Going to Town

We had started the meal off with an order of mediocre shoestring french fries followed by a surprisingly uninspired Marinated Beet Salad ($6.50). My main course was a pasta with ground sausage and diced veggies. It's all getting fuzzy now, but I remember thinking casserole. We ended the meal with a Chocolate Banini ($6), a dessert sandwich that features melted chocolate and bananas. Think of a grilled cheese sandwich and substitute the cheese with chocolate. Very inventive, but it got boring after a while.

After lunch, which lasted nearly two hours, I went back to my expired meter and my $35 fine. Talk about a bitter aftertaste.

On my next visit to Town, I filled up the parking meter and hoped for the best.

The Grill of It All: Both the veggie panini and chocolate banini are grilled a nice, toasty golden brown. Photo: Jimmy Forrest

Town's lunch menu, which is slightly altered every day, uses the courier font and is typed out in all lower case letters, without the benefit of boldfaces or underlines. In most cases, the items don't even have names, just a list of ingredients. I guess the menu is supposed to be urban and edgy, but for this 40-something father with a 6-month-old prescription for bifocals in his wallet, it was just annoying. With concrete floors and stainless steel tables, Town's décor is pretty edgy and urban. There are also groovy lamps, funky lighting and lots of orange, which must be the new black, or is that the old red? Anyway, something is working, because the restaurant was packed, even though it was late in the lunch hour.

On my waiter's recommendation, I ordered the soup of the day, white asparagus, potato and lemon soup ($4 for a cup) and the piquillo peppers, eggplant, boursin, basil, focaccia panini ($8). I washed it all down with a glass of yummy lemonade ($2.75) that was colored by a shot of parsley juice, which took the edge off of the lemons.

I was shocked when my complete meal arrived at my table within five minutes. On that day, Town was operating at Downtown Honolulu speed, faster than some take-out restaurants. The soup was smooth and creamy, with a pleasing, slightly sour endnote. It wasn't very hot, but didn't need to be. The flavors were fresh and bright and the whole thing went down easily and quickly.

The panini was OK. Outside, the focaccia was grilled perfectly, nice and toasty. The insides were soft and fluffy, but could have used another layer of veggies. They seemed to get lost in all that bread. I don't know how they did it, but the side of fries was both overcooked and limp at the same time. But with enough ketchup, almost anything can taste fine.

The meal was surprisingly filling. After quickly polishing off one-half of my sandwich, I was completely satisfied and I stopped. I had originally planned to have a little dessert, but there wasn't much room for that, either. Instead, I just paid my check, which also appeared at my table within minutes.

When I got back to my car, I looked at the digital parking meter. It had only been 39 minutes since I had left. Now, that's memorable.