Nadine Kam, followed by readers of both the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and Honolulu Star-Advertiser for her spirited coverage of the local restaurant industry, fashion and music, died Tuesday night in Waipahu after a battle with cancer. She was 63.
Kam joined the Honolulu Star-Bulletin as a copy editor in 1988, becoming a page designer and advancing to features editor in 1998, but she became best known for her “Weekly Eater” restaurant review columns.
Journalist Rob Perez’s investigative reporting on the decadeslong failure of Hawaii to return Native Hawaiians to ancestral lands helped bring policy changes and $600 million in landmark legislation for Hawaiian
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In October 1990, the food critic Jonathan Gold reviewed an inexpensive fast-food joint on Pico Boulevard called Oki-Dog for the
LA Times. The piece, “Trans-Global Junk Food,” doubled as an obituary for the late-night hangout of his youth: the 24-hour Oki-Dog on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, which had recently closed. In the early days of punk, Gold spent many a night at the nearby nightclub, the Starwood, which gave many future rock heroes their first big gigs, and played cello in two short-lived bands, Overman and Tank Burial. Years later, he was still an evangelist for Oki-Dog and its eponymous dish: two hot dogs, a slice of cheese, a slice of pastrami, and chili wrapped up in a flour tortilla, which he described as “a cross-cultural burrito that’s pretty hard to stomach unless you’ve got the tum of a 16-year-old.”