Hawaii

I am looking for a place to eat tonight and I saw a magazine in our hotel room recommending a bunch of restaurants in the area. JJ bistro and French pastry caught my eye and the description of the food is really appealing so we are going to give it a try!

This the picture off JJ bistro in the magazine. The desserts looks so delicious!

After reading the description of the restaurant and their food I wanted to give it a try. The other thing I was curious about is the chef -owner JJ Praseuth Luangkhot who is a Laotian. He first opened the place as an authentic French pastry shop in 1995, but added the bistro in 2005 to offer Laotian cuisine with a French touch. JJ describes his food as “using the same techniques as French cooking combined with Laotian ingredients.”

The store front of JJ bistro

JJ's sign

As soon as you walk in the restaurant you will see a large selection of French pastries. All of them look so good that you might have a tough time deciding what to eat!

I am in heaven checking out all of the pastries....you might be tempted by a dozen other pastries tantalizing you from behind the glass display case! – a colorful array of fruit tarts and mousse cakes will definitely call for your attention....Too many choices for a small stomach.

Sitting down for dinner

What you get when you sit down at JJ Bistro is a fixed four-course menu (prix fixe) at either $19.95 or $24.70 depending which entree you choose. We choose the $24.70 which is a real bargain in Hawaii.

My first course is a lemon grass soup with chicken - The magazine described this soup as magically comforting like it could cure the common cold! To me it is plain and the flavor of the lemon grass is just okay below par compare with the Thai lemon grass soup.

Hoa got an Asparagus Soup perfumed with lemon grass-nothing exciting about this soup!

My second course is a baked lobster avocado on French bread- this actually pretty good!

Kevin ordered the escargots (no picture) and what he got was a really fancy plate with a piece of French stuck with 2 escargots inside with a butter sauce. The plate looked awesome but what missing was the escargots - 2 per plates that's pretty stingy!

My 3rd course was the Sea Scallop Napoleon: Eggplant, bell peppers, Zucchini in Lemon Grass curry sauce, served on layer of puff pastry. The scallops were so tiny! The sauce is simply weird with the lemon grass...

Kevin ordered the Bake Lamb Wellington: Rack of lamb with bell pepper & Cheese wrapped in puff pastry, served with side pan seared potato and black pepper cream sauce. This is probably the best dish on the menu. Like Kevin said pick the most expensive item on the menu and it should be a good choice.

On to desserts: JJ's signature dessert: chocolate raspberry pyramid. The desserts came with a tiny Crème brûlée. The Crème brûlée was excellent!

Inside the chocolate raspberry pyramid. You can really see but there are fresh raspberries inside the pyramid.

This is a good dessert! I liked it but I can only eat a few bites because the mouse is too rich.

I got the cafe tiramisu cake.. This is my favorite one!

So good! It think I ate at least 2/3 of the cake by myself.

Hoa got the cheese cake. I only took a bite (too full). The cake was pretty good.

Overall this place have excellent desserts so after dinner stop by for coffee and dessert but I would not recommend having dinner here!

Next.. Day 3

Filed under: Restaurants