Island Eats

What is the first thing you do when you find yourself on an island? Find food!!

Or was it seek water and shelter?

Anyways, in this case it was find food.

Now, it is no mystery that buying food in Hawaii is SUPER expensive. Thankfully, we got a tip from a couple of Danny’s co-workers that Costco is the way to go, as prices are pretty much the same no matter where you go. Thank you Lord! So the first thing we did on our hunt for food was hit up Costco for some groceries, as well as some cheap and delicious hot dogs and pizza slices. You just can’t go wrong with Costco lunch. It was fun to see all of the different products they had in the Honolulu Costco that you would never find in Arizona. Most notable of these, was the massive quantities of Spam. Pallets and pallets of Spam.

Though we try to cook our own meals at home most of the time, we definitely wanted to do some dining out when we got here!

One of the more familiar restaurants we went to one night, was The Cheesecake Factory right by Waikiki beach. Though the food was familiar (and scrumptious), the building itself stayed true to that island feel. The restaurant was mostly outside with lots of patio seating and big wide open doors that connected the inside guests to the outside ambience. There was island greenery and lit fiery torches everywhere, and they even had live entertainment that night. You know when a dude playing a Ukulele starts singing “No Diggity” followed by “Part of Your World” from the Little Mermaid, that it’s gonna be a good night. Yo, he was SO GOOD! We became mad fans of this guy.

Of course we couldn’t just only eat at places we were already familiar with!

For lunch one day we went on a search for a classic Hawaiian plate lunch. A plate lunch usually consists of two scoops of white rice, macaroni or potato salad, and an entrée of some sort like chicken or fish. After some wandering and some googling, we found this neat little place called Sam’s, tucked away not too far from us. It was almost like an alleyway turned urban outdoor patio. They had awesome homemade pineapple tea, called “Plantation Tea”, and those plate lunches? Shoot, we could eat them every day! Danny got the garlic shrimp and I went with teriyaki chicken. So yummy!

Speaking of chicken, there are chickens everywhere here. They are so cute, and I take pictures of them all, and I call all of them Hei Hei (from Disney’s Moana). This is one of my favorite things here so far.

If there was one place on my Hawaii bucket list, it was Leonard’s Bakery. When it comes to breakfast foods, filled pastries are my jam! (Puns are also my jam). Leonard’s Bakery has these amazing confections called Malasadas, which are basically Portuguese donuts without holes. We tried a plain custard filled one, a “Haupia” or coconut filled one, a Macadamia filled one, and an original non-filled one. They were all. So. Good. Our favorite was the custard filled one, though we look forward to trying the “Dobash” or chocolate filled one next time!

Writing this is making me want one right now…

Just like a good meal, what better way to finish off a post than with some coffee? One night we found ourselves checking out the Ala Moana shopping center, a huge outdoor shopping mall, when we came across Honolulu Coffee Co. Danny, being the coffee connoisseur that he is, had to make sure he got some locally grown Hawaiian coffee. He almost got a cold brew as it’s his personal favorite, but upon hearing the cold brew coffee wasn’t local, he went for a Macadamia Nut Latte with locally sourced coffee instead. If you know Danny, you know he usually prefers his coffee black, so this was definitely an out of the norm choice for him, but he said it was delicious and well worth it. It even came with some foam art!