Basalt — Restaurant in Honolulu

(Last visited December 5, 2022.) On vacation in Hawaii for a couple of weeks and hanging out in Waikiki for the first week! So my wife did her Yelp due-diligence and found this place! At the time it had over 1,300 reviews with an average rating of 4.5 out of 5! I mmmeeeaaannn, that MUST mean this place is off the chain! So here's how things went at Basalt!

Atmosphere/Appearance: This place is located in downtown Waikiki in the touristy district of course. No private parking or anything like that, but it's Hawaii and downtown, what did you expect? Lol. Inside Duke's Lane Market Eatery is this beautifully modern and upscale restaurant. There's high ceilings, stainless steel everywhere, you can see right into the huge kitchen, there's a bar right smack-dab in the middle of the place where the bar rail wraps all the way around it. I loved the open concept and use of contemporary touches. It wasn't too loud inside, but we actually sat outside, duh, it's Hawaii and it was actually louder out there due to the energy of the city.

Service: Excellent, we had no issues whatsoever.

Food: First up was the Bourbon & Blues cocktail! In it is whatever bourbon you'd like (which could really switch up the flavors), muddled blueberry, lemon juice, ginger cinnamon simple syrup and garnished with an orange peel. It was pretty tasty and gave me holiday vibes due to the cinnamon. There was a bite of some kind on the back end, definitely sweet and the bourbon certainly made an appearance. It was a bit on the sweeter side for me, but still a well-crafted cocktail. The complimentary bread for the table was one of the most interesting varieties I've ever seen. It was jet black and represented actual basalt, which is the volcanic rock that is leftover after an eruption. Pretty cool. The roll was soft and served with a whipped butter. It didn't taste anything like what it looks. Lol. The butter could use some salt, but it was all good. Next up were the duck empanadas which is one of the dishes this place is well-known for. Inside is duck, aged goat cheese, brandied cherries, pickled avocado and served with an avocado lime crema. These absolutely BLEW ME AWAY. The exterior was crispy and flakey, yet soft and tender. I was left speechless. The duck was so succulent, tender and seasoned so well. The crema worked with it so well and I'd made a whole meal out of these had I not wanted to try other things. Lol. Next up were the Adobo Chicken Wings, what I was most excited for! Usually Adobo is a dry seasoning, but here they've made a freaking glaze out of it! It's a soy-vinegar glaze with a garlic chili dipping sauce. They're a regular size, sticky, temperature hot and CRAZY tender. The meat just fell off the bone and even the bones separated from themselves. Lol. It's a sweet-salty glaze that's just full of flavor, but a bit hard to describe. The garlic-chili dipping sauce was an excellent balance too. Next up is the Charred Tako (octopus)! I wouldn't order this usually, but babe really likes this stuff, so I had to give it a shot! This is a beautifully presented plate with some potatoes and some crazy sauces I can't really spell. Lol. The sauce was super smokey, the octopus was a bit chewy and tender, but it's just not really my thing. However, I loved the char on the exterior. Next up were the Togarashi Wings! These are a dry rub with a crispy, fluffy skin. It's also served with the same garlic chili dipping sauce. These were salty, spicy and just a well-blended flavor profile. If I had to describe it... the flavors sort of danced all over your mouth touching different parts. It was fascinating. I did enjoy these more than the other flavor. Last, but not least was the basque-style cheesecake. It's cooked at a very high temperature which caramelizes the top layer of sugar. It was creamy, moist and didn't need any sauce! Though, being a New Yorker, nothing beats a good New York style cheesecake with a fruit compote!

Value: It's downtown Hawaii, so bring your wallet, but it's not fine-dining kind of expensive. More-so...

Normally it wouldn't be 5/5 but in Waikiki... well, you have lots of "fancy" places that are only fancy by price and look of it, with very average-tasting food. I know that the best options are food trucks and small neighborhood spots, but sometimes you want to sit down in a restaurant, which becomes a challange. This place is a bit simpler and it seems this is the way to go here - forget the pretentious restaurants that DO NOT deliver, go somewhere like this, nice but not crazy.

That means the food was good here. It's not the best in the world, but we enjoyed it. We started with some salad, pretty average but nothing to complain about. Then for the entrées- my company was pretty happy with the prime rib. As for me, the gluten free options are marked on the menu, but as in many places they are limited. I was tired of steak so I asked if there is any chance they could modify and give me fish with no crust (there's fresh cash in macadamia panko crust) and whatever else would be needed to make it gluten free. They did! And it was very tasty, the fish was delicious, there was great caper-tomato relish that made it bright, and tasty mashed potatoes that were very rich, but I couldn't stop myself from eating a bit. We finished with Crème Brûlée, which was the weakest. I had to try it as it's passionfruit custard and I love passionfruit, but it turned out to be very sweet. It's tasty, very tasty, but you can't have a lot. The berries cut nicely through it but it wasn't enough to have many bites. The sugar on top of it was very thick so we just put it aside and only ate the custard.

Overall, with so many places in Waikiki that are overpriced and not up to taste, I can recommend this one as a spot where you can enjoy the food...

I went for dinner. We had an outside table which was nice but beware that there is a driveway next to the seating area so noise, sometimes fairly loud, from passing vehicles is something that will intrude on your conversations at times. Our server was great except he kind of disappeared at the end of the meal so getting the check taken care of was a slow process. The food, well a mixed bag, the fattoush salad had way too much dressing it was soaked and you couldn’t taste the actual veggies. The scallop dynamite was odd. The scallops were all chopped up so you couldn’t taste them with all of the sauce. My beef short rib loco moco was good. The short ribs were braised so they were fork tender and the gravy was excellent. They used a pilaf-like rice which was really excellent. The only odd thing was they had this ogo salad with the loco moco that didn’t fit, it was as if they needed a local add-on and said “how about some ogo” and added that to the plate. My wife’s pork chop was kind of hard. It had a good taste and the brussel sprouts were excellent, but the over cooked chop took a lot away from the dish. Would I go back? Probably not as there are other options out there for the price. Parking is an the Hyatt Centric parking garage. It’s and older parking garage and if you have a full sized truck or SUV t you might find it a...