Category Archives: Honolulu

Hawaii (and the US-Japan Leadership Program)

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I highly recommend the concept of being in Hawaii in February.  (Yes, that absolutely was an exercise in gloating.)  I was there for an executive committee meeting of the US-Japan Leadership Program, and Jim and I stayed a few extra days afterwards to enjoy paradise (aka Hawaii).  We stayed in Honolulu, as we think the best restaurants and museums on the islands are there.  (Restaurant reviews to follow.)

Our children were offered the option of missing a week of school to join us, but our daughter decided she’d be missing too much school that way and opted not to go.  I am not certain whether to be pleased at the responsibility she demonstrated or appalled at the fact that she turned down a trip to Hawaii.  I’m still pondering that one.  Our son, who would have happily missed a week of school to go to Hawaii, is still rather miffed that he couldn’t go, thanks to his older sister.

The USJLP executive committee meeting went quite well, and I think we have a fabulous group of new delegates for the program.  It should be a lively group in Japan this summer when they meet up.  It was also really wonderful to see everyone on the executive committee again.  They are a great group of people (and have an incredible capacity for beer and sake).

But the really lovely thing about Hawaii is its incredible natural beauty.  (Jim would say that the natural beauty of the Hawaii residents isn’t bad either.)  We hiked Diamondhead in the early morning so that we could see the sunrise up there.  And, of course, there are miles of beautiful beaches and ocean.

This is the view from Diamondhead:

Diamondhead at sunrise

Diamondhead at sunrise

And this is the view from our (upgraded) hotel room:

view from the Halekulani

view from the Halekulani

A big thank you to my parents, who were willing to fly out from southern California (where it’s sunny and warm) to watch the kids while we were gone (where it was neither sunny nor warm).

Alan Wong’s (a double helping)

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In our latest visit to Honolulu, we were greedy enough to eat at Alan Wong’s twice during our trip.  The first meal was very good, but the second meal outdid itself.  At the second dinner, Jim and I ordered the classic tasting menu, which we could do without having the entire table required to order it.  (I understand the serving and pacing issues when only some at a table order the tasting menu, but it’s still a nice thing when a restaurant allows that flexibility.)

So, to summarize the meal, first, you have to start with the festive summer non-alcoholic drinks:

summer "cocktails"

At the first dinner, we tried an organic butter (which was much better tasting than the normal butter) and a lilikoi (passionfruit) shot.

assortment of butterslilikoi shot

For the classic tasting menu, we started off with a “soup and sandwich” consisting of a chilled tomato soup with a grilled cheese-and-kalua-pig sandwich.  It was amazing!  This was followed by an ahi sashimi and avocado salsa stack, which is also an appetizer on the main menu.  Yummy!

soup-and-sandwichahi & avocado stack

Our 13 year old ordered the Crazy Asian appetizer, which consists of Chinese roast duck and pork hash lumpia in a hoisin balsamic vinaigrette.  It doesn’t sound like those ingredients would work together, but they do!

crazy asian

Next on the classic tasting menu was a ginger-crusted snapper served with a miso sesame vinaigrette and a seafood lasagne.

ginger crusted snapperseafood lasgne

Entrees for the kids consisted of a “katsu curry” tilapia and a tenderloin steak (the photo shows only the remains of the steak, as it was consumed too quickly to get a presentation photo):

katsu curry tilapiaremains of the steak

The last non-dessert dish in the classic tasting menu is the twice cooked short rib, soy braised and grilled “kalbi” style:

twice cooked short rib

The classic tasting menu includes a dessert called the “mini coconut”–coconut sorbet served in a chocolate shell with tropical fruits and lilikoi sauce.  The other dessert served at the table was a pineapple shave ice.

mini coconutpineapple shave ice

We left the restaurant both times in a delightful food coma.  We can’t wait to eat there again the next time we go!

Our Hawaii Vacation

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We just returned from a fabulous week in Honolulu where the skies were blue, the ocean  even bluer, and it was 80 degrees every day.  Oahu is our favorite island, mostly because we aren’t sit-on-the-beach kind of people, so there is more to do in Honolulu than anywhere else.  That’s not to say we didn’t sit on the beach and play in the pool a lot because we did.  The kids took surfing lessons every day, and we built sandcastles and spent time in the pool.  (We also did math homework and read from the school reading list, but that’s a topic for another day.)

view from the Halekulanisurfers

sandcastle

In addition to our usual visits to the Bishop Museum and the Honolulu Art Museum (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts), we paid a visit to Pearl Harbor.  Jim and I had been years ago, but this was the kids’ first visit.  The USS Arizona Memorial is moving enough to break your heart.  The tour of the aircraft carrier USS Missouri is amazing, both because of the sheer size of the ship and because of the role the ship played in history.  (Among other things, the deck of the Missouri is the place where the Japanese signed the surrender documents ending World War II.)  And the tour of the World War II submarine, the USS Bowfin, is not for the claustrophobic.

USS Arizona

USS Missouri

I was also fascinated at the number of Japanese tourists wending their way through the Pearl Harbor sites, as if they were visiting just another tourist spot.  But, perhaps, they were learning things they didn’t know, just as Americans do when visiting Hiroshima.  (It was still weird, however.)

We also ate our way through our vacation, dining at our favorite restaurant, Alan Wong’s, twice (more about the meals in a later blog post) and at our second favorite restaurant, Roy’s, twice as well.  This is in addition to the meals of ramen, sushi, and kimchee fried rice that we consumed.  (And let’s not forget the shave ice.)

If you’re interested in travel tips to Hawaii, you can mouse over the Travel section of my website and click on Hawaii for my Hawaii travel tome.

Christmas in Hawaii

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We spent Christmas in Hawaii this year as a more pleasant alternative to being the mole family.  And it was so much fun that we are seriously considering making this an annual tradition.  It was 80 degrees every day with occasional rain (but who cares about 10 minutes of rain when it’s 80 degrees outside?).  And there were rainbows, and often double rainbows almost every day as a result of the rain.

double rainbow in Oahu

The kids took surfing lessons every day and loved it–they definitely have turned into a surfer dude and dudette.  We saw several sea turtles as we swam in the ocean.  They are enormous and still manage to move effortlessly and surprisingly gracefully through the water.

Other highlights include the Honolulu Zoo and the Honolulu Aquarium, a special exhibit on ancient Chinese landscape paintings at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Bishop Museum, and the Polynesian Cultural Center.  Oh, and building sandcastles, of course.

sandcastle

Food highlights include dinners at Alan Wong’s (see earlier entry), Sushi Sasabune, Kaneke’s Plate Lunches, and shave ice.

In spite of the fact that you are dealing with airlines and inexperienced travelers when traveling over the holidays (and I always think checking baggage is like playing Russian roulette), going the week before Christmas has its advantages.  The plane fares are cheaper, and the crowds are significantly smaller than after Christmas.  And it’s especially nice to enjoy the holidays with such a friendly and warm culture.  The Hawaiians are happy people, and you can see why, given the weather and the scenery.  Not to mention that Christmas breakfast eaten with a view of the Pacific Ocean and Diamondhead is about as close to Heaven as you can get.

view from Halekulani

I also especially like the multi-racial aspect of Hawaii.  Just about everyone is a blend of various Asian and Polynesian cultures with European and African ethnicities thrown in for some variation.  It is so lovely to be in a place where our kids are boringly biracial.  And the McDonald’s in Hawaii serves saimin, a kind of ramen.  How much better can it get?

Alan Wong’s in Honolulu

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I’ll be describing our lovely Christmas in Hawaii later, once I get some photos uploaded.  But I did want to talk about one of the best meals we had while we were there, at Alan Wong’s.  He does a lovely East-West Hawaii-style cuisine, and it was one of the best meals we’ve ever had.  Thanks to the app, Evernote Food, there are some nice photos of some of our dishes:

To the left is an appetizer called “Poki-Pines”–a riff off both the animal (porcupine) and the traditional Hawaiian dish, poke, made up of raw tuna and spices.  To the right is an appetizer called Korean “chicken salad” made of cubes of chicken done Asian style (with skin and cut directly off the bone) accompanied by kimchee.

Poki-PinesKorean "chicken salad"

For the main dishes, to the left is “tilapia jun,” done in the traditional Korean style with egg batter, to the right is short ribs with gingered shrimp, and at the bottom is steamed shrimp and clams with penne in a chili black bean sauce.

tilapia junshort ribs with gingered shrimpPenne with shrimp & clams in black bean sauce

We ordered dessert as well, but I have no beautiful photos of the desserts because we ate them before I remembered to take pictures!  Every dish was delicious, but my personal favorites were the poki-pines and the penne.  Reasonable minds can differ, however.