Food trucks.

OK, there is some colorful North Shore history attached to them, and the garlic shrimp is ono, but do
we need a food truck every 20 feet along Kam Highway? We got Thai and Filipino food trucks, French
crepes food trucks, sandwiches, burgers, no-name,you name it. The picturesque, tourist-oriented North
Shore needs some little picturesque, colorful, brickand-mortar eateries that cater to the better angels of
our appetites.

Good news, gourmands. Maya’s Tapas and Wine restaurant and bar has opened its doors and its menu/
wine list to the community in the North Shore Marketplace in Haleiwa. Right next to Sterman’s Realty,
who thoughtfully sacrificed some of his office real estate to the new restaurant. So, as a sacrifice to the
community I hustled my okole over there one night last week to sample the menu. I may have mentioned
to the staff that I was thinking of writing an article on the place for the paper … so the pupus (delicious) were on the house and so was the second glass of wine (a Pinot Noir from France, also excellent). The restaurant’s general manager, Juliet Wilson, introduced herself, as did Joe Kuka, the place’s sommelier.

Sommelier? This small little restaurant has a sommelier? It turns out that Joe (maybe I should address
him as Joseph) has taken his required courses, has achieved Sommelier Level 2, and is climbing the
sommelier ladder toward increased certification. Can Turtle Bay’s fancy Pa‘a la‘a Kai dining room match
that? So I dined on Gambas al Pimenton (sautéed shrimp, also excellent) and sipped my Pinot Noir
(still excellent) while I arranged a meeting a few days later with Juliet, Joe (Joseph?) and Maya’s owner and chef, Lamont Brown.

Lamont Brown came to Hawaii from El Paso via the Coast Guard. He served on two Coast Guard cutters out of Hilo and Honolulu before attending the Coast Guard’s “Cordon Bleu” culinary school. When he left the service he worked in the islands under a series of top-rated chefs before taking the position of executive chef at Luibueno’s Mexican Restaurant in Haleiwa. From there he worked as the North Shore rep for a restaurant supply house, before realizing that, “My family would never benefit if I worked for someone else.” Maya’s Tapas was born. “Tapas,” I learned, means “small portions” in Spanish. Allegedly an oldy time Spanish king fell ill, recovering only after a diet of small portions (tapas) of food and, presumably,
somewhat larger portions of wine. Tapas also seems to mean “to cover,” so the Spaniards covered their wine glasses with a small plate of food (a tapa). Where does the “Maya’s” part of the restaurant’s name come from? From the name of Lamont’s eight-yearold daughter.

Lamont’s vision for his restaurant is as a true neighborhood meeting place, opening at 3 p.m. for drinks and pupus as the tourists leave town, with supper at five. Juliet and Joe came to Maya’s via Ko ‘Olina’s Four Seasons restaurant … tired of the corporate life, ready for something from the ground up, hand’s on. My vision for Lamont, Juliet, and Joe is as a trend-setting team, the first of a new chapter in North Shore culinary styling.
Geev’em!