October 6th at 6pm, 2011, the annual Lanakila Pacific fundraiser dinner for Meals on Wheels took place. The event is called The Good Table and it takes place at about 50 different restaurants around Oahu at the same time. The Chefs at each restaurant prepares a special menu for the guests of The Good Table making this a very special dinner for everyone. The goal of this annual event is to raise funds that will be used to supply thousands of meals to seniors (Kupuna) throughout Oahu and spread awareness by way of the social dinner and the use of
social media by the diners. Read more details about Lanakila Pacific Meals on Wheels and The Good Table at their website:
http://lanakilapacific.org/.
I am a Lanakila Pacific volunteer and I deliver a
Meals on Wheels route on Monday mornings in the Nuuanu/Downtown area. I was lucky to receive
The Good Table at Ola Restaurant in the Turtle Bay Resort and I invited
a few friends of mine that would be able to help Lanakila Pacific spread the word about Meals on Wheels over social media.
Chef Fred DeAngelo, the chef at Ola, prepared a special four course sampler menu and dessert with wine pairings for this The Good Table dinner. Here is a group shot of us [
flickr]. Chef Fred was definitely cool, as documented by
@RickyLi99's Tweet.
1st Course [Photo]- Butter Poached Lobster & Caviar, Spicy Scallop & Ahi Poke, Alaskan Snow Crab Claw w/ Lilikoi Butter. Paired w/ Lunetta Prosecco.
2nd Course [Photo]- Big Island Hearts of Palm Salad w/ Pupukea Field Greens, Grapefruit, Watercress & Calamansi Vinaigrette, Grilled Hamakua Mushroom Salad in Parmesan Crisp w/ Blue Cheese & Toasted Walnuts, Oven-Dried Hau'ula Tomato & Fresh Mozzarella in Basil Oil. Paired w/ Ferrari Carano Fume Blanc.
3rd Course [Photo]- Misoyaki Butterfish w/ Wilted Baby Bok Choy & Kabayaki Butter, Chef's Signature Togarashi Glazed Salmon w/ Okinawan Sweet Potato Puree, Ginger Crusted Lehi w/ Lomo Tomato Relish. Paired w/ Pacific Rim Dry Riesling by Bonny Doon.
4th Course [Photo]- Grilled Australian Lamb Chop Gremolata, Manoa Honey Glazed New York Strip, Five Spiced Braised Beef Short Rib w/ Kahuku Corn Relish and Natural Jus. Paired w/ Simi Cabernet Sauvignon.
Dessert Course [Photo]- Tahitian Vanilla Scented Creme Brulee, Lilikoi Cheesecake, Rasberry Sorbet. Paired w/ Dow's 20 year old Tawny Port.
We (included other The Good Table diners) took a whole bunch of photos and most of them can be found here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thegoodtable/page3/.
@StarletShay has a
YouTube video up. Check it out, it has each of us introducing ourselves during the dinner and lots of great scenes of our The Good Table.
http://youtu.be/fyHVKMkWqQY
@RickyLi99 managed to capture a lot of great photos of our dinner despite him finishing up the bottle(s) of wine our courses were paired with. Many of those linked photos are taken by him.
I think we all enjoyed our The Good Table dinner. It was fun night at Ola with
@KelliNakama,
@WorldWideEd,
@RickyLi99,
@StarletShay &
@MegsDriveIn's Jess.
Some of our other friends were enjoying their The Good Table on the other side of the island at Kai. You can read about their dinner at the
Nonstop Honolulu blog: "Peek at The Good Table".
If you are curious about volunteering for
Lanakila Pacific Meals on Wheels, drop me a comment, email, tweet or whatever. :)
By the way, all these photos about The Good Table had another purpose too. Aside from spreading the word about The Good Table during the dinner, there is also a photo contest. The winning photo will be the photo with the most Facebook "Likes" at the end of the contest, October 14, 2011. Check out the photos and like some.... Hopefully you "like" the ones with Ola and us in it! :)
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150865459645077.749454.138499950076&type=1