PO‘IPU — Where can one get Valencia-region-quality paella so far from Spain? How about the South Shore of Kaua‘i, where Josselin’s Tapas Bar and Grill dishes up three versions of the saffroned-rice entrée, whether with seafood, chicken and sausage or
PO‘IPU — Where can one get Valencia-region-quality paella so far from Spain?
How about the South Shore of Kaua‘i, where Josselin’s Tapas Bar and Grill dishes up three versions of the saffroned-rice entrée, whether with seafood, chicken and sausage or organic vegetables.
And that’s about as old-school Spain as this restaurant gets, as the rest of the menu is made up of nothing but innovative, creative and modern versions of tapas, the European take on pupu, or appetizers to be shared, family-style.
Chef and Owner Jean Marie Josselin has been in the food industry for 35 years, and doesn’t like to be pigeonholed when it comes to style.
“We try to have a menu that is good for everyone,” Josselin said.
“If a dish is not up to par it is usually gone very quickly.”
Keeping the menu “up to par,” is an understatement to be sure, as the menu is rife with such novel “handcrafted tapas from the heart” as scallop pillows with cardamom coconut broth and drunken grapes, coffee-smoked pork tonkatsu with banana crispy bao, and freshwater prawn tortellini with chorizo crab broth and orange fennel salad.
Of course, guests’ appetites will be whetted first with Josselin’s offerings of amuse-bouches, (small, bite-size greetings before the meal begins) which in the case of this review came in the form of a tart lime meringue with basil goat cheese and red wine jelly.
But the majority of food is a fusion of island cuisine, old-world Spain and Asian fare, as found in the poached oxtail ravioli with Vietnamese pho broth, seared foie gras, the duck confit steamed bun with vanilla bing cherry reduction or the mouth-watering kalua-style pork gyoza with roasted curry pineapple vinaigrette.
Josselin has several categories of tapas, which include several from a kiawe-wood-burning oven, a handful of “live” tapas as well as tapas inspired from fresh-fish mongers.
The restaurant also features “rare and barely cooked” tapas, including hamachi tartare with pressed cucumber, arugula pesto and aji amarillo sauce, bay scallop salad with avocado, fresh hearts of palm and lemon truffle dressing and a spanner crab and avocado cannelloni with fresh ogo and duck chicharrón (a take on the Andalucian version of pork rinds).
But there are also a series of tapas inspired from local Kaua‘i farmers, which include everything from organic-beet salad with a goat-cheese fritter and orange vinaigrette to oven-roasted asparagus with apple-smoked bacon.
The varieties of tapas are kept broad and the menu is designed to be expansive.
“I did not want to be confined in a style like I was in the past,” he said.
“That gives me more freedom to create.”
That freedom allows the menu to be changed daily, but also changed according to the seasons, he added.
Also kept fresh and ever-changing are the different kinds of tableside sangrias, which have included the uber-sweet lychee version or the crisp and tart liliko‘i adaptation, but also cinnamon-spiced pear and mango, to name a few.
Making sure “no one is above the customer” is one of the ways Josselin keeps guests coming back for more, as is his business philosophy, which is still evolving.
“It is all about quality, creativity and pricing yourself correctly according to the time, but we are still very new,” he said.
Josselin’s Tapas Bar and Grill is open 5 to 10 p.m. daily
Kukui‘ula Village shopping center, Po‘ipu
Call 742-7117 for
reservations
