Something newsworthy has happened (well, newsworthy if you follow dining micro-trends): A new restaurant from Hawaii has opened in Tokyo and it doesn¡¯t serve pancakes. Maui Mike¡¯s (5-32-13 Hakusan, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo; 03-3830-0139; ) serves chicken ¡ª glistening rotisserie chicken that spends two hours making its hypnotic rounds over open flames.
And from what I can tell, the original Maui Mike¡¯s in Hawaii is not a tourist trap. It appears to be a place that locals actually like. It certainly doesn¡¯t look touristy: It¡¯s a squat building on the side of the highway in central Oahu (so not in Maui, but anyway). Also, it has flames painted on the windows.
Maui Mike¡¯s top selling point is that it uses only natural (as in hormone- and antibiotic-free), never-frozen birds, and the Tokyo shop does too. The Tokyo shop also uses ¡°American-sized¡± chickens, which the manager told me were very hard to find in Japan. You can order the chicken in quarter or half sizes (to eat in or to go), with a side of french fries, onion rings, rice or corn. The other exciting thing on the menu is the Maui Wowie, a hot sandwich of shredded chicken breast topped with cheddar cheese in a mayo-slicked hoagie roll.
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