Arancino At The Kahala

The world food tour made a stop in Italy, Arancino at The Kahala style. It had been a while (two years) since we last visited and we heard they made some changes to their menu so we looked forward to stopping by. We started with a 2015 Paulownia, a Napa Cabernet Sauvignon I hadn’t seen before. Limited production; just 134 cases produced. It featured notes of dark fruit, chocolate and a hint of coffee; I really liked this wine and want to find more. We paired the wine with the Affetato Misto, a charcuterie board that featured five kinds of cured meats, bits of parmigiano Reggiano, gherkins and pitted green olives. On the side were little pillows of fried bread; these were scrumptious! We ordered three mains, spaghetti ai Ricci di Mare, a personal favorite and the reason I come to Arancino’s, Spaghetti alla Carbonara, and Pizza Carbonara as the food duo can never get enough of guanciale (sort of like bacon) and Waimanalo TKG eggs. The spaghetti Carbonara was redolent in truffle oil but we put it over the top by adding shaved truffles. The intoxicating scent of truffles was “to die” for. My Ricci di Mare was fine but I sensed something was missing … I couldn’t place it but there was something different. It didn’t stop me from cleaning my plate with some of the pillows from the misto. The Pizza Carbonara was served last (by request) and we ended up taking more than half of it home. It was delicious and the scent of truffles was heavenly but I had eaten too many bread pillows so I had to tap. The crust was a little too soft in the center but the edges were perfect. The richness of the TKG yolk made it a luscious dish. We didn’t have room for dessert though several sounded tempting. I had a French Press coffee; no Americano for me. Final thoughts? We enjoyed our dinner. Service by Mike and Corie was professional and unobtrusive. The pace was leisurely, which we enjoyed. Too many restaurants now seem to want to rush you or place a time limit on your stay; we find that to be overbearing and dampens our experience. Recommended!

We arrived ready to celebrate our anniversary and were not disappointed. The haku lei salad was the prettiest salad I've ever seen and the rigatoni was simply delicious. The rosemary bread and oil was wonderful. But the best part was when our waitress, Heather, brought out our congratulatory tiramisu. We hope you book a reservation soon. When you do tell them Joe sent you... they will say Joe Who... that's me 😃

Amazing dining experience! This is clearly one of the top end Italian restaurants in the area, the service was really good and there are multiple people coming to check up on you. The food was good, we tried the uni pasta and the whole branzino. The pasta was good, but slightly overhyped I think (seems to be the most popular item on the menu). The branzino was top notch, prepared in a special way with salt to keep the moisture in. Also, the tiramisu was fantastic.