Hawaiian Fusion at Super Six in Columbia City

Marination’s new, auto-inspired Super Six serves up polished Asian-Hawaiian in a former garage

By Seattle Mag February 4, 2016

A bowl of food and a glass of drink on a tray.

This article originally appeared in the February 2016 issue of Seattle magazine.

With Super Six, Marination co-owner Kamala Saxton has fulfilled her dream of opening a brick-and-mortar place in Columbia City, her home since moving from Hawaii to Seattle nearly 20 years ago. The two-story restaurant, named for a slick, female-designed 1948 Hudson Motor Car Company roadster, is housed inside a former automotive garage and features a big, beer-garden-worthy parking lot. Saxton can’t wait to get her aloha on this summer.

While the menu is Marination in spirit, it’s not about pork tortas or kimchi fried rice à la Big Blue and Marination Station. Super Six’s food is a bit more refined Asian-Hawaiian, or tries to be, anyway. I had high hopes for a beet salad ($12) dressed with lilikoi goat cheese—executive chef Chad Bergman (formerly of Miller’s Guild) whips lilikoi purée and actual passionfruit into his cheese—but I couldn’t detect a lick of lilikoi on my plate. Shoyu ahi poke, while fresh and traditional down to the dainty edible sea moss, was small for $18.

Ironically, the unfussy double-fried buttermilk chicken wings ($9) were my favorite. Char siu, or Cantonese barbecue sauce, lent the wings a tangy crunch. I loved the kitchen-sink concept of the Aloha fries ($9), but thought the dish would’ve been more cohesive if the fried egg topping the potatoes and kalua pork was served hot and over easy (to facilitate tossing and coating), instead of cold and over hard, which is how mine arrived. Ultimately, I’ll go back to Super Six for two reasons: because I’m a Marination devotee and because I want another malasada ($4), pastry chef Kim Mahar’s (formerly of RN74) warm, Portuguese-Hawaiian haupia-cream-filled doughnuts. Columbia City, 3714 S Hudson St.; 206.420.1201.

Picture of fried chicken

Double-fried buttermilk chicken wings

 

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