Restaurant reviews

Restaurant reviews blog posts

Seal in Hawaii

Posted 2015-04-23 by Gary

No I didn’t eat seal! I saw Seal in Hawaii though.

This morning we were snorkeling when a seal swam through the cove and flolloped up onto the beach.

It didn’t move much and seemed to fall asleep.

So I know the question burning inside you is what did I have for breakfast this morning?

It was a jalapeño spam omelet made with Monterey jack and colby cheese with salad greens and asparagus plus avocado.

This is the spam T-shirt I bought near Matsumoto’s shave ice store.

So as I mentioned after breakfast, we went snorkeling. It was so clear this morning. So calm too.

This was a very cute red crab

We went for a drive down the east coast to have a look at Pali lookout and then to Kailua Beach for lunch. More of that later.

On the way we stopped at Kahaluu to see what is described as the Chinese worker’s hat. I think it looks like a big hard erect nipple. You be the judge.

Pali Lookout was quite good but we were over run with busloads of tourists.

The views are really very nice.

After Pali lookout we drove down to Kailua Beach. We couldn’t find that many places to eat and ended up at the L&L Hawaiian Barbecue shop. It was like visiting a mortuary. I thought I was in the land of the undead. We decided to take our food to the nearby park and eat there.

I chose a saimin burger and a plain spam musubi. Both were good. I’m going to have to try to make these when I get home.

The beach there was beautiful. The water was so blue and clear.

After the beach we stopped at Island Snow and I had a pineapple, coconut and lime snow cone topped with condensed milk. The condensed milk topping really adds a different dimension to the cordial flavoured shaved ice. It’s not just the sweetness and creaminess, it’s the caramel.

For dinner we went to Opal Thai Food (66-197 C Kamehameha Highway Haleiwa, HI 96712). The chef and owner makes a point of greeting each patron and asking what they know about Thai cuisine and then he chooses dishes for them. This meal was spectacular. We started with a radish apetiser and then two mains. One was a duck dish and the other a prawn noodle dish. I could eat them forever.

This was a crisp crunchy radish dish.

Garlic prawn noodles

Roast duck with fried basil leaves and lots of garlic.

Sorry those images of the Thai food are blurry. I was trying to shoot the photographs quickly.

Tonight was our last night on the north shore. It’s been fantastic.

Did you see Seal in Hawaii?

SUP Hawaii

Posted 2015-04-22 by Gary

SUP Hawaii! Today we went stand up paddle boarding except I have a vestibular defect so I did sit down paddle boarding. Back in 2000 I had a left inner ear infection and now have permanent high frequency deafness, tinnitus and poor balance.

First things first though. For breakfast Bron made poached eggs.

After breakfast we headed to Surf N Sea at 62–595 Kamehameha Hwy, Haleiwa, HI 96712 to hire paddle boards and a kayak.

I spent some time in a kayak and some sitting on a paddle board shooting photographs of what was around me.

I shot a few randoms out on the water on stand up paddle boards.

After the paddle boarding we went to Kaiaka Bay Beach Park for a picnic lunch. I had a jalapeño spam, jam, avocado, cheese sandwich. It was delicious. I love these sort of sandwiches that you made on site at a picnic after a lot of physical exertion. They always taste good. This was my first experience of jalapeño spam and it was tremendous.

After lunch we went for a walk along the beach and saw turtles.

After the joy of seeing some turtles we headed into the local town of Haleiwa and to the famous Matsumoto’s shave ice. Why is it shave ice and not shaved ice? This place is famous for the texture and flavours. I choose a Matsumoto combination of lemon, coconut and pineapple plus condensed milk. It is spectacularly good.

This was amazing. The flavours so awesome. The condensed milk added a new dimension to shaved ice. I love it.

At the shops there is also a spam stand. I bought a T-shirt. I’ll post a photograph in the next couple of days.

On the way back to the condominium we stop for supplies and I find some teriyaki spam musabi. My blogging friend Spencer Lum has told me this is a must try.

After the musabi we do a little more snorkeling and then it is time for dinner. Bron cooked pork chops Hawaiian style with pineapple and ham and cheese. We then had Ted’s bakery chocolate custard pie and pineapple Queensland nut pie with a doughnut and haupia pudding.

SUP Hawaii! Have you tried it?

Polynesian Cultural Center Oahu Hawaii All you can eat!

Posted 2015-04-22 by Gary

So it’s Monday and we have tickets to the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie on the North Shore of Oahu. Our tickets include the Island buffet plus the show known as Hã Breath of life.

But first things first. Bron offered to make pancakes for breakfast.

We then go for a snorkel at Kuilima Cove

After the snorkelling we got ready for the Polynesian Cultural Center by stopping at Tita’s Grill on 56–485 Kamehameha Highway, Hauula, HI 96717.

I went with the garlic prawns and garlic chips. The prawns come with rice and macaroni cheese. The chips are covered in crushed garlic. I felt like a clove of garlic all afternoon and evening.

The prawns were really good and as is my want to avoid mess and give me a calcium boost I just pop an entire prawn in my mouth and chew the whole thing down. The chips came with a dipping sauce which I think was a mayonnaise. I’d happily recommend Tita’s Grill’s garlic prawns to anyone. You may want to go for the combo which I think has its own small serve of chips rather than the standard serve of chips that I had in addition.

When we got to the PCC we watched the canal presentation with the various Polynesian islands represented. We also watched presentations on Samoa, Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Tonga.

The Samoan presentation was all about the coconut and its many uses. I learnt so much about the coconut tree and how it can be used.

The Aotearoa presentation was interesting. It was nicely ended by a tribute of respect to all warfighters. Veterans in the audience were asked to stand and be acknowledged. I hope this Saturday on ANZAC day they do something special given it’s the centenary of ANZAC.

The Tongans were all about drumming and making the audience laugh. I haven’t laughed like that in years.

Before the show we ate in the Island buffet. There are three dining selections depending on how much the tickets cost. I went with the cheapest option so we ate at the Island buffet. It was an all you can eat affair featuring pulled pork, fried chicken, poached fish, rice, mashed potatoes and gravy plus desserts consisting of jelly, mochi, haupia pudding, pineapple slice, cakes and bread pudding.

The show at the end was really good and almost like a Disney production in terms of quality. It was the life story of Mana and Lani and worked through the various Polynesian peoples. I was particularly taken by the Fijian effort given my father was born in Fiji.

All in all the PCC was really very interesting. The price of tickets is quite steep but the owners claim it’s a not for profit affair.

I highly recommend the Polynesian Cultural Center

Snorkeling in Hawaii

Posted 2015-04-20 by Gary

Today we had a fantastic day. We went snorkeling twice, ate pie at Ted’s bakery and I enjoyed my first dole whip at Dole plantation.

After one of my first Hawaiian holiday posts my good blogging friend Barbara suggested I try a dole whip. I made a bit of a joke on Swarm that I was waiting in a dole queue waiting for my dole whip.

I’ll get to the dole whip soon. I started the day with a repeat of yesterday’s breakfast, chorizo spam with fried eggs and cheese.

After breakfast we went for our first snorkel of the day. We walked to Kuilima Cove and jumped right in. The water was a perfect temperature albeit a little murky. The tide was out so it was fairly shallow. We could easily sea brightly coloured coral, lots of fish and other sea life like sea cucumbers. I shot these images with a Nikon All Weather camera. I couldn’t see the LCD screen while I was underwater. The sun glare was significant and after I downloaded the images I discovered many of them were unusable because I hadn’t of all things aimed the camera very well. I need to point it deeper. Some of the video was hilarious (not) because I ended up with heads of fish swimming away rather than the whole fish because I wasn’t pointing deeply enough. I tried to shoot a few sea cucumbers with their castings but none of the images were very good.

For lunch we went to Ted’s Bakery again like we did yesterday only this time we had sandwiches 🙂

I went for a crab and bacon sandwich followed by a pumpkin haupia cream pie. Again I stuck my label to the umbrella pole. I love pumpkin pie. I wish had it more in Australia.

After lunch we went to the Dole Plantation to do the maze and eat a dole whip 😀

The maze is amazing (see what I did there?) I reckon the walls should have been made with maize too 😀

We took about an hour to complete it.

The dole whip is truly a heavenly treat, I really liked my dole whip in a cup with extra pineapple.

After Dole plantation we went snorkeling again and saw more fish. The water was a little murkier but it was deeper with a higher tide.

For dinner this evening I cooked Hawaiian curry salmon with some chorizo spam and then had a Ted’s Bakery Queensland nut pie with Haupia pudding for dessert.

Do you like snorkeling? I love it.

My first Hawaiian food truck experience

Posted 2015-04-19 by Gary

There is a small food truck scene in Canberra but Hawaii is the home of food truck.

Today we completed our third day on our Hawaiian holiday adventure. It was a big day. I think it’s the first day I’ve not done much walking but I’ve eaten way over and above what I needed to but everything I ate I wanted to eat.

The day started with you guessed it…SPAM! Yesterday I restrained myself and bought only two cans of SPAM (heaven in a can). For this morning’s breakfast I chose the chorizo version. It had a lovely smoky spicy flavour. The eggs were also good topped with a little Monterey Jack and Colby cheeses!

Two thin slices frying in PAM olive oil spray with some Challenge Butter. The smell was divine.

Here's the Colby and Monterey Jack cheeses! — Here’s the Colby and Monterey Jack cheeses!

The egg yolks seem paler than back home but they cooked very well. — The egg yolks seem paler than back home but they cooked very well in the butter.

My breakfast of chorizo SPAM, fried eggs sunny side up and cheese

After breakfast we went for a short walk to Kuilima Cove. We had to walk through the Turtle Bay Resort which is a very large golf course resort that overlooks the Turtle Bay beaches, coves and other geographical spots.

Apparently this cove is good for snorkeling which we plan to do tomorrow.

After a short walk on the beach and a sit on the sand to watch people we went for a drive west along the north shore.

Bron has been great driving the Impala. The traffic today seemed very thick and slow moving.

Bron mentioned we should try out a pie at Ted’s Bakery. Apparently Ted’s pies are world famous. When we walked in there were plenty of people in line to buy pies and other pastries. We went for a chocolate haupia cream pie.

Ted's Bakery's Chocolate Haupia Cream pie — Ted’s Bakery’s Chocolate Haupia Cream pie

Haupia means coconut I think. It’s a good thing I like coconut jelly dessert The chocolate wasn’t too sweet but the whole thing was a little too smooth and not much texture. That said, it was a pleasant morning tea.

One of the things you apparently do is rip off the label and stick it to the pole of the table umbrella. We did it!

The pole of the table umbrella is adorned with stickers

After our morning tea we stopped at Sunset Beach. This is a really nice stretch of sand with beautiful water and a view of the Pacific Ocean. The sand is quite coarse and it’s easy to pick up large chunks of bleached coral.

The east side of Sunset Beach, North Shore Oahu Hawaii. Dare I say, this is a lovely beach but no better than any of those on the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane and the Queensland sand is orders of magnitude finer and whiter than the sand on Oahu's North Shore. — The east side of Sunset Beach, North Shore Oahu Hawaii. Dare I say, this is a lovely beach but no better than any of those on the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane and the Queensland sand is orders of magnitude finer and whiter than the sand on Oahu’s North Shore.

After a spot of people watching and sand sitting we ventured off for some grocery shopping and then had lunch at a food truck.

This was to be our first Hawaiian food truck experience. We chose Fumi’s Kahuku Shrimp (prawn). Bron went for the classical garlic butter and I chose hot and spicy prawns.

They were really good. Like a good oriental I chose to eat my prawns shell (including tail) and all. It’s nice to add a bit of calcium carbonate to the diet. With each meal you get some rice that has the sauce from the prawns soaked in plus some crispy crunchy lettuce in a ranch dressing plus a slice of delicious fresh pineapple. We look forward to doing many more food trucks.

After quite a lot of sand and sun and food we headed back to the condominium for a rest.

Later in the evening I made salmon and salad Saturday!

A nice healthy way to finish the day…well the croutons, bacon bits and almonds may not be that healthy but the currant tomatoes were amazing. So sweet.

Salmon and Salad Saturday in Turtle Bay Oahu, HI

Have you eaten from an Hawaiian food truck? What did you have?

Restaurant reviews

Seal in Hawaii

No I didn’t eat seal! I saw Seal in Hawaii though.

Did you see Seal in Hawaii?

Like this:

SUP Hawaii

SUP Hawaii! Have you tried it?

Like this:

Polynesian Cultural Center Oahu Hawaii All you can eat!

I highly recommend the Polynesian Cultural Center

Like this:

Snorkeling in Hawaii

Do you like snorkeling? I love it.

Like this:

My first Hawaiian food truck experience

There is a small food truck scene in Canberra but Hawaii is the home of food truck.

Have you eaten from an Hawaiian food truck? What did you have?

Like this:

Recent posts

Post archive

No I didn’t eat seal! I saw Seal in Hawaii though.

Did you see Seal in Hawaii?

I'd love it if you shared

Like this:

SUP Hawaii! Have you tried it?

I'd love it if you shared

Like this:

I highly recommend the Polynesian Cultural Center

I'd love it if you shared

Like this:

Do you like snorkeling? I love it.

I'd love it if you shared

Like this:

There is a small food truck scene in Canberra but Hawaii is the home of food truck.

Have you eaten from an Hawaiian food truck? What did you have?

I'd love it if you shared

Like this:

Recent posts

Post archive