This is on Brian and I’s bucket list, but they don’t take reservations and we’re a bit snobby when it comes to that, and also just generally against eating indoors if we can help it. They do have some picnic tables off to the left hand side you can bring takeout… but for a place this nice it seems a bit odd. Anyway, one of the families I took pictures for recommended specifically the furikake ahi tuna dish. I was hesitant based on the description, but in the vein of trying new things I went for it and got take out. It was PHENOMENAL. The flavoring on the fish was great and the dipping sauce that went with it, SO GOOD.
Of course the problem with this is now it’s the only thing I’ll order there. I think this is my first report of truly delicious food here. There you have it, found some!
I’ve been meaning to try this place for a while, but their hours are odd and Brian says it’s not a dinner place. I finally treated myself for lunch to get me out of the apartment for a bit.
They make bowls with soft serve fruit. I chose to get the “Locals Only” in a bowl. I should’ve changed to Acai flavor because banana can overwhelm me… next time.
It was really quiet and the service was quick. Overall I thought the bowl was good, not great, but I’d go back. It wasn’t overly sweet even with the honey. The mac nut honey butter, however, was DELICIOUS and I will go back to buy a jar.
I think it a nice treat, good but not great. Could’ve been my mistake in flavor choice. I’ll definitely also bring my own bowl next time. Love that restaurants are doing this.
To mark off another bucket list item we went to Buzz’s steakhouse, which is a quick 18 minute walk from our condo and (arguably) has an ocean view. We were too early for their dinner menu, but the small plates menu was satisfactory, and also nothing to write home about (but I guess still bloggable). The cocktails, on the other hand, were amazing. Brian and I started with Mai Tais. He had their original, which was essentially rum. I had the original with added pineapple juice to knock it down a bit.
I moved on to the coconut mojito (without mint. I know, defeats the essence of a mojito, but I don’t like mint in things). Brian had a beer.
I would 10/10 go again on a leisurely night with not much else to do, but I wouldn’t put it in my top restaurants to eat at. I do appreciate the laid back, beachy deco flare.
I almost forgot their other redeeming quality which was their key lime pie. It was amazing. Here are some pictures from the walk back.
Path through Kailua Beach ParkSun setting over Kailua BeachI got the feeling someone was watching us…Sign welcoming you to the neighborhood with an elderly lady enjoying the tradewinds, as she told us when we walked bySurf boards are commonly used as mailbox stands
I read a blog once that said if you are spending time in Kailua on a Thursday, skip any restaurant and go to the Kailua Farmer’s Market. I am here to confirm this is 100% the best recommendation.
It’s half in a parking lot, half in a parking garage and has a significant number of food/goods vendors. The lines were long but moved quickly.
I had to commit to something… so I picked a Portuguese cheese bread and three empanadas from these two vendors and a couple brownies from another. The empanadas were OUT OF THIS WORLD. I am not sure how I’m not going to get those every time.
My friend got Falafel from the middle eastern place, which I sampled and also thought was delicious.
The biggest and most disappointing part of this is there isn’t really any public seating… so next time I think I’d bring my lawn chairs and set up camp in the parking lot and enjoy the music and eat.
Instead, we took it back to my friend’s apartment, which is a short walk, and ate it on her Lanai.
But I can’t enjoy the ice cream for dessert that way! This is a Thursday must go for me now. I’m still dreaming of the empanadas.
We had an easy day today due to my late night conference working. We moseyed on to Brunch around 9:30am and tried Easy ‘Que. We’ve been here for dinner and it was really good.
I had corn cakes with egg and pork with lilikoi iced tea and Brian had a burrito. Both were delicious and we’d definitely come back here. I had to try all the sauces even though I knew the molasses would be my favorite.
Brian was pleasantly surprised how good having BBQ for brunch was; it wasn’t overly BBQ-y.
I’ve mentioned there are Hei Hei’s all over Hawaii. These chickies have discovered delicious crumbs await inside the restaurant, but he better watch out.
They have a bruleed banana pudding waffle that we’ll have to return to try.
Believe it or not, prior to today Brian had never joined me on my sunrise walks. Well, he joined for his first on the worst sunrise I’ve seen so far. Ha. We have a hurricane passing us by and it’s been rainy/cloudy/windy of and on for the last week it feels.
I walked by one of the usuals that I am starting to be friendly with and said “I have a husband” and he said “good you have some adult supervision now”. I laughed. I always think of the wittiest things to say after, but I should’ve said “Shhh don’t let on to our secret sunrise parties”.
We tried a new breakfast place and got takeout. Moke’s Bread and Breakfast. I had the pancakes with an “amazing passion fruit” spread. It was delicious. Passion Fruit is known as Lilikoi here and will often be advertised as such. Brian had an omelet.
I will be back for their stuffed hashbrowns.
As for the rest of the day, Brian took three naps. I took two and fit in a golf lesson at the Marine Corps Base Klipper golf course the Marine Corps Base spouse club organized. It was a crazy week for the both of us. The first lesson was putting. It was really awesome, and I look forward to being able to play a round when my parents visit. The views are supposed to be phenomenal, but I could be un-phased because I’m so used to them by now.
We then went to church and a 10th anniversary/new hale (house warming) party after. The family is a sub family that is also Catholic and I’ve received a lot of help from her for little things during this transition. Her father is a deacon at our church. It was great to meet another sub family there as well, and I look forward to interacting with them more.
This past Sunday Brian and I went to visit Bellows Airforce Station beach. It’s right before you get to Waimanalo (where we picked up our table and went to the farm). Brian and I are completely puzzled why this beach isn’t more popular. It’s only open on the weekends; during the week they use it for training purposes. On the weekends there is no guard checking IDs to the main beach. Ample parking and facilities. The surf is a little higher but nothing more than we’d see at, say, misquamicut. There are lifeguards. Picnic tables and grills.
Looking back at the two islands you see in my sunrise picturesLooking toward Waimanalo
Again, this is a SUNDAY. Where is everyone? Maybe Hawaii’s best kept secret. It’s a good thing these guys are scared of me, because they blend in so well I could barely see him.
I really wanted to go to check out the “market”. I am betting before COVID it was a little more happening, but for now it was 4-5 vendors and two food stations. The chicken meal we got from here was DELICIOUS.
And we got Elote Corn from here, it was good but a bit pricey for the size.
We could see this being a place to organize a BBQ and beach day with some friends. It’s super quiet, plenty of parking and space. We honestly don’t know why more people don’t come here, except maybe the drive?
I made another Brian and Sarah favorite recipe today. Remember the pizza dough I made a while back? It’s good for about a week before it starts to rip and get smelly. So I used the last two on Stromboli. Here’s the recipe I base it off of, but I’ll show you pictures of my process. Start by preheating the oven/grill in this case to 500 ~30 minutes before starting your stromboli prep. Basically, you’re trying to get the Baking steel to absorb heat for a long time so that it’ll retain heat when you add the food (in this case stromboli) and it will maintain the inner temperature of the stove/grill better.
Stretch out dough into an approximate rectangle (I go for 12″ long and wide enough before it starts breaking.)
Add pesto. The recipe calls for mustard, but Brian doesn’t like mustard. Try to find a thicker pesto. Minimizing grease is helpful.
Add meat assortment. I’m a fan of turkey and some sort of salami or sopressata.
Usually I add cheese next, but it’s been a couple months so I added veggies. This can be anything that you’d find in a sandwich that would heat well. So, not like lettuce but any type of onion or maybe even spinach. Here I have peppers and onions (pretty Italian).
Then add cheese. Again, normally I do swiss, but I hadn’t picked any up so went with pepper jack.
Finally, roll up like a cinnamon roll and pinch closed.
Repeat for a second time. The second is because you’ll want leftovers.
Add to the Baking steel.
Cook for a good 10-13 minutes. The bottom will come out nice and crispy. The top will crisp up if in the oven, the recipe calls to broil it the last couple minutes I think. In the grill it didn’t as much, but that’s ok.
This dough is a little old so it split pretty easily. Slice and there you have it!
I like using a curved slicer because it tends not to push ingredients through. I will usually add hot sauce to it and added this Da Kine Hot Mustard Sauce and it was AMAZING. Here’s a Wikipedia article on “Da Kine” language origin and maybe a better one from Atlas Obscura.
I feel like if my dad knew how much I spent on a piece of steel to cook with, he might think I am crazy… but I can’t argue with how delicious the food comes out. I also hear that pizza stones break really easily. The Baking Steel will break anything well before anything breaks it. Definitely one of my favorite kitchen items.
I told myself when I started this blog I wouldn’t make every post perfect or have the most exciting, thrilling post and pictures. So here’s a non-thrilling one I felt compelled to write.
Brian is on duty tonight, which means he is sleeping on the submarine. I joke with him that it’s my night to go out on the town and by that I mean go to the gym, beach and commissary… which I do three nights a week anyway. He is on duty 2x week for the foreseeable future. There is a really huge push to get the engineering side of the boat ready to leave shipyard, so they are all working hard on that and Brian has to pull more of the every day weight. When Brian’s orders changed from being a weps to a nav, he (and many of our submarine friends) said he wouldn’t have a lot of work to do because, well, the boat can’t navigate anywhere in the shipyard. Well, that my friends was fake news. Brian is very busy and working long hours. And when he’s not, he’s tired. It’s taking some getting used to but we’re managing. A lot of people say that at least he comes home regularly, and that is very true.
I took a two hour nap today, I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been waking up really early and not doing the best at sleeping early enough, or if I’m still recovering from COVID. After that, I mustered up the energy to go to the gym at the marine corps base and the commissary.
I get asked a bit about prices here. I get to shop on base, so that automatically makes things a bit cheaper. I am not the best person to ask about this, so the next time I get a receipt I’ll post it and you can be the judge. I spent a really long time and a ton of effort in paying off my student loan debt so that I didn’t have to penny pinch and pay attention to grocery prices. I’ve also lived in metro Boston for the last ten years. That being said, if my yogurt was $20 a tub I’d probably take notice. So today I saw this:
And I’m pretty sure that’s a bit above what I’d pay in MA or CT.
I did the thing where I wrote an essay before the recipe that is basically irrelevant to the recipe, but since this isn’t a recipe blog I think it’s fine. I did some meal prepping tonight and made pizza dough and a salad.
I haven’t made this recipe in forever, like since before dating Brian, and for no good reason at all except that maybe I got sick of it and then forgot about it. It’s very versatile and can be used as a dip/side. I learned about it from my friend Kris’s sister. I do not make claim to this recipe, and if you find it on the internet I am happy to cite it… I haven’t been able to. Also, that’s Pat the Spatula and he makes a great housewarming/Mother’s day gift.
Ingredients for the dressing:
1/3 cup veggie oil
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup sugar (I usually use a lot less, go for your own taste)
Mix in a small sauce pan to start to dissolve the sugar. Bring to boil. Turn off heat and remove from heat.
Ingredients inside (super customizable, I like the balance of sweat and bland/starchy with this set):
Two medium green peppers, chopped
Half a red onion, chopped
White/Yellow canned corn
Garbanzo beans
Black Eyed Peas
Pinto Beans
Combine in a bowl. You should make it a day ahead to let things marinate and allow the dressing to cool. What I love: There’s very minimal prep. It’s got tons of healthy ingredients. It can be a dip or a side by itself. It lasts for ~4 days and tastes better the second day. Can easily double/adjust ingredients, hard to screw up. Most of the ingredients are easily kept in the pantry.
If you make it, please let me know what you think!
Leonard’s is famous in Honolulu for their Malasadas. They are portuguese donuts, basically sugar dough balls that can be stuffed. I did not get an actual picture of the donuts, whoops. I will say they were more filling than donut. The line was long but moved fast. 6/10 on my scale of foodie experiences. I like my donut with a side of filling. They also have a ton of other goodies. I’d compare this experience to going to Mike’s Pastries in the North End, except the cannolis are way more worth it.
The views were pretty incredible and we already booked reservations for sunset for when my family visits in April.
The food was great, drinks were great. 10/10 recommend this place. Some places we’ve visited but don’t have pictures:
Waikiki Brewing 8/10 Decent food, relatively easy to get a table, cocktails available
Maui Brewing 5/10 I had a symptom flare here… I was feeling overwhelmed by their ordering process (walk up to a window and it gets brought to your seat which you have to fine), it was really loud, decently long wait
The signature Prime Steakhouse (top of ala moana hotel) 8/10 Really delicious food but you pay the price, piano music, have to have luck getting a table near the windows, service was great
Beach place that I mentioned previously that’s not worth remembering
We tried to go to Duke’s, which seems famous, but it was a THREE HOUR wait. Pass. Stay tuned for more food adventures.
