ramblings of a Seattle travel, food and photography hound
No sooner did we have an outstanding dinner at The Pig and the Lady last Tuesday than we came across them at the Honolulu Saturday Farmers Market. What was one of Honolulu’s hottest new restaurants doing here?, I wondered. It isn’t so strange, as it turns out, for The Pig and the Lady started out... Continue Reading →
If we need a reminder that there is still turmoil beneath the Earth's surface, all we need do is visit the Big Island where Mauna Loa still periodically threatens with its lava flows and Kilauea releases gigantic plumes of volcanic gases. When the sun sets, the glow of the magma burning just below Kilauea's crater lights... Continue Reading →
Poké is ubiquitous in Hawaii. Virtually any restaurant serving island food will have it on the menu. It is typically made with raw yellowfin tuna (ahi poké). Combined with sea salt, soy sauce, sesame oil and limu (algae), it's a distinctively Hawaiian creation. Variations include other seasonings and aromatics. While it has been a popular food staple in the... Continue Reading →
Some of the friendliest people we’ve ever met live on the Big Island. The islanders call it the Aloha Spirit, and maybe this explains it to some degree. I suspect there’s something more, a generosity of spirit, an openness to strangers that one rarely encounters when traveling. Maybe it’s the fact that Big Islanders live in... Continue Reading →
After an exhausting day of sipping iced mochas at Starbucks and going to the movies, we decided to unwind by taking advantage of happy hour at Chart House lounge, where we’d last gone in 2009. The popularity of the bar—or maybe it’s the terrific view of the marina and the setting sun from almost any... Continue Reading →
The concept of customizing udon to suit your personal preference is not new. In my neck of the woods, U:Don in Seattle’s University District has been offering it for several years. Marukame Udon made a big splash in Waikiki when it opened in 2011, a udonya that copies the cafeteria-style service that made it so... Continue Reading →
During every trip to Honolulu, my wife and I have breakfast at Eggs ’n Things, an excuse to eat their Portuguese sausage with eggs and two scoops of rice. My wife ordered it (this time, she substituted home fried potatoes for the rice, which turned out to be a bad idea), while the Island Style... Continue Reading →
My wife and I wound up eating three times at Ken’s House of Pancakes, near Arnott’s Lodge where we were staying during our time in Hilo. It came up as a local favorite in a couple of sources. Our Mauna Kea tour guide also said it was his favorite place to get saimin. The fact... Continue Reading →
Hawaii grows many tropical fruits that we on the mainland don't commonly see: guava, mangosteen, jack fruit, starfruit, rambutan, lychee, longan. There are, of course, pineapples, coconuts and banana. We saw several varieties of mango at the Hilo Farmers Market. The one we purchased is called a rapozo, huge and heavy with juice. Slicing into it... Continue Reading →
Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, located 8.5 miles north of Hilo, has tropical plants from all over the world, but few of their flowering specimens match the beauty and spectacle of the aptly named torch ginger (Etlingera eliator) for which one of the garden's paths is named, and one of many ginger plantings in the garden.
zoomeboshi 