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Hawai'i Skies

Kristin Richards

Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Kristin Richards at Kapi’olani Park. "

These were taken at Kapi’olani Park right before sunset."

To submit your Hawai'i Skies photo, visit us 

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<title>Hawaiʻi Skies: O’ahu Skies</title>

Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Kristin Richards at Kapi’olani Park.

Hawaiʻi Skies: O’ahu Skies

 Today&#039;s Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Kristin Richards at Kapi’olani Park. &quot;These were taken at Kapi’olani Park right before sunset.&quot; To submit your Hawai&#039;i Skies photo, visit us online or email: general@alohastatedaily.com For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

[{"type":"text","text":"Kam Bowl is now open in Pearl City."}]

The restaurant opened in Times Square Shopping Center, in the former space of IHOP. The eatery 

 and re-opened in July under new ownership and under a new name, Aliʻi Diner.

At the new Pearl City restaurant, customers can expect the same signature dishes Kam Bowl was known for according to co-owner Ryder Yoshida, who says the menu is currently limited to the most popular dishes.

“It’s smaller and more simple,” Yoshida says. “We’re concentrating on getting the stuff people like before adding more things.”

Kam Bowl Pearl City did some renovations to the restaurant’s interior, such as adding new booths for seating.

“The kitchen was pretty much empty; we had to re-do the whole kitchen,” he says. “The hard part about it is the restaurant is big and the kitchen area to prepare food is small, compared to the Kalihi location.”

The menu features dishes like the eatery’s famous oxtail soup ($24.95), hamburger steak ($18.95), loco moco ($18.95) and Japanese breakfast ($18.95). The latter includes miso soup, toss salad, two eggs and a choice of mahi or salmon.

The restaurant now uses wagyu beef to make its hamburger patties, according to Yoshida.

“This is the first time we’re using wagyu beef,” he says. “We’re trying to keep prices reasonable.”

Dishes like hotcakes and sweet bread French toast are available from 7 to 11 a.m. Many plate lunch-style entrees come with white rice and a choice of toss or mac salad.

On the eatery’s opening day — Aug. 1 — regular customers from Kam Bowl’s Kalihi location were eagerly eating breakfast. Yoshida encourages diners to check out the new space.

“I was sitting in here before we opened, and people would ask, ‘Are you guys open yet?’” he says. “I kept on saying, ‘Pretty soon, pretty soon.’ Just come and try our food.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Kam Bowl Pearl City is open daily from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m."}]

98-1264 Kaahumanu St. Ste. B03, Pearl City

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Kam Bowl Pearl City owner 080126

<title>Kam Bowl is open in Pearl City</title>

The eatery is now open in Times Square Shopping Center, in the former space of IHOP. Customers can look forward to signature dishes like oxtail soup, loco moco, hamburger steak and more.

Kam Bowl is open in Pearl City

Higa headshot white shirt square

Sterling Higa

Government & Politics

Columnists

This session the legislature raised the income tax on anyone in Hawaiʻi earning more than a million dollars a year. Our 13% top rate now sits among the nation’s highest.

The bill passed quietly. The papers noted it the way they note a road repaving: a thing done, presumably good, needing no comment.

Nobody is weeping for people earning a million dollars a year.

That is precisely why the tax deserves a second look. The measures that pass without argument reveal what a society has stopped arguing about.

Envy is the one vice that never announces itself. Pride struts and greed hoards, but envy always arrives dressed as justice. A tax on millionaires feels like fairness. But fairness is not the only good.

A society can absorb a great deal of unfairness and survive. What it cannot survive is a politics that runs on resentment.

Envy used to know where its target lived. The peasant could see the landlord’s manor from his field, and the plantation worker could see the manager’s house from the rows of pineapple. Hawaiʻi’s own labor movement emerged from those fields with real grievances.

Wealth has since moved out of sight. It lives in brokerage accounts and holding companies now, not on estates. The wealth of the super rich has become intangible, and even their ranches are mirages. Mark Zuckerberg feeds his cattle macadamia nuts on Kauaʻi but eats perfectly well at his home in Palo Alto. Meanwhile, beachfront hotels in Waikīkī are owned by thousands of shareholders. You cannot storm an investment portfolio.

Envy is fed like a furnace. Social media puts every lifestyle on earth in every pocket in Hawaiʻi, heaping the coal into the flames. Envy becomes a mood — a low, constant awareness that somebody, somewhere, has the kitchen or the vacation or the body you were denied. A mood cannot be satisfied, but it can be channeled, and it is channeled toward whatever target happens to be within reach.

On Maui, neighbors were within reach. The short-term-rental phase-out was sold in the language of housing justice, taking from the wealthy to shelter the poor. But the owners it actually strikes are schoolteachers, retirees, the upper middle class — and a seaside condo in Kīhei carrying a $3,000-a-month maintenance fee cannot be cut into four pieces and handed to four needy families. It can only be made worthless, which is a strange kind of charity.

The county plans to phase out roughly 7,000 units, though a cleanup bill 

 could exempt 4,500 units. That suggests Maui’s councilmembers have noticed the problem.

The partisans of envy are running the same play on the Mainland. New York has Mamdani's pied-à-terre tax. California has a wealth tax on the ballot, from which the billionaires are already excusing themselves by moving out of state.

The fair-minded reader will object that we owe something to the needy, and the reader is right. The widow and the orphan have a standing claim on us, and it’s older than any state. But the objection assumes the claim must be discharged through the state. Taxes for the rich, assistance programs for the poor.

Hawaiʻi already carries one of the heaviest state-and-local tax burdens in the country. The needy are not much better off for it. The burden of our state shows up in the rent, in the grocery bill, in the exodus of local families headed to Las Vegas. A man who can imagine no way to feed a widow except by voting to tax his neighbor has not discovered compassion. He has misplaced his imagination, and it is worth asking where he lost it.

He lost it at school. Consider the life of the average humanities Ph.D.: nine years spent in college and graduate school, paid for with loans and forgone wages. Now, a lottery for a shrinking number of academic posts, stagnant pay, and a publish or perish culture.

Nearing 30, our young doctor has many degrees, but no clear path to supporting a family. He has to take a part-time job as a barista to pay the bills. Meanwhile, his high school classmate who skipped college to fix air conditioners owns a home by the time of their 10-year class reunion.

A man in the professor’s position does not need much to grow resentful. He only needs to marinate. The trouble is that his marinade becomes his students’ curriculum. The resentment gets footnoted and graded. The graduates leave catechized in a simple creed: every problem is a distribution problem, and every solution is a state solution. Take from the rich, and give to the poor. Take from them, and give to me.

Our young professor enjoys a standard of living beyond nearly every human who has ever lived. He carries in his pocket marvels his grandparents would have gladly sweated in the pineapple fields to afford. None of it satisfies. He only needs to see someone doing slightly better, and the resentment is stoked again. Social media is happy to oblige.

That is why the millionaire tax will not be the last. Envy is not a debt that can be paid down because every payment enlarges the claim. When the millionaires have been taxed, the mood will remain, and it will go looking for whoever is next within reach.

This is an old road. The first murder was not committed for money or land. It was committed because one brother’s offering was blessed and the other’s offering was not. Envy had finished its work in Cain long before he lifted his hand. It hollowed him first. It always hollows the envier first, depriving him of the blessings he has by making them invisible.

The exit is not a cleverer tax or a purer market. It is contentment — the settled conviction of having received more than one was owed. It frees a man to look at his neighbor’s good fortune and simply be glad.

Nobody weeps for millionaires. Nobody needs to. They were never the ones in danger.

Firefly Gemini Flash illustration of tax a millionaire 593166

<title>Hawaiʻi millionaire tax: Why the new 13% bracket won’t be the last</title>

The millionaire tax passed with barely a murmur. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on why the measures nobody argues about deserve the second look.

Hawaiʻi millionaire tax: Why the new 13% bracket won’t be the last

To kick off the summer, The Kāhala Hotel & Resort is offering a 20% 

 and Seaside Grill. The discount can be applied to Plumeria Beach House’s a la carte or buffet menus (the discount doesn’t apply to alcoholic drinks). The restaurant is known for its open-air, casual atmosphere with ocean views.

Plumeria Beach House’s seafood dinner buffet is on Friday and Saturdays only from 5 to 8:30 p.m. It normally costs $97 per adult and $49 for children ages 6 to 12. With the kamaʻāina discount, it’s around $78. Buffet seating is limited to two hours per table.

Buffet highlights include seafood on ice — including oysters, snow crab and shrimp cocktail — and a carving station with the eatery’s signature garlic and rosemary-rubbed prime rib of beef.

The seafood station features ‘ahi sashimi, spicy ‘ahi poke, limu ‘ahi poke and mixed ginger scallion poke, along with assorted sushi. Diners can choose from ‘ahi nigiri, inari, dynamite California rolls and more.

Hot entrees include the fresh catch of the day, Thai-style fried chicken, scallop fried rice, salt and pepper shrimp, stuffed salmon and more. Meanwhile, the salad bar features Caesar salad, Nalo greens, Chinese chicken salad, summer watermelon feta salad, seasonal fresh fruits and more.

Desserts include Oreo cheesecakes, caramel walnut sable, fruit tarts, lilikoʻi crunch macnut cakes, cobbler of the day — apple was featured during our visit — and the Kāhala signature bread pudding with creme anglaise. The dessert station also features a self-serve soft serve ice cream machine with a toppings bar.

Diners will receive four hours of complimentary parking with a $50 minimum purchase.

https://www.kahalaresort.com/dining/plumeria-beach-house-menus-seafood/

Seafood buffet from 5 to 8:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays

Plumeria Beach House seafood station 061626

<title>Kamaʻāina can enjoy a 20% dining discount at The Kāhala Hotel & Resort</title>

To kick off the summer, The Kāhala Hotel & Resort is offering a 20% kamaʻāina discount at Plumeria Beach House and Seaside Grill. The discount can be applied to Plumeria Beach House’s a la carte and buffet menus.

Kamaʻāina can enjoy a 20% dining discount at The Kāhala Hotel & Resort

 just launched its new happy hour, which is available daily from 4 to 6 p.m. in the eatery’s bar and lounge area.

Start with discounted beverages like liliko

i spritz ($10), a variety of martinis ($10) — choose from matcha, tropical, mango, and lychee and peach — sake specials ($12) and featured wines by the glass ($10 each).

While not part of the happy hour drink menu, the eatery also just revamped its signature cocktail line-up with new additions ($18), including Olena mamaki tea, Rabbit Island, cucumber margarita and an espresso martini.

The happy hour dishes feature half-portions of popular items from the a la carte menu. The poke nachos ($12) are a customer favorite. They feature four different chips — won ton, sweet potato, taro and shrimp chips — topped with shoyu ‘ahi, spicy mayo, yuzu crema, green onions, pickled red onions, pea tendrils, kizami nori and edamame. The dish is full of contrasting textures, which makes it especially fun to eat.

The brisket sliders ($17) are a happy hour exclusive. These housemade rolls are stuffed with barbecue brisket, pickled onions and guava barbecue sauce.

’s new Paniolo burger from the a la carte menu — which also includes brisket — these sliders are sure to please.

The coffee rib-eye steak ($20) is another popular choice and is probably one of the best deals on the menu. It’s coated with a coffee demi glace and served with an arugula salad with tarragon dressing.

If you’re looking for comforting flavors, opt for the barbecue chicken pinsa flatbread, which is topped with kiawe barbecue chicken, mozzarella cheese, parmesan, peppers, red onions and barbecue sauce.

Other happy hour dishes include a lobster roll ($17), margherita pinsa flatbread ($10), seared ‘ahi ($12), kiawe smoked pork ribs ($17), chicken wings ($12) and garlic fries.

Insider tip: Ask about the restaurant’s new secret menu, which also should be accessible via a QR code on the menu. The secret menu currently features a burrata salad ($18), burnt brisket tips ($17), cheesy bread ($12) and a bone-in beef rib platter ($85).

The latter is impressive and designed to share. The platter includes six slider buns, pickled vegetables and barbecue sauce. The bone-in beef rib is available in limited quantities; the meats are smoked in-house. The fork-tender beef is flavorful in and of itself; the sweet and tangy barbecue sauce just takes it to the next level. 

Meanwhile, the cheesy bread features a garlic sourdough bread with mozzarella and cheddar cheeses in the middle.

Guests can enjoy complimentary self-parking for 2.5 hours with restaurant validation.

Complimentary 2.5-hour self parking with restaurant validation

100 Sails happy hour 030226

100 Sails Restaurant & Bar just launched a new chef selection dinner buffet, available from 5 to 9 p.m. Mondays to Wednesdays. This buffet costs $62 per adult; instead of action stations like prime rib or sushi handrolls, it features specialty items like roasted beef tri tip, guava barbecue pork ribs, mushroom risotto and more.

100 Sails buffet cheese 021026

New weekday dinner buffet at Prince Waikīkī

The sizzling omurice — fried rice topped with an omelet and demi-glaze sauce, served on a hot skillet — is one of the most popular dishes. Happy hour runs daily from 5 to 7 p.m.

Chez Kenzo happy hour spread 011426

Budget Bites: Chez Kenzo Bar & Grill’s $9 happy hour

<title>New happy hour at Prince Waikīkī</title>

100 Sails Restaurant & Bar’s new happy hour menu is available daily from 4 to 6 p.m. in the restaurant’s bar and lounge area. Dishes include poke nachos, brisket sliders — a happy hour exclusive — coffee rib-eye steak and barbecue chicken pinsa flatbread. Also new: The eatery’s secret menu, which includes a mouthwatering bone-in beef rib platter.

Hawaiʻi Skies: O’ahu Skies

ASD Staff

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Hawaiʻi Skies: O’ahu Skies

Authors

ASD Staff

Reporter

More in Hawai'i Skies

Hawaiʻi Skies: Through the trees

Hawaiʻi Skies: Another one

Hawaiʻi Skies: On top of the world

Hawaiʻi Skies: The beginning of a new day

Most read