Diners in the compact Cafe Maharani on a recent Friday evening. (Wyatt Olson/Stars and Stripes)
Diners in the compact Cafe Maharani on a recent Friday evening. (Wyatt Olson/Stars and Stripes)
A full dining area is the norm at the popular Cafe Maharani in Honolulu, an Indian restaurant that opened in 2000 and has won numerous awards. (Wyatt Olson/Stars and Stripes)
Dishes from front to back at Cafe Maharani: chiucken shahi korma, lamb roghan josh, vegetable jalfrezi masala, and naan. (Wyatt Olson/Stars and Stripes)
The perfect pair: hot slabs of naan and lamb roghan josh in a rich red sauce. (Wyatt Olson/Stars and Stripes)
You'll get generous portions of chicken in the shahi korma dish, cooked slowly in a creamy ginger-cashew sauce with yogurt, raisins and saffron at Cafe Maharani. (Wyatt Olson/Stars and Stripes)
Alexandre Dumas wrote that “All human wisdom is summed up in two words; wait and hope.”
Cafe Maharani, an award-winning Indian restaurant that’s regarded by many as the best of its kind in Honolulu, provided much opportunity for wisdom on a recent Friday night.
• 7:15 p.m.: Arrive by car at Cafe Maharani, find small parking lot full. Let off two fellow diners to get table. Cruise side streets 10 minutes for parking spot.
• 7:30: After brisk walk, arrive at restaurant, which seats about 40, and find about a dozen people milling about waiting for tables. Our party of three is on the waiting list. We are hopeful and slightly hungry.
• 7:40: Young couple inadvertently entertains the waiting area with loud first-date conversation over bottle of wine. (Maharani does not serve alcohol, but you can bring your own wine.) She says her family knows the Obamas, who recently vacationed in Hawaii, and defends the president’s penchant for golfing. Her date, who is apparently in the Coast Guard, expresses skepticism but not so much so that he’s willing to risk forfeiting the chance for a second date.
• 7:50: In a cruel twist of building design, waiters must shuttle food from the kitchen to tables through the crowded waiting area. To take our minds off those aromatic and colorful dishes — and off the table we’ve yet to get — we study the restaurant’s decor. The walls are an earthy and pleasing orange and red with ornate lighting fixtures of stained glass. The best term to describe the rest of the decor is brawny. The plates, cups, chairs and tables are all constructed of blends of rustic iron, copper and bronze. The room is packed tight, the kind of squeeze you find in Manhattan restaurants.
• 8:10: It’s now apparent that parties of two are at a clear advantage in the jockeying for tables. Most of the tables have turned over since we arrived, and most of them have been refilled by couples. We ask the maitre d’ if we’ve been forgotten. No, he shows us, our name is there above all the crossed-out parties of two now enjoying their meals. Our hunger now exceeds our hope.
• 8:20: Belatedly it occurs to us that we could be using this time to look at the menu. Good fortune shines: the menu is extensive and leads to a lengthy distraction. Hunger rises, but so does hope. We scan the appetizers but decide we won’t waste time with them once seated, given that we have been waiting over an hour. But in our fantasy world we would have ordered the vegetarian platter ($10.99) with its assortment of onion-eggplant pakora (an Indian-style fritter), two papadum (crispy spiced lentil wafers) and two samosas (crisp pastry cones).
• 8:30: Still looking at the menu. We decide we’ll order and share a chicken dish, lamb dish, vegetarian dish and naan bread. Specifically: chicken shahi korma ($13.99), which is slowly cooked in a creamy ginger-cashew sauce with yogurt, raisins and saffron; lamb roghan josh ($17.99), with cubed cuts marinated in yogurt and then cooked in a rich but mild creamy red sauce; and eggplant tikka masala ($11.99), in which the eggplant is marinated in the “chef’s secret sauce,” then cooked in a tomato curry sauce and topped with fresh tomato and cucumber. And a couple orders of buttered naan ($3 each) in lieu of rice. Emily Dickinson wrote that “Hope is the thing with feathers.” We want ours plucked and floating in a korma sauce.
• 8:45: The closed menus lie mockingly on our laps. We hear the maitre d’ tell new arrivals that the restaurant is no longer taking names, meaning that we are among the last who will be seated — but we will be seated. Hope ticks up.
• 9:15: Finally seated. We immediately tell our waiter our choices. But at this point the kitchen is out of the tikka masala sauce for the eggplant. OK, we’ll have the tikka korma eggplant in coconut curry sauce ($12.99). No, that sauce is also kaput. We give up on eggplant and order the house specialty vegetarian dish, vegetable jalfrezi masala ($12.99), a mix of tomato, onion, ginger, garlic and spices.
• 9:30: No conversation now. Only the sounds of noshing. We are too busy to contemplate whether this meal was worth a two-hour wait. (Later, as he mans the cash register, the maitre d’ bemoans, “It’s never been busy like this before.” He says many patrons call ahead by 45 minutes to put their name on the waiting list, and instructs us to do likewise in the future).
We agree that each dish is above average Indian food, and the sauce for the lamb dish is a scrumptious mix of spicy, sour, sweet and buttery. It is quite unlike any sauce I’ve had at an Indian restaurant before.
Now, with some distance from that vexing night, I think that great pleasure-seeker Epicurus sums up the experience best: “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
Cafe Maharani
Address: 2509 So. King St., Honolulu, 96826 Parking: Very limited in a lot behind the restaurant. Limited parking on nearby side streets.
Prices: Appetizers run $6.99 to $12.99, chicken dishes $12.99 to $15.99, lamb dishes $17.99, seafood dishes $16.99, vegetarian dishes $8.99 to $13.99, naan $3 to $9.99.
Hours: Open daily 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Information: 808 951-7447; www.cafemaharanihawaii.com
Reservations: The restaurant does not take reservations, but call up to 45 minutes before arriving to put your name on the waiting list.
