Can I buy something? Please?

Fedex delivered my iPhone a couple days ago (ironically the day the whole AT&T network was down for the entire state of Hawaii), an early Christmas present from eGeekette. I’d been fending off the iPhone jones for a long time, but the wealth of available applications finally won me over, especially the Twitter and Facebook apps. Woo hoo! Always connected!

Since I carry my phone with me everywhere, I figured I’d better get a case to protect my shiny new toy so I headed over to the Apple Store. The variety of cases available for the iPhone (for every iProduct, actually) is pretty mind boggling so I spent a long standing in front of the display. I have the good fortune to be going to Macworld Expo in January so I finally settled on a basic silicone jacket, figuring that I’ll look for the case of my dreams there at Mecca of all things Apple.

Clutching my case, I headed to the back of the glowing cavern but discovered there was only the “Genius Bar” there. Oookay… looking around it took me a couple moments to realize there were no registers anywhere in the store. A passing Apple employee in a blue shirt took pity on me and let me know that anyone in a blue shirt could help me check out – except her, since she was helping someone already.

I headed towards the nearest blue shirt, but he was setting up an iPhone. There were a few other blue shirts scattered around the store, most of them hustling back and forth busily. Trying to catch someone’s attention was like a three year old trying to play professional soccer. Unsure what to do, I followed blue shirt that looked like he was actually checking someone out and once he stopped moving, hovered hopefully. Once he finished that sale, I would buy my case and be on my merry way.

But no… After a couple of minutes waiting, he too hustled away, not even acknowledging my presence. Was I supposed to follow him? Wait there for him to come back? Find another blue shirt and start stalking all over again?

Aren’t stores supposed to sell you stuff? It doesn’t work if you’re so “innovative” that you confuse your customers and make the process as difficult and demeaning as possible.

I gave up and walked out. I’ll stick to shopping at places that actually want to let me buy something.

TGIF talks local food too

I’ve definitely got food on the brain lately, especially “local” food. Today’s TGIF section of the Honolulu Advertiser highlighted some restaurants that use locally raised ingredients. The intro paragraph captures the essence of “why local?”:

We do it to support our community of farmers, ranchers and fishermen — the people in Hawai’i who bring gorgeous food to our plates. It’s also a way to support environmental principles and live “green.” But we can’t forget that locally grown food also can be healthy, and maybe more importantly, delicious.

Here are the restaurants that made the list, with my comments:

• Nico’s Pier 38 – Crave-able furikake ahi. Gets pretty crowded (and hot!) at lunch so go early.
• Sansei Seafood Restaurant and Seafood Bar
• Downtown @ the HiSAM
• town – Tried their food at a fundraiser at HiSAM (but haven’t actually eaten at Downtown @ the HiSAM). Quite tasty! One of these days I’ll have to try their restaurant.
• `Umeke Market – Gotta try their tuna melt (skip the onions, ask for spinach instead).
• 12th Ave Grill – Words can’t describe the yumminess…

You folks that work downtown will have to check out Downtown (capital “D”) at the Hawaii State Art Museum and let me know how it is.

You can read the whole article (including much better descriptions of their menu offerings) here.

Now that I’ve had you folks thinking about local food in the context of the community for a week, a question: Would you be interested in more info like this if it were easily available?

I think that’s quite enough food for now. We’ll be returning to our regularly scheduled elemental geekiness shortly.

A good excuse to eat out

Following up on the last post about restaurants supporting the community with a dazzling display of synchronicity, it turns out that this week (November 16 – 22, 2008) is Restaurant Week in Hawaii. I didn’t plan the timing, promise!

From the website:

The first annual Restaurant Week Hawaii will be a seven day celebration of the cuisine scene in Hawaii. From fine dining to fast-food, French to fusion, participating restaurants will feature special menu items, promotions and discounts. Diners can sample Hawaii’s newest restaurants, dine at old favorites and taste a variety of exceptional dishes now being prepared by Hawaii’s chefs using locally grown produce. Restaurant Week is a reminder that Hawaii is a culinary destination with top chefs, farm to table dining, wonderful wine and a lot more to discover and explore.

A portion of the proceeds from Restaurant Week Hawaii will support the Culinary Institute of the Pacific at Diamond Head.

Check out www.restaurantweekhawaii.com for a list of participating restaurants and offers.

Different take on “local” food

A recent comment by Not the LG mentioned that local businesses, and by extension, the community as a whole, suffer in competition with national chains. Although the comment was related to gas pricing, there were examples of mainland eateries pushing local restaurants out of business. This got me thinking since eGeekette and I probably eat out more often than we cook at home, so it’s a topic that’s near and dear to my heart/stomach. However, I’ll admit that up until now I’ve never really thought about whether an establishment was locally owned or not.

I made a list of places I can remember eating at least occasionally in recent history and separating by local or mainland/chain ownership, as best as I know. I limited my list to middle-of-the-road, sit-down restaurants to simplify things. There are just too many fast food/plate lunch places (although you could argue that fast food joints tend to be national chains and plate lunch places are generally locally owned).

Next, I tried to put them into broad categories with chain and local “equivalents”, based on the type of food that each restaurant served. This was purely subjective and probably won’t necessarily align with your assessments, but bear with me for this exercise.

Finally, I tried to identify the restaurants that contributed to the community through fundraising opportunities or direct donations (indicated by “$”) or used local produce in their dishes (“LP”) thus supporting local farmers. Some of the mainland chain restaurants have community policies (”CP”) that detail their philanthropic activities, but not necessarily for organizations here in Hawaii.

Based on this list, I pondered whether if I was going to “eat local” would I be willing to forego the chain place for the local place? I dunno… Unlike products, where you’re comparing various prices for the exact same thing, food is pretty relative. When you’re jonesing for an Oldtimer Burger from Chili’s, a Zippy’s Primeburger doesn’t cut it and sometimes you just GOTTA have Original Pancake House french crepes with strawberries for breakfast…

For a different perspective, here’s a list of places I can recall closing in years past:

I definitely miss the local places more, for sentimental reasons as well as their unique culinary offerings. It was only after Not the LG’s comment that I thought about their other contributions to the community.

Bottom line time: Good food is still good food so I still don’t think I’m necessarily going to make dining decisions based solely on local or mainland ownership. However, I’m definitely going to be more aware of my dining out choices and try to patronize the restaurants I want to see stick around.

Now it’s your turn:

• What are your favorite middle-of-the-road, sit-down restaurants and are they locally owned?
• Do you think about whether a restaurant is locally owned or not when you go out to eat?
• Would you be more willing to patronize an establishment that supported the local community/economy over a restaurant that only served yummy food?