Eating in Hawaii

I love sushi. A delicious piece of fish, eel, octopus, whatever--I'm not choosey--wrapped in a thin layer of seaweed, surrounded by a bed of rice, then dipped in soy with a touch of wasabi. It is the perfect bite of food. Betsy claims to like sushi, but she only eats California rolls. Sorry, Betsy, but imitation crab meat, cucumber, and avocado does not equal sushi. You, and Wikipedia, may claim differently, but I'm pretty sure I'm right about this one.

Hawaii has some great sushi. I can't really call myself a sushi connoisseur since I've never been to Japan or had sushi outside of Hawaii, Florida, and California, but Hawaii is where I first tasted and fell in love with it.  I wish I could say that I ate at awesome, local, hole-in-the-wall sushi bars the whole time I was in Hawaii. The truth is a whole lot more disappointing.

Here I am at Ruby Tuesdays on the southwest side of Oahu:

Almost as bad as going to Italy and only eating at McDonald's

We also went to an Outback Steakhouse in Waikiki and a Macaroni Grill located inside a large mall:

Bought a can of Pam when we arrived and used it the whole time to oil my plunger

I played it safe the whole time we were there. It's hard for us to bring a Vitamix into a restaurant and describe how I eat through a tube and explain how to blend up my meals. If I go into a great sushi place where everyone speaks Japanese, I feel like there's a communication barrier. Eventually I need to get over my own trepidation if I'm going to travel to China with Grace in a few years.

I did go to one restaurant in a hotel that caters to Japanese tourists. When I met Jesse Jones at his apartment in Honolulu, he took us out to the Miyako Japanese restaurant at the New Otani Kaimana Beach Hotel.

Look, I'm giving the Shaka sign and that means I'm Hawaiian

The hotel caters to Japanese tourists so I stuck out there like, uh, a white guy in Tokyo (I suck at metaphors). I had a grass-fed burger (without the bun) and fries, but they refused to bring the blender into their kitchen. Instead, Jesse and I plugged it up in the dining area and blended my meal. I can't say I blame them for not blending the meal in the kitchen. I can see how some restaurants might be afraid that if the blender broke, I could hold them liable for the damages. This couldn't be further from the truth though. Vitamix has an excellent warranty and they'd replace the blender no matter how it broke. Plus, I am so thankful to every establishment that has blended my meal and allowed me to dine out with my family. The last thing on my mind is suing them for even making the attempt. This is why I always give big tips in the hope that these restaurants will remember me in a positive light and be more open to blending tubie meals in the future. All this was kinda hard to explain to the Japanese waiters at Miyako though.

So besides eating at Americana restaurants like Ruby Tuesdays, we ate on base or in our hotel restaurants a lot. The first couple nights we stayed at Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps Base. We went and ate at the golf course. The golf course diner on base isn't really a sit-down restaurant; more of a café. You just order your food at the counter and sit down anyplace. So, we set up the blender off to the side and I ordered a big salad (the salad was actually a little too big so they only put half in my blender).

The blender turned a few heads when it was on 'High'

I only brought four shirts so you might see the same one in these pictures

Since we spent quite a lot of time at the Air Force Base terminal waiting for flights, we ate several times at Sam Choy's Seafood Grille at the Hickam golf course. The restaurant has an amazing view of the runway so we could watch both civilian and military planes fly in and out (my favorite was the F-22s). We got the same waitress, Kaitlyn, every time we ate there and she gave us fantastic service.

Can't quite remember what I ate; think it was the ahi tuna

Another time there:

For this meal, I just had a Mai Tai

We ate at Sam Choy's right before we went to the airport to fly home and someone who wanted to remain anonymous paid for our meals. It was the perfect end to our vacation.

We visited the USS Missouri Battleship and USS Bowfin Submarine in Pearl Harbor the last few days we were there. There is a restaurant right next to the bridge over to Ford Island with great views of the harbor called Schooner, so we had lunch there. I had another burger (no bun) and fries:

As usual, the restaurant had no problem blending up my meal

We had to go to the Navy Exchange while we were in Hawaii. Base Exchanges (BX) are like large department stores on base where you can get a lot of cheap stuff tax free. The store at Pearl Harbor is the biggest BX I've ever been to. Two stories with a large food court, barber shop, salon, grocery store, and every product you could think of. We had lunch at the food court, which meant finding an outlet in the dining area:

There were actually a lot of people there, just not near the blender

Beef and broccoli from the Chinese fast-food place

Grace is getting better at taking pictures

I ate in my hotel room a few times. Here I am in our room on Schofield Barracks Army base in the middle of the island.

You know we're desperate for a room when we have to stay on an Army base (no offense)

Sometimes, if there was nowhere else to eat, I had to improvise, like when I ate outside a small coffee shop at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard:

These pictures don't show them, but there were birds around our tables EVERYWHERE

It was much easier when I had my own kitchen. We were in a small condominium on the North Shore next to Turtle Bay a few nights so we could get some groceries and cook a few meals in our room:

Had to get the Haleiwa picture in the background

There was also a nice restaurant within walking distance of our condo on the north shore called

Lei Lei's Bar and Grill. It was right on their beautiful golf course and we got great service. The cook said he used to work at a hospital and he knew exactly what I needed.

We forced Grace to wear a flower in her hair the whole vacation

The hotel we stayed at the most in Hawaii was the Hale Koa, which is a hotel right on Waikiki Beach that caters exclusively to the military. It's pretty amazing we were able to stay there five nights because we were never able to get reservations. We just begged them for a room every day at check-out time. We usually got to stay in the same room too. I had breakfast quite a few times at their buffet (at Bibas). I just put all my food in the blender (they had a good omelet bar) and they let me plug up my blender at the bar since it was closed in the mornings:

Should've just left the blender there all day

Pretty sure I've worn that shirt before (Bad B.O.)

We also had dinner at the Hale Koa one night

And I made use of their bar for Mai Tais in the evening

While we were in Waikiki, we went out to Gordon Biersch Brewery at Aloha Tower. This is one of the places my sister took me when she lived on the North Shore and I used to visit. They have some awesome garlic fries there that you do not want to eat on a first date because they add a TON of garlic.

Grace photo-bombed me

We also went down the beach a little way to the Sheraton and ate at RumFire. A friend of mine who lived in Hawaii a few years loved this restaurant and highly recommended it to us. It had an awesome view of all the surfers with Diamondhead in the background.

There are no windows at most of these places because it's Hawaii and who needs windows?

One of the items on our list of things we had to do was taking Grace to the Polynesian Cultural Center. It's one of the most visited attractions on Oahu. Most of the staff there attend BYU's Hawaii campus next door and come from the islands showcased at the Center (New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, Hawaii, Tahiti, Tonga, Marquesas, and Rapa Nui). Grace loved learning about all the different cultures. Her favorite part was the coconut demonstration in Samoa because the Samoan presenter was hilarious.

For dinner, we were treated to a luau. They roasted a whole pig for hours, wrapped in banana leaves. We got to watch them unwrap the pig and after seeing the poor animal, Grace declared that she wanted to become a vegetarian "as long as she can still eat bacon."

We talked to the staff before I went to make sure I could bring my blender. They let me keep it in their kitchen while we walked around the park. At dinner, they were happy to blend up my meal after I filled the pitcher with the yummy food at the buffet-style luau.

She had a whole lot of that pig, the little hypocrite

I'd eaten at the Polynesian Cultural Center years before and I remember that my favorite part was the purple, Taro dinner rolls. I probably had 3 or 4 of them the last time I was here but I was unable to enjoy them this visit because they have gluten. So, Grace took the opportunity to rub it in my face:

"You're right, daddy, this is the best thing I've ever eaten in my life!"

Fantastic vacation!!! I'm sitting here in the muggy, Tennessee air right now already missing Hawaii and looking forward to going back (preferably not when there is a hurricane anywhere nearby). If/when we go back, we'll try to rent a cheap place off VRBO.com that has a kitchen so we don't have to spend so much money going out to eat!