We're back!

Did you miss me? We had an AMAZING time on vacation - it was simply incredible. Unfortunately, the only part of our trip that wasn't amazing was the food. I'm here to report the good, the bad, and the really ugly food adventures we had while on vacation.

Get yourself ready for a long post... Ready?

We started our vacation in Hawaii; Kauai, to be specific. The food on the island was pretty hit-and-miss. The hotel food (Marriott) was downright terrible; definitely avoid it if possible. The rest of the food was mediocre, with a few standouts here and there.

Breakfast was eaten in our hotel room every morning (we went right from the airport to a grocery store to stock up) and included English Muffins with cream cheese and a variety of fruits.

Our first night on the island we picked up these delicious malazadas (Portuguese donuts. Two were cream-filled and two were just dipped in sugar. Serious yum!We also grabbed a few (cooked) sushi meals from the deli section in the local grocery store to take back to our hotel room. We were so hungry that I forgot to take a picture of the food! It was actually really good though, I was pleasantly surprised.

Sunday we spent mostly lounging at the hotel, but there was a fairly decent hamburger place within walking distance called Kalapaki Beach Hut. This place was alright, but not super-amazing. I had the aloha burger, which had pineapple on it; The Husband had a bacon cheeseburger. You pay extra for grass-fed beef and an organic bun. Service was very slow; you just wait outside until your order is called - we waited at least 20 minutes.

We had our worst meal of the vacation on our 2nd night at the hotel. We ate at Kukui's, which is located right next to the enormous pool at the Marriott. Unfortunately, it was one of our most expensive meals too, which makes the food being awful even worse. The only good thing about this meal was my Pina Colada, which was quite good, and the free bread basket which is hard to screw up. I had the French Dip, which was flavorless. The Husband had the "Hawaiian Luau Mix Plate" which included kalua pork, chicken, lomi salmon and coconut-glazed sweet potato. It was a huge amount of food, and downright terrible. The pork was overcooked and dry, the chicken was rubbery, the salmon was too fishy and the sweet potato too mushy. It was honestly disgusting. We ate it because we were hungry and the other restaurants all had waiting lines, but we were not impressed.

The next day was the 4th of July, and we took a shuttle bus to the local stadium where lots of people were milling about, eating and waiting for the fireworks show. We enjoyed a teriyaki lunch plate, and also tried a Waffle Dog (hot dog in waffle batter). The food was good, although a little pricey but that's standard for the island. The fireworks show was fantastic, I was very impressed. I'm not sure it was worth $15 a person to just get in to the stadium to see the show, but it was fun nonetheless.

We spent Tuesday wandering Waimea Canyon, and just ate a few snack bars in the morning to tide us over till lunch. We were starving by the time we made it to Pacific Pizza & Deli. I think we ordered a regular supreme pizza, and it was enormous! We got the large and probably should have gotten a small - we took half the pizza home and had leftovers. The Husband really liked the pizza, I thought it was just OK. The sausage tasted strange to me; I didn't like the way it was seasoned. We somehow managed to find room to split a Shave Ice (from Jo-Jos Shave Ice) right down the street from the pizza place. We tried the Colada Special, and it was tasty but honestly I don't think I'm a big Shave Ice fan. Give me regular ice cream over this stuff any day! A note about the service at this place - don't go here if you're in a hurry. They were ridiculously slow, and a little rude. I don't think the employees enjoy working here very much, and it's super hot inside where you have to order.

The next day we explored the southern part of the island, where we enjoyed a non-traditional hot dog from Puka-Dog. Basically, they take a bun that isn't cut and hollow out the inside of it. Then they put in your favorite relish (coconut for me, mango for the husband) with some special sauce, then insert a Polish sausage. This was delicious, and messy, and was the first meal I actually loved on the island. A must-try if you go to Kauai, in my opinion!

We went on a short coastal hike after the Puka Dog and wandered thru a Farmer's Market (which will be in another post), then hit Roy's for dinner. Roy's is a chain restaurant, but it's really good. It's expensive, but I think the food is worth every penny. Instead of the standard bread basket to start the meal, Roy's gives you seasoned edamame beans, which is a nice change. The only part of our meal that we didn't love were the drinks - I had a strange Cucumber drink (I can't remember what was in it beside the chunks of cucumber), and The Husband's drink was very weak. For dinner I had the ono, which is one of my favorite types of fish, and The Husband had ono and monchong. The monchong was the hands-down winner for the night, although the ono was quite good too. We finished the meal with their signature dessert - Chocolate Melting Cake. The dessert takes awhile to make, so they take your order while you're in the middle of dinner. It was delicious, and so rich that you can easily share this between two or three people.

The next day we explored the eastern part of the island (which is where we were staying so it was a fairly short exploration day - we had a big pool to get back to :). We had run out of breakfast food in our room, so we had brunch at Kountry Kitchen. I had the Macadamia Nut Pancakes, and The Husband had an omelet. Both were great, and we would eat here again. Service was a little slow, but they were friendly enough. The brunch was so large that we weren't hungry until late in the evening; we decided to grab a quick bite at Kauai Pasta. We split a salad, and also split their Pesto Pasta. Both were excellent, and we agreed we would have eaten there again on this vacation if we hadn't been trying to eat somewhere new every meal.

Our last exploration day was spent on the north coast. We had lunch at Neide's, a mexican restaurant where I had the fish tacos and Hubs had a fish enchilada.

He also enjoyed a beer, which unfortunately was the best part of the meal. My tacos were dry, no dressing at all. I had to ask for salsa, just to add a little liquid to my meal. The view was great though (a waterfall off in the distance), but between the super slow service and lackluster food, this place is a miss.

Dinner that night was at Hamura Saimin, which is a noodle soup dish unique to Hawaii. This place was SUPER busy when we got there; it took us 20 minutes just to get to the front of the line to order, and another 20 minutes to get our food, which we took to-go. We split an order of the Saimin and got a few sticks of chicken as well. This was DELICIOUS. It's like pho, but tastier. Definitely try this place, just make sure you bring your patience!

The next night was our last night on the island, and we celebrated by going to Duke's, which was right down the street from our hotel. It's a chain restaurant but the food is pretty good, and I wanted a guaranteed tasty last meal on the island. The food met our expectations, and the atmosphere is fun. I had a drink served in a pineapple (a bit of a spectacle but super fun), and you get to enjoy their salad bar with every entree. I had the prime rib and Hubs had the opa (we actually split the dinner so we each had some of the fish and prime rib), and treated ourselves to the hula pie for dessert.

That's it! If you managed to read this whole post I'm quite impressed. :) I enjoyed Kauai, and you'll probably see a couple more posts on here with sight-seeing pictures from our trip. Yes, this is a food blog, but the scenery was just so gorgeous it's a shame not to share it with all of you!

The next post will include pictures from the Farmer's Market we wandered through, stay tuned!