Eating in Hawai’i

It’s been a long time since I last wrote in this blog. I’m tempted to blame grad school and its craziness, but I also got lazy. Now I’m back with more energy, and new stories to tell.

Over the summer I was back in Japan (doing research on food — more about that in a future post), and on my way back to Boston I got lucky and managed to squeeze in a stopover in Honolulu and visit Paul.

More than stories, I just have straight up food porn to show. This is an awesome place to eat!

Local fish. I went to the fishmonger, but had no idea what was what. I ended up getting a parrot fish, which had a firm and almost chewy white meat.

Oh yeah, fried Malasadas…like a doughnut, only that they serve them warm all day long, and filled with pure tropical awesomeness. My favorite was lilikoi (passion fruit), followed by hopia (coconut custard). Chocolate…not so good. The picture from the top a volcano that overlooks honolulu is where we went hiking after feeling guilty because of so many malasadas.

Hawaiian food at Ono’s. It was recommended as one of the few places where you can try traditional Hawaiian foods. We got the lau-lau with pork (the big bunch of taro leaves with meat inside), poi (taro root “gruel”), lomi-lomi salmon and other stuff. All washed down with Maui beer. I quite liked the lau-lau, but wasn’t a huge fan of the poi…takes a little bit getting used to. The beer, however, oh, how I wish they would sell it in the East Coast. The coconut porter is one of the best and most original brews I’ve had. You’d think it’s sweet, but it’s not!

The farmers’ market. Someone must have written this down in a Japanese guidebook, because they were arriving by the busloads every 15 minutes! Really good produce, and fun ingredients to play around with. I got tiki leaves and assorted mushrooms, and steamed the parrot fish inside with a knob of butter, ginger, lime and chili. mmmm….

The other thing that amazed me from this market was the lettuce. We bought it from a farm that grows their veggies on volcanic soil, and the nuttiness and spicyness of the leaves left me dumbfounded. I guess this is what ‘terroir’ really means.