Friday,
December 22 Friday,
December 22 We left the hotel around 7:15, and while Robert was waiting for the car from the valet, I checked out the little Japanese breakfast and lunch stand in the lobby. I ordered a musubi pack, a little breakfast box for $3 with a plain (freshly made, just salted rice and nice nori) musubi (onigiri), with egg and chicken on the side. There were many other kinds of musubi to choose from, of course, but this just screamed breakfast.
We went straight to Leonard’s for hot malasadas, where we stood in a very long line with mostly locals, one person ordering enough for a big family or office, and finally emerged with seven (our favorites were original, and then haupia-filled) in a box.
With our two-course all-Hawaiian breakfast under our belts, we went straight to Hanauma bay, where we’d been on our previous trip, so that Robert could finally snorkel with the fishes. There was a very brief, three-minute rain shower just as we arrived at the beach, but we still managed to get a good parking spot, get all our stuff out of the car, and get into the 8:30 orientation movie (everyone has to do this at least once a year, so that they can educate visitors about protecting the coral reef). Then we joined the stream of people walking down the hill to the beach, where the sun promptly went behind a cloud, leaving us a little too chilly to do more than lie down and doze, walk along the beach, or wade until about 10:30 or so, when the sun came out from behind the cloud with full force. At 11:00, then, Robert went in the water and pretty much stayed there straight until 1:30 when we packed up and left. He found some instant friends pointing at all the fishes, and he dragged me over to a spot to wade near some fish. I couldn’t bring myself to try the snorkel, though I did put on socks and my Crocs and then actually swim around (my feet practically hermetically sealed from sand and from the sometimes-rocky bottom) in the shallow water.
Back in Honolulu, still sandy and beachy, we enjoyed our three-course lunch at various fine university-area dining places: first, there was a stop at Bubbie’s for some mochi ice cream. We had a sundae with four ice cream mochi, including the seasonal pumpkin and chocolate eggnog flavors, topped with hot fudge and whipped cream. The guy behind the counter seemed not thrilled by our unorthodox ordering (mochi sundaes aren’t on the menu) but reasonably indulgent nonetheless. (He did decline when Robert exuberantly asked if we could just “run a tab” of mochi, however.) For our second batch of ordering, we got three more mochi and had a sundae made with marshmallow and raspberry sauces. This time, there was a line of people behind us, including two middle-aged local women who were extremely supportive of my mochi sundae ordering (I discussed it with them), and who said they talk to “the man” (the Bubbies founder) all the time and would ask him to put a mochi sundae on the specials board with my name on it.
Then we stopped for the main course of lunch, after this lovely appetizer, at a plate lunch place called something like “Extreme BBQ” in the same shopping center as Bubbie’s. This place turned out to be a food stand in the corner of a convenience and liquor store, but we had a really nice combo plate lunch consisting of the classic in-shell garlic shrimp, two long flanken-cut beef ribs seasoned Korean-style, and the traditional accompaniments of two scoops of rice and one scoop of macaroni salad. Robert had apparently forgotten what constituted a plate lunch, and he laughed at the macaroni salad and didn’t eat it.
Dessert was a single shared small Waiola shave ice. Oh, they really put Matsumoto’s to shame—the ice here is so much finer, the texture meltier in your mouth, and the syrups better flavored. There are more options, too: we had mochi balls on the bottom, then the ice with haupia and passionfruit syrups, then sweetened condensed milk, then li hing mui powder. Delicious!
Back at the hotel, we enjoyed a post-lunch nap and shower, and we got ready to go out to dinner. At 6:30, when we left the hotel and walked down to the beach, it was mostly getting dark, but we were able to admire the very last bits of sunset, still showing just as a pretty pink in the sky. We strolled around and watched the crazy people on Waikiki Beach (there are lots of them), and I saw my fourth Christmas tee shirt (no sweaters) and then the fifth and sixth in rapid succession. We wandered back to our hotel to pick up our car, but meanwhile we stopped to buy a pineapple juice and a single take-out order of marlin nigiri from a little, empty sushi stand.
Dinner was an already-reserved meal at Chef Mavro’s on McCully and King, very close by. We found a parking spot on the street and walked in nearly half an hour early for our 8pm reservation (that’s Robert being nice to me, letting us be early). Mavro is another of the founding Hawaiian Regional Cuisine chefs, and in some respects, he’s the most highly rated; we’ve never tried his food, but we were able to build our own four-course tasting menus by choosing among the different dishes on the three, four, and six course menus.
Quoting from Chef Mavro’s online menu, we had:
From the chilled carrot-cumin-lime soup that preceded everything, through all of our chosen courses and the palate-cleansing watermelon gelee, to the final post-dessert truffles and rose Turkish delight, everything was delicious, and very unique. The tuna appetizer, which at first looked like a very typical dish, was crusted with a perfect combination of Indian spices.
All dishes were available paired with wines, but we didn’t do that; another nice touch was that all the menus—three, four, six, and eleven courses—were the same total amount of food, just served in different portion sizes so that you could try as many things as you wanted. Service was excellent, at every moment, and after dinner we came home very happily, after a wonderful meal and experience.
Our plan was to wake up at 4:30, throw on clothes, and go to the fish auction on Pier 83 in time for its 5:30 opening, but I woke up at 3:00 and was a little too excited to go back to sleep. After all, it was our last day, and we were going to see lots of fish. Robert finally got up, and he actually moved faster than he usually does in the morning, in honor of the special day. We got to the fish auction at 5:30 and they were going strong; they may have started earlier, since everyone said that Christmas is the busiest fish auction season of all.
I highly recommend the fish auction. Do wear long pants, though, since it’s chilly (the better for the fish), wear closed-toe shoes, and cuff up your pant legs a few times so they don’t get in the water that’s all over the floor. Really, there was almost fish wall-to-wall in the large main room: mostly ahi, yellowfin tuna, and lots of beautiful flat, giant opah (moonfish). Everyone was extremely friendly, and was happy to answer our questions and tell us more about the fish and the process. We made friends with two older local women who just come to watch, for fun, and with a few of the older men. It’s an extremely male environment, but no one was leering—everyone was very smiley and approachable. We stayed until 6:10, watching more of the fish get auctioned off, and then we drove back to the hotel, watching the sun rise.
Farmers’
MarketWe finished grooming and checked out, because our next stop was the Kapiolani Community College farmers’ market. It runs every Saturday, from 7:30 until 11:00, and we got there at 7:35; again, it was extremely busy, with everyone buying baked goods and fruit and flowers and fish before the holiday. Really, it was a dream farmers’ market: beautiful flowers, fresh fish and produce, and lots and lots of samples (of fruit, of sausage, of cooked fish, of salad with salad dressing, of salsa, jams, lilikoi bar cookies, organic healthy cookies, beautiful breads, mochi, and so on).
Upon arriving, Robert had a kim chee sausage hot dog, with really some of the best flavored sausage ever, fresh and very kim-chee tasting. I got a fried mochiko chicken plate, again served with two scoop rice, one scoop macaroni salad. Note that both of these were eaten well before 9:00 in the morning, and we were not at all the only people indulging in such tasty, savory food at this hour of the morning. That’s one of the things that I love about Hawaii: there’s absolutely no ban on eating non-traditional breakfast foods at breakfast time—everyone is tearing into hot dogs, plate lunches, fried chicken, grilled fish, etc. at 7:30, 8:30, 9:00 in the morning. It’s sort of the antithesis of when, after being dragged to a Bickford’s by Robert on a Sunday for breakfast, I tried to order at tuna melt or a patty melt at 10:00 in the morning and was soundly rebuffed. Ah, I love Hawaii!
The Farmers’ Market had other benefits, too, including great prices on vacuum-packed, Hawaii-grown mac nuts, deep-fried taro mochi (plain and unfilled, but hot and wonderful, $2 for a bag of pieces), and Saturday Grandma’s chocolate truffles wrapped in their homemade mochi—these were simply the best mochi of any kind that I have ever eaten. At $8.50 for a five-pack (stored refrigerated), they weren’t cheap, but they were amazing; I am definitely going to try to replicate them at home.
After we’d walked around, we sat on benches, and then on a curb when an automatic sprinkler started wetting the benches, to eat and to people-watch. It was a great, Hilo-like, Berkeley-like atmosphere, and I felt I could really live here.
Our next stop was at the original Waiola Shave Ice (pictured above left): we shared an extra large bowl with mochi balls, lychee and lilikoi syrups, topped with sweetened condensed milk (the woman put on a ton, satisfyingly so) and li hing mui powder; as we sat on the bench outside, eating in the sun, we were joined by an old man enjoying his strawberry shave ice also early in the morning.
Next we headed to the Ala Moana mall, arriving by 9:45, at which point, on the Saturday before Christmas, the mall was absolutely packed. We went into the Apple store, the Sharper Image, and a few other random places to browse, but our real destination, again, was the large Japanese department store, which has a wonderful assortment of Hello Kitty items, normal department-store stuff, rice cookers, tons and tons of mochi and arare and packaged food for holiday gifts, a fancy Japanese confectionary counter, bento boxes and a cafeteria—ultimately, we just window-shopped, but it was fun, and a completely non-Bostonian experience.
From Ala Moana, we drove over to the main branch of the Bishop Museum, drinking a Waialua Mango soda from our cooler on the way (we had to get rid of all liquids before the plane ride, of course). They had a great exhibit on the Hawaiian royal family, their lineage and portraits and feather standards and cloaks, and then a science part of the museum, with some animatronic dinosaur models, and a great tsunami and volcano exhibit, all very interactive. It’s a nice museum, kind of a natural history and science museum combination, good for kids. In the gift shop, just before leaving, Robert bought me a Hawaiian grammar/phrasebook and dictionary for fun; I think I’d like to learn more about the language, you know, for when we move here.
Above, Robert in three guises at the Bishop Museum: walking around between buildings outside, floating down a "lava tube" in the volcano exhibit, and posing with a Christmas-bedecked dino.
After the museum, on a whim, we called the always-crowded Mitch’s Sushi Bar near the airport, and upon finding they had space at the bar, drove straight there, arriving at 1:30 for lunch. The sushi and experience were very traditional; the place was small, but the fish excellent. We had perfectly made sashimi and nigiri and a temaki, very authentic and very high quality, much more like a place in Los Angeles (and we might imagine, Tokyo) than just any of the places in Boston.
After lunch, we needed one more stop before our flight, and since we hadn’t had a single mango this trip (remember, they’re out of season, even though Robert doesn’t believe that Hawaii has seasons), we drove to Honolulu’s Chinatown, where I was fairly certain we’d be able to find mangoes. We parked at 2:30 and wandered around, buying three mangoes; note that these were definitely Hawaiian mangoes, not any of the standard kinds we get at home, but that obviously they were far scarcer at this time of year than in the summer. Robert also bought a mango boba drink, but I refused the drink in favor of the fresh mangoes. We found a shaded table at an outdoor courtyard, and I set to work. Using our knife and cutting board from the car, I cut up all three mangoes, which were all perfect, ripe, tart, sweet, and mango-y, and we enjoyed them immensely, eating the flesh and sucking on their pits. It was a beautiful last Hawaiian experience—actually it was an overall great last day, since we very productively squeezed in so much before our flight.
At last, it was time to call it a day: we drove back to airport to gas up and return our rental car, noting that we’d driven about 460 miles altogether, 300 on Maui and 160 on Oahu. In addition, when arriving at the airport, I’d seen a running total of 17 Christmas tee shirts in the past few days. Robert, who almost never sleeps on planes, was actually getting tired by the end of the day—I joked that I saved the fish auction for the last day so he’d be so tired he’d actually sleep on the plane.
On the plane, snacking on li hing mui dried mangoes, gummy worms, and mixed arare, Robert said he thought he’d cured me of my li hing addiction by letting me have as much of it as I wanted this trip, but no such luck—I’m still nuts about the stuff, dreaming of having some Waiola li hing mui syrup shipped to me so I can make li hing mui ice cream sodas with seltzer and high-quality vanilla bean ice cream—oh heaven!
Li hing mui or not, the flights were fine; we flew straight back to Atlanta, then connected into Boston, landing Christmas Eve morning with no problems whatsoever—the end of a beautiful, tasty, relaxing week.
Pictured above: Hawaiian memories, all of the food and/or book varieties.
All throughout this trip, I kept forgetting that I had blue hair (apropos of a conversation I had with Northfield’s Tracy before we left, in which we both agreed that our mental self-image hasn’t kept pace with changes in our actual self-image). So here’s a selection of comments my hair garnered; in most cases, I had no idea why the person was saying this, and I usually stared at him/her blankly. Note that at the fish auction, in addition to the people who commented on my hair, four people commented on Robert’s enormous, towering height.
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Created: 12/26/06. Last Modified: 12/26/06