Excellent points Sun-Ki, this could be a great discussion. First I wanted to say...Trader Vic's is alive and well in some far-flung parts of the world. My father and brother live in Dubai and the first time i went to visit in 1992, boy was I surprised to find Trader Vic's is one of the city's most popular restaurants. My Dad loves it, cause he can swill maitais and it's a nostalgia trip for him—he loved Trader Vic's here back in the 60s. He's a sweet-and-sour-loving haole. They keep the tiki torch burning, with the addition of some seminal 80s culinary additions like chicken satay and the like. (As a kid living in Jakarta in the seventies, I never guessed the peanut sauce I ate at street stalls would go on to conquer the world.) I agree there is a certain strata within HRC that is becoming humdrum—the requisite mahimahi with mango salsa, and "crisp" moi and now seems to be taking its place. (The plus side is that while that may seem boring, it's cool that it's trickled down to budget operations like Diamond Head Market and Grill...it's nice to be able to get mahi-mango for 7 dalah.) But as I said, in the Hale Aina Awards topic, I think a few chefs are going to be changing things, like chef Etsuji at Brown's Beach House at the Fairmont Orchid on the Big Island. He's so excited about getting to know the famer's in nearby Waimea. I ate there and he specially made a dish of sliced hamachi topped only by sweet locally grown tomato slices and a light shiso vinaigrette. He also did something extraordinary: baked baby (also locally grown) potatos in ala'ea. He said "Taste these potatoes, they have so much flavor you can just eat them plain." And he was right. Trained in Japanese and French technique, his way with seafood is masterful, highlighting pure flavors. The hotel just built him a new open kitchen. Also, although his regular menu is often criticized, chef Hiroshi at L'Uraku really does some outstanding cooking for his contemporary kaiseki dinners. Uni risotto, kahala sashimi, gosh, there were other memorable little plates. They highlighted local ingredients but never fell into a HRC rut. I highly recommend trying to get a reservation at his next kaiseki event this spring. Seared ahi is much more than a HRC dish...it already is a classic. You'll find versions of it as the chicest restaurants in Manhattan, along with some kind of tuna tartare. I think you'd be surprised to find how far HRC's reach has gone in subtle ways. Rocco DiSpirito (yes, the chef from that lame Restaurant reality show) made his name not with Italian food, but with his Pan-Asian-inflected contemporary cooking at his restaurant Union Pacific. It opened in 1997, and is just phenomenal. Roy's, Alan Wong's and Chef Mavro will never reach this level of cooking. But I don't know if he was influenced by what was happening in the Pacific Rim, or vice versa, or if there was no influencing going on at all. The fact is, Hawaii kitchens COULD be doing his kind of cooking: Halibut cooked in its own fat, covered in tangled scales of caramelized young ginger (just substitute the halibut for a luscious local fish), curried baby calamari in a Madras sauce set off by marinated dried blueberries (substitute the berries with dried strawberry guava or something). There is so much room for innovation and experimentation. I think as new crops of Hawai‘i born chefs graduate from places like Maui Community College's revamped $17 million culinary center and go out in the world and discover new flavors and techniques then return home, we'll see a natural evolution out of our mahi-and-mango culinary holding pattern. (I hope!)