Offbeat Eats

Our last day in Hawaii was a very long Saturday spent touring coffee plantations, doing some light hiking, checking out the old Kona airport and the Kona Brewery, and finding a last relaxing dinner before heading off to the airport for a 10:30pm flight. Earlier in the trip, we had passed Jackie Rey’s Ohana Grill on the Kuakini Highway just outside of Kailua-Kona, and it looked like a great place to have a nice, relaxing dinner before watching the sun set.

On our second to last day on the Big Island, we got up early and drove out to Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park to see Kilaulea and hike along the shore. The road back to Kailua-Kona from Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park is a long drive (it’s over 90 miles, putting the ‘Big’ into ‘Big Island’), and we wanted to make sure we didn’t miss dinner. There’s actually not that many places to stop along the route, but the mainstay of local Hawaiian Cuisine was there for us: a location of L&L Hawaiian Barbecue in Ocean View.

(Closed) While my Death March trip to Cleveland mostly involved revisiting (and taking friends to) old favorite hangouts, we did get to explore a bit. And we discovered a few little hidden gems. Like just two blocks away from Cleveland’s Public Square, tucked in just behind a parking garage around the corner from Quicken Loans Arena, there’s a small bar with some not-too-obvious signage: 2nd & High (which is also it’s location). But behind the subtle signage on a quiet back alley that many have probably walked right by, lies a bit of a secret: a surprisingly good Poke Bar.

(Closed) For our last meal in Hawaii, we decided to check out Alan Wong’s The Pineapple Room. Alan Wong is one of of several Hawaiian Chefs (along with Sam Choy, Roy Yamaguchi, Peter Merriman, and Bev Gannon, amongst others) that have worked for the last few decades to establish “Hawaiian” as a proper cuisine type. For all my discussion of local Hawaiian food, such as the Loco Moco, the Spam Musubi, and the Plate Lunch, there’s also a lot going on in Hawaiian cuisine in the fine dining sector. One of the places that’s often recommended is Alan Wong’s restaurant, called simply “Alan Wong’s Restaurant”, but our itinerary didn’t have the time, and we didn’t have the stomach space, to visit there. But Alan Wong also runs a lesser known restaurant, The Pineapple Room, which is nicely hidden away inside Ala Moana Mall. Specifically, inside the Women’s department in the Macy’s. It’s also fairly easy to get reservations there, and you also have a pretty good chance of getting a walk-in seat. So on our way to the airport (after a pleasant hike up to Koko Crater), we stopped at Ala Moana for some light shopping and one last meal.

On our way up to our rental condo on the North Shore, every time we were leaving Kaneohe and heading north on the Kamehameha highway, we ran into two places that triggered my “Offbeat Eats” sense. One is an older place on the West side of the road called the Hygienic Store, which is basically a convenience store (the name comes from it’s former life as the “Hygienic Dairy”). We never made it in there, so we’ll have to save it for another trip. But across the street is some sort of abandoned business, but out in the parking lot are two food trucks that make up Mike’s Huli Huli Chicken. There was something cool about the hand-scrawled sign for chicken that make me interested, and when my friend Mark in Kaneohe mentioned that they were actually really, really good, we decided to follow up on it.