiki , a property that has had some renovations done and has a super-primo location but has always been relegated to the B-List.
If past is prologue, Aqua will do some nice renovation to mod out the place, put in a spa, ideally bring in a nice restaurant, etc.
Having a decent operation managing this place will be awesome -- I personally can't wait to test drive the Aqua take on the pool deck, one of the best in Waikiki and one of the few with 270 degree views taking in both Diamond Head and the western end of Waikiki.
We are suckers for a room with a killer view. We find that we are even more likely to forgive some minor hotel inconveniences if we can stare out the window at something pretty--yeah we are that shallow. Let's help out our fellow hotel mavens by uploading rooms with killer views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. We will feature our favorites in this space from time to time. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number of the hot view.
Jaunted Editor Davie Kaufmann passed along this killer Honolulu hotel view. In high rise hotels, high rooms are always best--go figure, right?
She enjoyed the convenience of the hotel, but since we are spending our Friday inhabiting Planet Hoth here in the Northeast, it is the view that has us mesmerized.
Donald the developer is collecting beaucoup bucks for this proposed project that has a hefty condo component and will also house the first new 5-star hotel built in Hawaii since the Four Seasons Hualalai and the first in Waikiki since the 1980s.
Despite average price tags of $1.5 million, 80 percent of the apartments are sold. The tower is to be located in a primo oceanview spot on the western side of Waikiki. Everyone -- a big alooooohaaaa to the Donald!
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by Jenna
