This is another awesome Tasting Collective dining club event we attended. (You can read about the previous posts about Tasting Collective events here: http://www.foodlovergirl.com/fish-cheeks/   http://www.foodlovergirl.com/win-son/    http://www.foodlovergirl.com/f-o-b/   http://www.foodlovergirl.com/xixa/   http://www.foodlovergirl.com/huertas/    http://www.foodlovergirl.com/bessou/    http://www.foodlovergirl.com/maharlika/   http://www.foodlovergirl.com/traif/  and  http://www.foodlovergirl.com/lalito/). Tasting Collective is a dining club for food lovers, and they offer brunch and dinner at great NYC restaurants. They close off the restaurants for the club, so we get to have the entire restaurant and chef(s) all to ourselves. So, this is more than just eating food at a restaurant, but you get to have the background story and its passion from the chef(s), eating 8- to 12-course brunch/dinner created specifically for Tasting Collectives.

This event was held at Noreetuh, 9- course Nouveau Hawaiian Feast. Ever since this restaurant opened up in 2015, I have been wanting to try their food. They offer elevated Hawaiian cuisine, not authentic but original style, and also, wine pairings. Sorry for the dark photo, but the exterior was very simple and dark. No color, not fancy design, and I didn’t even see any sign that read Noreetuh anywhere. Interesting…

The interior was much more fun, with lots of Hawaii-inspired decorations. They had pictures of beach, waves, surfers, etc…  The restaurant looked really small, I thought it would be bigger…and then, I found out I was right. They have another room next door, connected at the back of the bar.

They had a nice-sized bar to the right, fully stacked. It is interesting that they have wine pairing here. I don’t think I have ever hard of Hawaiian restaurant that offers wine pairing. Pretty cool. Of course, you can buy wine by the glass, and if you are not into wine, they have beer, sake, soju, and cocktails. But, if you are a wine lover, they do have quite extensive wine menu.

Passed the bar, there is this interesting geometric shelf. Here is where you can get to the room behind the wall.

In the second dining room area, it is more elegant than fun. They have nice brick wall on the left side, with soft candle lights displayed on it. On the other side was a small bar, or more like a place to hold some wines. It is nice to have two different atmosphere inside one restaurant.

Back to the front dining area. What made the atmosphere more fun than anything else was the Polaroid photos. It seems like they get photos of happy customers on mini-size Polaroid and put them on the wall. I thought that was cute and fun idea.

Before the feast began, Executive Chef and Co-Owner, Chung Chow came out to greet everyone and told us a bit about himself and the restaurant. He told us that this is not a restaurant offering authentic Hawaiian food, but rather, Hawaiian-inspired food, with influences from Japanese, Korean, Filipono and even Portuguese food. He is Chinese-American who grew up and Hawaii, and spent years living and traveling all over Japan. With his background, he creates unique Hawaiian dishes with a twist of his own. One fun fact about the restaurant is that the name, Noreetuh, is actually Korean, and it means “playground.” He told us that he was originally planning to open up a Korean restaurant with his partner. But, about the time it was getting ready to open up, there were too many Korean restaurants everywhere. So, they decided to change it to Hawaiian restaurant, but keeping the Korean name, Noreetuh since they liked it so much.

Lets get into the food! The first course was Hearts of Palm & Peaches with crispy rice, parmigiano-reggiano, cilantro, and ume vinaigrette. Underneath the parmigiano, there were grilled peaches. The smokey flavor induced in the peaches were great, although the texture of the peaches were a bit soggy. I still liked the peaches, it went great with the rest of the ingredients really well. Wonderful mix of sweet flavors against salty flavor, with the little punch of vinaigrette.

 

The second course was Papaya & Chicory Salad with pumpkin seeds and caramelized onion vinaigrette. It was really fresh and crisp. The sliced papaya – in which I originally thought was sliced carrots – were great. Fresh, ripe, soft, and yes, delicious. The pumpkin seeds added extra texture and earthy flavor.

The third course was a special dish, created only for our event. One cool thing about this event is that the chefs gets to try some new dishes on us, and get our feedback. It is a vegetarian poke, which is not currently on the menu. Tofu & Avocado Poke with crispy chickpea, carrots, and ginger-curry sauce. It had great texture of soft and creamy avocado and tofu, and crispness from carrots and chickpea. I enjoyed the mix of tofu and avocado, I never thought of two . The crispy chickpea was fun. I would’ve liked to have more of that ginger-curry sauce, but overall, it was refreshing and tasty.

Then we had two of their seafood poke dishes. First was their Big-Eye Tuna Poke with macadamia nut, pickled jalapeños, and seaweed. The salmon was very fresh and flavorful. It was thick and meaty, and the seaweed added extra texture and nice flavor.

Then their Spicy Salmon Poke with salmon roe, cucumber, red onion, and radish. I loved the ikura on the top, which was awesome. Very fresh and had a little kick to it. I enjoyed the crunch of the radishes. Up to this point, all the dishes were very fresh, refreshing, and light.

After that, we moved onto some of more savory, heavy items. The sixth course was Kalua Pork Cavatelli. Kalua Pork is a kind of braised pork, slow-cooked or rather, slow-smoked in a sand pit with sea salt and banana leaves in Hawaii. I wonder how they did that here in NYC… The dish was hearty and cheesy, with great aroma of the cheese.. The pasta was perfectly cooked to al-dente, and the pork was juicy, packed with flavor. It was so tender it melted in my mouth.

Lucky number seven was one of the most interesting dish. It doesn’t sounds like anything special, but the process of making the dish, that was really interesting and unique. It is Teriyaki Chicken with grilled summer squash, hazelnuts, and squash pesto. I saw that other plates of this dish also had some cucumbers… I think they forgot to put on ours. We still got to taste the cucumbers at the end, so that is ok.

They take 2-3 days to make this chicken. The quick version is that they make it from de-boned chicken leg, which are turned into kind of mousse. They fill the casings with the chicken mousse and cook it after resting it for one day. How interesting! It had great texture and flavor, and loved the sauce. It almost felt like eating a sausage, but softer and more elegant texture.

Then, we were ready for desserts! The first dessert was Ube Pie with haupia, macadamia nut crust, and whipped cream. It had unexpected texture similar to jello, but more dense. Haupia is a traditional coconut milk-based Hawaiian dessert, and ube is a purple yam. Each ingredients are mixed with gelatin-type substance, and layered individually. Pretty color combination of white from coconut, and purple from ube. Macadamia nut crust was great, I don’t think I ever had a pie crust that was made with macadamia nuts. The pie was sweet but not overly sweet, light and very tasty.

The last course of the event and the second dessert was King’s Hawaiian Bread Pudding with rum raisins and pineapple ice cream. The ice cream was VERY pineapple! I loved it had actual bits of pineapple in it. The bread pudding had strong rum flavor, a perfect ending to the course. It was dense but not heavy, yet very satisfying.

They have one gender-neutral bathroom at the back of the restaurant. It was very spacious and clean, with good lighting. It had lots of cute beach-y decorations. They could have put two small bathroom here if they wanted to, but they chose to have one spacious one. I am not sure if I prefer a tiny bathroom with less wait, or a large bathroom with a longer wait…

I really enjoyed all the food, it was interesting, tasty, and delicious. The only thing is that the people we sat with kept taking more portion from us rather than sharing…when all dishes are shared family-style, it doesn’t always work if the people at your table is not willing to share food equally… Anyways, we still got good amount of food, and all of those we certainly enjoyed very much. I am glad the chef Chow decided to open up this Hawaiian restaurant instead of “another” Korean restaurant. I would like to go back and try some of their regular menu in a near future!

For those of  you who are interested in joining this great dining club, Tasting Collective, you can use this link to get a discounted annual rate of $115 (over 30% off the normal $165/year) for the first year: https://tastingcollective.com/?invite_code=JUN4346

 

Noreetuh – 128 1st Avenue, New York, NY 10009