Yay to a successful first day in Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii!! Carol, Sally, Sara and I traveled for Marian’s bachelorette party early this morning from LAX. This was also my first time to Hawaii also! I was excited to finally visit Hawaii, but it didn’t really hit me until I was boarding the airplane. It was a 6 hour flight and I was stuck in the middle seat between two deep sleeping men on either side who wouldn’t wake up to a light poke so that I could use the bathroom. It was awful! 🙁
But after we landed and picked up our rental car, everything quickly went into a high note because we ate at the best place we could have eaten today thus far. Our first stop was the most popular local place for poke called Alicia’s Market. It was a very, very, very tiny market that could only squeeze about 3-4 people standing closely to order poke bowls and leave for take-out.
Nevertheless, the service was very good and friendly and the food was AMAZING!
Here is 4 of our 5 poke bowls. We all got wasabi masago ahi as one of our proteins and picked a different one. There were a great variety that including tako, which was octopus.
My poke bowl was wasabi masago ahi and spicy salmon. This poke bowl was REALLY GOOD. Back in LA, I personally don’t like poke because 1) the proteins aren’t marinated that well, 2) the way they mix other toppings together. I liked these because it is simply fish on hot rice. The tuna and salmon were very fresh and large. I really loved the spicy salmon!!! It was my favorite. I like the sauce it was soaked in that also was absorbed by the white rice.
We ate this at Sand Island Beach Park, which was a short drive away.
Our next stop was completely random. We saw Liliha Bakery on the way to a supermarket and decided to drop in to lkkk for mochi donuts.
There is an endless amount of cream puffs.
And they’re known for their butter rolls.
We decided to try 2 coco cream puffs (which is supposed to be world famous), 1 chocolate cream puff, 1 matcha green tea puff, and 1 regular cream puff.
The puffs were disappointing. The bread tasted stale and old. The filling wasn’t significant.
The butter roll was also not memorable.
When we finally got to the Airbnb, we started to decorate the place! Thank you to our bride, Marian, to get us such cute sun hats!! All with a different cute phrase each. We also got canvas back packs for the hikes and outdoor adventures.
After resting and getting ready, we headed out with the goal to be at Duke’s for their alcoholic cocktails and calamari – Marian was insistent on showing us it.
Duke’s is the #2 most rated restaurant in all of Hawaii. It is located right in front to the beach front so you can eat and drink while enjoying the sounds of the waves and wait for the sunset.
I got the Lava Flow. Rum blended with pineapple juice and coconut with a strawberry eruption. This was such a delicious drink! It was like the perfect strawberry blend. There was no taste to the alcohol at all!
Cheers to the bride-to-be!
Panko fried calamari with wasabi-guava cocktail sauce. The calamari was very crispy and served hot. The ketchup was decorated fancy and had a hint of wasabi in it.
After our little calamari appetizer, we walked 0.2 miles over to line up for Marukame Udon. At first I thought this was a knock off of Marugame Monzo in our Little Tokyo, but I was so wrong!!! This was completely different!! They specialize in simple hot and cold udon.
It has over 9,000 reviews on Yelp with a rating of 4.5 stars total! The line was long but I was told it was always long. But it moves fast! People eat fast and leave fast!
They hand make their udon dough from scratch.
You line up like cafeteria style to order. They serve for you with all your bowls lined up ready to go as you walk up.
This is my bowl 🙂
Then there is a tempura bar!!! It is all fresh tempura of all kinds! All of the tempura were freshly fried, hot and light! Not oily at all!
Some onigiri which I did not get.
So I finally settled for the Nikutama Udon with egg and Japanese beef toppings. I also got a side of calamari tempura. The udon noodles were very soft, smooth and chewy. The broth was like a lightly sweet warm broth. The egg was perfectly poached. The beef with onions was tender, savory yet sweet. The calamari tempura was perfect!
There is even a topping of tempura scraps for texture!!!
After you get your side of tempura, the next stop is the cashier. You pay and pick up your tray of food and find a seat yourself to sit. There isn’t a lot. It is like a small cafeteria but the place was designed to be a quick sit down and eat so it’s never hard to find a table. People eat fast and leave fast; that’s why the line is always moving!
Last stop: dessert. Even when we were all so full!!! How can all of us say no to dessert when there are so many places to try. We went to a famous matcha place called Matcha Stand MAIKO.
And got the.. Matcha Shaved Ice with red bean, mochi, matcha soft serve and chest nut. The matcha soft serve was extreme dense with matcha flavor – more matcha and less milky, but the texture is still silky smooth. The shaved ice impressed me! It was packed with matcha flavor! It was like eating a matcha shaved ice that never got diluted.
The other toppings were mediocre. Nothing too crazy. This place also has Hojicha, which I want to try next time.
Afterwards, we walked back home. We were blessed to have chosen a very good location! It was city and shopping centre and everything was literally a few blocks from each other. 🙂
What a successful first day of eating! We ate so much in just half a day. I can’t wait for the rest of the days to come! Tomorrow’s agenda includes starting the morning off with Kona coffee, spam midi is, hiking, Ono’s, maybe loco moco’s and the booze cruise! 😉
