When you travel, don’t you want to experience authentic, local flavors unavailable anywhere else in the world?
It’s refreshing to find entrepreneurs digging into the past to share unique aspects of a local culture. Meeting Neale Asato in person motivated me to restart my Shoots! series, which celebrates business sprouting in unexpected places. (See previous issues of Shoots! here.)
Neale’s Asato Family Shop – is the kind of business we want to celebrate.
As a kid in Hawaii in the 70’s, experiencing local delicacies from other islands was a treasured treat for me. If someone brought you cookies from Kauai, bite-sized sweet red bean cakes called manju from the Big Island, and potato chips from Maui, you knew you were a special friend.
But nothing conveyed you were part of their inner circle than a pint of frozen sherbert from Maui’s Tasaka guri-guri.
To bring a pint from from Maui, your friend would go to the Tasaka store, buy pints packed in dry ice, check the extra box as luggage and deliver it to you straight from the airport!
If someone brought you a pint, you knew you were on their A List.
Neale shares similar childhood memories. but took it one step further.
He worked on his own base recipe and tinkered with different flavors:
- Some of them are “oldie but goodies” like passion orange and lemon-lime green river.
- Others are “trending” flavors like super matcha and (Japanese plum) ume shiso.
- And others are “local mashups” like lemon peel gummy bear.
Neale has even collaborated with a local craft brewery – Beer Lab HI on a PMJ pickled mango juice sour ale and a Rice Candy IPA!
Neale’s creation was featured in a New York Times recipe by now-NYT restaurant food critic Ligaya Mishan.
Neale and I got connected through a mutual friend. We explored collaborating a few times over the years, bringing together his take on Hawaiian sherbert and my passion for saimin. I couldn’t muster the courage to take that step, but Neale has taken the leap into Waikiki.
We recently met at Neale’s new store, located on the ground floor of the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort and Spa.
His shop looks awesome and the delicious frozen goodies are equally fantastic!
If you are a local hankering for old school sherbert or a visitor seeking an authentic piece of Hawaii from the statehood era, check out this branch of Asato Family Shop located on the ground floor of the Hyatt Regency in the Kings & Queens Store!
You can also pick up pints from 10 am to 2 pm Sundays only in Honolulu at 1306 Pali Highway. They are also available at the Foodland in Aina Haina, Pearl City and Ka Makana Ali’i (Kapolei) locations.
