Oahu Eats: A bit of Scandinavia in Paradise

Breakfast, the most important meal of day.

Actually, its THE most important meal period, for my kids anyway.

They look forward to the weekend when their Dad takes them to breakfast or brunch. This weekend though, Daddy isn’t here and Mommy now gets an earful on how “Daddy takes us every weekend for breakfast”. Hmmm, obviously I don’t attend these breakfast meetings and leave it to “hubs” to create his own bonding ritual with his kids.

Feeling bad and wanting to prove I can chose a better breakfast “experience” I started to ask friends where the best place for early morning grub was in Honolulu. Thank goodness I asked, someone recommended Tango Cafe and said, “it’s right up your alley, your kids will love it”. Ok, we’ll let them be the judge.

Luckily, a friend of mine was visiting Oahu for the weekend and wanted to hang out so I invited him to join me and my keiki for breakfast. We arranged to meet up at Tango Cafe at 8:30am.

Upon arrival, I started to get nervous. From the outside, the decor is very modern and looked more like a bar than cafe and I didn’t see one child. It was crowded, and there was a wait list, so we sat outside and watched everyone enjoying their meals through the window while we sat outside waiting patiently in the rain. Five minutes passed and my friends arrive, we’re immediately seated and handed menus.

I was excited to see the menu was inspired by Scandinavian dishes. You see, me and salmon have a love affair and the best salmon comes from Scandinavia. 🙂 Everything on the menu is homemade, using natural ingredients with a twist on traditional Scandinavian classics. My son wanted yogurt and my daughter wanted eggs with pancakes. I explained that the yogurt and pancakes are the kind you get in Europe, they shrugged their shoulders and agreed to give it a try.

We ordered the following;

1) The Original “Pytt i Panna”, which is Swedish for “stuff in a pan or small pieces in a pan”. It had ham, sausage and 2 over easy eggs (we asked for scrambled eggs), sautéed with diced potato and onions.

2) Chef Goran’s Select Yogurt, with berry compote, muesli and house made yogurt.

3) Plattar, which are Swedish Pancakes, fruits, berry compote fresh whipped cream.

The food came quite quickly. Jaf and Lou Lou were delighted to see all the fresh berries on top of the yogurt and pancakes. Though my daughter did say “I think they burned the Swedish pancakes Mom?”.

Jaf slowly ate each berry off of his yogurt and continued to eat through it until he reaches the muesli (granola-like cereal with bran, oats, raisins and nuts) that was sitting on the bottom. He gave an awful glance towards me. “What’s that Mom”, pointing to his yogurt? “Its museli, like cereal, try it”. “No way”, he replied and decides to pass it over to his sister. Lou Lou then passes her pancakes to Jaf and both decide they’d rather eat what the other ordered. Whew! If one doesn’t like it, the other one always does. 🙂

Unfortunately though, they decided not only to eat each others meals, but then began digging into my pytt i panna!

After they both finish off my breakfast, my daughter insists she’s still hungry and orders a sweet bread french toast. Our waiter was quite impressed with their appetite, and frankly so was I. She didn’t even share one bite and ate the whole order of french toast on her own.

The service was fantastic, the food was excellent and I’m so happy to have come here. Their menu is different than what you’d see at typical breakfast joints in Hawaii. I love the European look and feel of the place, the atmosphere, it was wonderful and relaxing. The kids loved the food. My only suggestion for them was to have cups with lids and straws. 🙂

Upon leaving, Lou Lou says, “We have to bring Daddy here! They have a great breakfast”!

Yes, Mission accomplished!

Tango Contemporary Cafe
1288 Ala Moana Boulevard, Suite 120
Honolulu, Hawaii 96814
(808) 593-7288
www.tangocafehawaii.com

Hours:
Mon-Fri 7 am – 10 am
Mon-Sun 11 am – 4:30 pm
Mon-Sun 5 pm – 9:30 pm
Sat-Sun 8 am – 10:30 am