We had a surprise banana bread delivered to the room the day before, so for our 3rd day in Alohaland, B'fast was taken care of. The reason I mention this is because this juncture in our trip marks a period where food becomes a big part of What's Going On.
We spent the day pooling and beach walking. By evening, we had heard from Frank & Linda, my business partner and his spouse, two of our best friends. They had arrived and were hungry. They walked over for sunset cocktails on the lanai and then it was off to Keo's for a Thai dinner with lots of food and two bottles of wine for less than $150 for 4. The meal was excellent, the restaurant was exotic, the waiter lots of fun. Coldstone ice cream for dessert on the walk back to the hotel. You see the whole food theme developing here, right?
Next day we pick up a rental car, meet F&L at Eggs 'n' Things for B'fast and head to the North Coast. Our first stop was Hale'iwa where we stopped for their famous snocones. You heard right - snocones. Three flavours of chipped ice served over ice cream. Next, it was the Waimea Valley Audubon Society Nature Park, where we absolutely had nothing to eat. This is a 3 mile round trip walk through tropical plants from around the world, with a beautiful waterfall at the end. Captivating.
We stop to watch surfers and of course make a Hawaii Five - O type u-turn when we spot the world famous Shrimp Shack (see photo above), where we dig into fresh garlic shrimp and a beer we purchased from the adjacent grocery store. Well, it had been a good 2-3 hours since the snocone thing, and we were hungry.
Pressing on, we climbed up to Pali Lookout Point, where King Kamehameha forced an invading army from Maui over the 3,000 foot cliff. Great view for miles.
I'd like to digress here for just a tad to discuss the repetition in Hawaiian nomenclature. Why not just Kameha? Who needs the second "meha"? Why not just "Mahi"? Does Mahi Mahi taste twice as good? I could go on.
Sometime along the route the following conversation took place in the car:
Tucker: Hey Max, look at that bird!
Frank (from the back seat, reading the guide book): This part of the island was settled by the Mormons.
Max: It looks like an egret.
Linda: I hear they wear funny underwear.
Don't ask.
Continuing around the coast, we come to the inlet where the famous beach kiss scene from "From Here to Eternity" was shot in the crashing waves.
We got to talking to a local about where to have a good Hawaiian meal, and he directed us to Ono's. The photo above is the sign outside Ono's, which turned out to be a hole in the wall with fantastic Hawaiian food.
We ordered the Lau-Lau platter (see discussion above on nomenclature repetition) which consisted of pulled pork (cooked in a luau and served wrapped in a leaf of some sort), salmon & tomato salad, beef stew, rice, dried fish, onions & hot sauce, poi, and a delicious banana and coconut dessert. The bill, for 4, including 4 sodas, was $37.17. The walls were plastered with photos of celebrities who had visited this gem of an eatery.
Good eats, all day.
One last question: Why is it that "haoles" (mainlanders) start greeting each other with "aloha!" and saying "mahalo" instead of "thank you", once they land on the island? Do American tourists in Russia greet each other with a hearty "dubrovnik!" each morning? I don't think so.
1 comment:
This is great info to know.
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