Restaurant Review: Brown's Beach House at the Fairmont Orchid

When you're fortunate enough to live on a beautiful island with top notch resorts coupled with amazing restaurants catering to well-heeled clients, picking your birthday dinner is an enviable challenge. As someone who also gets to sample these restaurants for my job at the Big Island Traveler magazine, I had an idea of exactly where I wanted to celebrate my birthday - Brown's Beach House at the Fairmont Orchid.

This was a tough choice, because several other restaurants could have easily made the cut, but I had two main reasons for selecting Brown's over other choices: one, Ben had not yet eaten here, and two, the Strawberry Shortcake Malasada.

But I'll get to that later.

The gorgeous setting at Brown's Beach House

I had the opportunity to review Brown's Beach House for an issue several months back, but the atmosphere and the food definitely stuck with me. I remembered that there were still several options that I had wanted to try all those months before but couldn't the night of my first dinner. Therefore, it was the logical place to visit for my big day.

When we got to the restaurant, we were whisked away to our seat staring out at to sea. Our meal was accompanied by very attentive service who quickly took our drink orders (the Mauna Lani Mule - YUM), followed by our food orders. I opted for the roasted cauliflower, coated in a mixture of aromatic spices such as tumeric and chili. Super flavorful - a great way to start a meal.

Roasted Cauliflower

For my entree, I selected Filet Mignon with a heavenly red wine jus, crispy potato cake, grilled kale, and earthy Hamakua mushrooms. It was absolutely divine - the steak was cooked to perfection, tender and juicy, and seasoned just right. The crispy potato cake underneath was a delightful surprise, and hit the spot. Combined with the tasty jus, I was well pleased with my dinner selection.

Filet Mignon

Ben started off with the Char Siu Octopus with pickled mango and crispy rice. He loved the smokey flavors and the nice crispy texture sprinkled throughout the dish.

Char siu octopus

For his main, he selected the Maui Axis Venison, which was on deck as an alternative for my entree. Fortunately, Ben let me try a bite, and it was tender, juicy, and not at all gamey like so many people anticipate venison to taste. Admittedly, I was never a big venison fan for a long time, until I started spending a lot of time in Upstate New York, where 9 times out of 10 the meat your are eating is likely to be venison. I've grown to appreciate its rather subtle differences to beef. If you are nervous about trying venison, I highly recommend doing so here as it will not leave you disappointed.

Maui Axis Venison

Though my in-laws joined us for the meal, we did not manage to get any pictures of their selections. My mother in-law enjoyed the beet salad appetizer, which I had tried during my last visit, and it really is a delicious little starter with tangy goat cheese, sweet lehua honey, and a macadamia nut pesto. For her main, she went with the special fish dish that night. My father in-law also started with the char siu octopus and had the Local Seafood Curry. It looked amazing with its bright yellow curry poured atop a heaping selection of local seafood. As someone who enjoys curry immensely, he had nice things to say about this dish.

As the night wore on, the sun began to set, lighting up the night sky in a rainbow of pinks, purples, oranges and yellows. I had not seen such a nice sunset in a while, so I felt especially lucky that this was how the sunset appeared on my birthday.

And even though we had all enjoyed our first two courses, you can't have a birthday dinner without dessert. The staff kindly brought me a surprise birthday cake, or the Milk Chocolate Macademia Nut Crunch, which was light and tasty. Looking at it, you almost expect it to be dense and overly sweet, but we were pleasantly surprised that it was the opposite.

The staff also brought along a faux key lime pie, with some lightly toasted marshmallows delicately lined up along the plate. The little cake was tart and delicious, another example of the pasty chef's deft hand at creating satisfying, not overly cloying desserts.

But what about the Strawberry Shortcake Malada? After all, that was one of my main reasons for coming here, and even though these other two options were so delicious, I knew I would be bummed if we left without eating this revelation. So we did the only thing we could naturally think of, and we ordered it.

What surprised me the first time I ate it was how simple this idea is. Malasadas, for the uninitiated, are Portuguese donuts - they are generally square shaped, and are light, pillowy, and are usually coated with a layer of sugar and/or cinnamon. They are TO DIE FOR. If you come to Hawaii, make it a mission of yours to get your hands on one (or two, or three, or...).

Putting some ice cream, strawberries and cream in between a malasada? Who is this brilliant genius and when can I shake their hand?

Though we all thought we wouldn't have much room for this last dish, the four of us were dueling over the last bite - fortunately for me, being the birthday girl, I got it.

And it was good.

This dinner definitely lived up to my expectations, and Ben and his family were equally satisfied. With an enviable setting, and some seriously delicious food, it's the perfect spot for special occasions. This just might be my go-to birthday dinner for years to come.

Brown's Beach House Details

Website

Reservations can be made through Open Table.