Road Tips

Cuatro - Kihei, HI

I really wish I could remember the name of our favorite valet at the Grand Wailea.  He really gave us some great tips on places to eat during our stay on Maui.  One place that he told us about early during our visit was a place in Kihei called Cuatro.  He categorized it as a "boutique restaurant" with a fusion of Pacific, Latin and Mediterranean cuisines.  He told us, "I think it's the best place to eat in the area.  And there are some pretty good places to eat around here."  On our last full night on Maui and in Hawaii, we took him up on his recommendation and had dinner at Cuatro.

Cuatro has been in business less than two years.  The owner/chef of the restaurant is Eric Arbogast (left), who is a veteran of many Maui restaurants.  The last place he worked at was at the Sansei on Maui, which just happens to be next door in the Kihei Town Center shopping complex (see map).  With the help of Sansei's owner, Dave "D.K." Kodama, Arbogast opened his restaurant in late 2008.  In 2009, it was voted "Best New Restaurant" by readers of the Maui News. 

We were told by our valet friend at the Grand Wailea that we really needed reservations to Cuatro as it was a tiny place that sat less than 40 people total.  I called the restaurant the afternoon before we ate there and requested a table for two around 7:30.  The man on the end of the phone said, "I can do 7 p.m., but may have trouble at 7:30."  I told him 7:00 p.m. would be fine. 

We were actually a little early for our reservation, but the manager, Brad, seated us at a table in the corner of the cozy little restaurant.  We were given menus and told that our waiter would be with us shortly.  Our waiter, a 50-something man by the name of George, stopped by to greet us and to let us know he'd be with us shortly.  There was something strangely familiar about George.  It was like I had known him at some point in my life, he looked so familiar. 

George came back with a sampling of something Eric Arbogast had come up with in the kitchen, homemade won ton chips with a spicy mango salsa.  It was very good, a pleasant surprise to start our meal at Cuatro.

The name Cuatro comes from the term Puerto Ricans call a four-string guitar, similar to an ukulele.  In the 1800's, a number of Puerto Ricans emigrated to Hawaii and Cuatro pays homage to the Puerto Rican heritage that is found throughout the Hawaiian Islands.  

George told us about the food at Cuatro - it features a strong Southwestern and Mexican influence, blending bits of Asia, the Mediterranean and Hawaiian cuisines within.   He said, "A lot of people thought our chef was nuts when he blended all these cuisines together, but I think you'll find that he does a pretty good job of pulling it off."  

George heartily recommended one of Cuatro's number of interesting appetizers.  The spicy tuna nachos had already caught my eye.   He said, "The won ton chips that I brought out to you earlier?  We take those same chips and add spicy sushi-grade tuna and then we drizzle some aioli truffle sauce, Latin cilantro and an avacado relish on top."  I told him it sounded great.  "It is," he replied in a matter of fact way.  We signed up for one of those.  

We were looking through the very small wine list at Cuatro.  George said that up until about a year ago, it was a "Bring-Your-Own-Bottle" place.  "We don't have much room here for much of a wine selection.  So the ones we have on our limited menu are top-notch."  I ended up ordering a Kris Pinot Grigio out of Italy that turned out to be a great compliment to our meal that evening.    

While we waited on our appetizer, we looked through the menu and our mouth watered at all the selections.  Their feature item is a fresh "catch-of-the-day" and you have your choice of preparation - 1) House style (blackened with Mexican spices topped with a beurre blanc - French for "white butter" - sauce and salsa verde, served with fresh veggies, rice pilaf with an avacado pico de gallo.)  2) Maui-terranean style (grilled fish topped with a basil infused beurre blanc sauce and a balsamic syrup, served with garlic mashed potatoes and a tomato-caper relish.)  3) Roasted style (fish roasted with chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic, and peppers, served with a basmati pilaf with fresh veggies.)  And 4) Classic style (sauteed with rock shrimp in a lemon caper butter sauce, served with white truffled mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus.)  Each way sounded delicious.

Cuatro also featured a teriyaki marinated steak, a Mexican-style marinated pork entree and roasted chicken breast stuffed with green chiles, ham and pepper jack cheese.  Oh, man!  I could have ordered anything prepared any way on the menu and been overly happy.  It all sounded so good and so interesting.  

Our spicy tuna nachos came out and they were everything George promised they would be.  The spicy tuna was fresh and wonderful, the won ton chips were light and crispy, just like the ones we had gotten as a welcoming gesture from George, and the cilantro pesto and avacado relish for dipping was just outstanding.  I could have easily ordered up a couple more of those, the spicy tuna nachos were so good.  And the sauces that we either dipped or put on top of the won ton chips and spicy tuna were outstanding, as well.  I couldn't decide with sauce I liked the best. 

George let us know that they had two fresh caught fish featured that evening - mahi mahi and ahi tuna.  I normally don't eat chicken when we go out to a restaurant, but I really was intrigued by the stuffed chicken breast.  But I then realized that I could probably make something like that at home.  And when would I be back in Hawaii to have such fresh fish?   I decided to get the ahi tuna - house style.  Cindy didn't hesitate when he told us the fish selections - she got the mahi mahi, roasted with the veggies and served with the basmati.  

Cuatro was very busy and packed.  Brad, the manager, greeted a number of people who were obviously regulars to the place.  It had a nice, homey feel to the place.  The lighting was subdued, but bright enough so you could easily read the menu and get a gander at your meal.  Other than the view of the parking lot of the strip mall, the restaurant was a great little place.  

George brought out our main entrees and we dug in.  The ahi tuna was cooked exactly as I like - seared with a lot pink inside.  Large cilantro leaves garnished the top of the fish.  The blackened Mexican spices gave the fish a mighty kick on the taste buds, but not over-powering so you couldn't enjoy the taste.   Putting a little of the avacado pico de gallo on the fish helped tame the spiciness.   It was actually pretty good.  The beurre blanc sauce gave the ahi tuna a nice finish, as well.  I had an adequate helping of steamed green beans and healthy amount of rice on the plate.  I was much more interested in the fish.  

     
Cindy's mahi mahi (above at right) was - in her words - "out of this world."  The combination of the tomatoes, onions, garlic and roasted peppers helped enhance the taste of the fish.  She also got a nice garnish of cilantro on top.  She was overly happy with what she got.

As we finished up the meal, George came out with a dessert menu.  Actually, we were pretty stuffed but he described this dessert where they take vanilla ice cream, top it with crushed macadamia nuts, then drizzled with a butterscotch topping, then they finalize it off by putting fresh raspberries, blackberries and blueberries with sliced bananas on top of all that.  Cindy gave me that look of "C'mon!  Let's try that!"   Cindy finally said, "We'll take that with two spoons."

I'm glad she ordered it because it was wonderful.  I'm a sucker for anything with butterscotch  on it.  I developed a taste and a strong liking of macadamia nuts while in Hawaii.  And blueberries with ice cream is one of my all-time guilty pleasures.    I don't care for bananas, so I let Cindy eat the banana slices.  But the rest of it was outstanding.  A wonderful end to a wonderful meal.

George, our waiter, spent some time with us as we were getting ready to leave.  I told him that he looked so familiar and I tried to tie us together at some point in our lives.  He lived in San Diego for years before moving his family out to Hawaii about 14 years ago.  I asked him if he had ever been in the audio business, if he'd ever done this or that, but nothing was coming up.  He said, "I guess I'm one of those unique characters where people think they know me from somewhere, but they really don't."  His overall service and table demeanor were both excellent.  He got a handsome tip from us. 

The next afternoon as we were leaving the hotel, our favorite valet happened to be out front.  I walked up to him and handed him a $10 dollar bill and thanked him for all his great suggestions for restaurants while we were there.  I told him that we had made it to Cuatro the night before.  "How did you like it," he asked. 

I told him, "We've eaten at a lot of great restaurants on our trip to Hawaii.  But Cuatro may have been the best of them all."

He said, "I'm glad you enjoyed it."

I shook his hand, wished him good luck and told him we hoped to see him again.  We got in the car and drove away.

And with that, our trip to Hawaii came to an all too rapid end.

Aloha...

 

Cafe O'Lei - Kihei, HI

On the suggestion from one of the concierge's at the Grand Wailea, we tried out a Kihei restaurant popular with the locals and tourists called Cafe O'Lei.  It sort of sounded like it could be a mix between a Hawaiian and Mexican restaurant - sort of like Tako Taco on the Big Island.  But it turned out to be a nice contemporary steak and seafood restaurant that had some creative ideas for their food.  We decided to have dinner there one evening.

Cafe O'Lei has been around for a number of years, but not all of them have been at the Kihei location in an upstairs spot in the Rainbow Mall on S. Kihei Road (see map).  Chef/owners Michael and Dana Pastula have run five other Cafe O'Lei-style restaurants over the years working their way from the towns on the north side of Maui to the southwest side of the island.  In addition to Cafe O'Lei, the Pastula's also run the Ma'alaea Grill near the harbor where we went on our whale watching tour.  In addition to their restaurants, the Pastula's also own a popular catering business. 

We soon found out how popular Cafe O'Lei was as we got there just after 7 p.m. and found that it would be a minimum 30 minute wait.  We sort of hemmed and hawed for a moment, then decided that we would stay.  The hostess stand is just inside the front door and there's a small waiting area.  I asked if there was a bar inside and the hostess said there was.  The only problem was that it wasn't in direct sight of the hostess stand.  I told her we'd be at the bar and to not forget about us.  

The circular-shaped bar in the center of the contemporary main dining room was full of people having drinks and appetizers.  Some people were opting to have their dinner at the bar.  Cindy has this thing about having dinner at the bar, especially in nice places - and Cafe O'Lei was a nice place.  There was a large dining room with a smaller dining area in the back corner of the restaurant.  In the back of the main dining room was a sushi bar which was interestingly void of any people.  

We found one stool that was open at the bar and Cindy sat on that while I stood next to her.  She ordered a glass of the house chardonnay and I got a Kona Big Wave Golden Ale (I'm tellin' ya - I loved that beer!).  We were sort of hanging out for a while waiting for our table and talking about our day and what we were going to do the next day.  There were two bartenders working - a male and a female - and they were busy as can be.  And they gave off this sort of uncomfortable vibe like they weren't very friendly people.   

After about 15 minutes, the male bartender comes up to us and brusquely said, "You're gonna have to move, folks." 

I said, "Excuse me?"

He said, "Are you waiting for a table?"

"Yes, we are," I replied.

"Well, you're gonna have to move.  We've got people who want to sit here and eat." 

I looked at Cindy and then back at the bartender.  "You're kidding me," I exclaimed. 

He said, "No sir.  We need your seat."

Cindy said, "Where are we supposed to move to?"

He looked down toward the other end of the bar and he said, "I'll set you up down there." 

Another waiter brought a chair - a lower chair than what they had at the bar - and sat it down near a glass case on the end of the bar.  Cindy said, "That's just stupid and plain rude.  We're paying customers, aren't we?"

I said, "We must not be the right kind of paying customers." 

We made our way down to the other end of the bar, but not before the female bartender screamed at me, "Sir!  You have to close out your tab before you leave the bar!"

I spun around and said, "I'm not leaving!  Your partner made us move!  You have more important people that need our spots at that end of the bar!" 

Cindy sat in this chair that barely allowed her to see the top of the bar.  I was standing next to her and next to a group of people having drinks and appetizers.  One of the ladies in the group said, "Did they really make you move?"

I said, "Oh, yeah.  Someone more important needed our spot to eat." 

She said, "Well, that was sort of rude!"

Cindy exclaimed, "I said the same thing!" 

We noticed that the staff was somewhat falling all over themselves to seat the three people who took up what was really just one spot at the bar.  Two more high bar chairs were produced out of nowhere by the staff and the three people - two men and a lady - sat down at the other end of the bar being greeted warmly by the bartenders and a couple of the waiters.  Cindy said, "They really must be some important people."

The lady next to me said, "Naw, I recognize them.  They're just some locals.  Probably friends of the bartenders."  

The small group next to us, three women and a man, got to talking with us.  It turned out they were in management at the Wailea Marriott which was located next to our hotel.  We told them we were staying at the Grand Wailea and one lady said, "Oh, yes.  That's a beautiful place.  We have a number of friends who work over there.  The hospitality community on Maui is pretty close knit."  

I will say that the bartender did comp us a free beer and a glass of wine for moving us out of our spots at the end of the bar.  He still wasn't very personable about the ordeal, but the free beer and wine helped soften our feelings.  

After about 40 minutes, one of the hostesses came to get us and took us into the smaller dining room in the back of the restaurant.  We were seated at a small table for two.  Directly behind Cindy was a refrigerated wine cabinet.  While it wasn't a huge imposition, more than once while we were seated there a waiter would have to drop in behind Cindy and grab a bottle of wine.

Our waiter was originally from Colorado working in the restaurant business back there.  He was the manager of a place in the mountains and he fell in love with one of his waitresses - a young Hawaiian girl who was working at his restaurant in the summertime.  When she moved back to Hawaii to finish her last year of school, he sold everything, pulled up stakes and moved to Hawaii to be with her.  "That was 13 years and two little boys ago," he told us.  

He gave us some time to look over the menu which included a potpourri of items including steaks, lamb chops, chicken, pasta, seafood and even roast duck.  There was a large number of salads and appetizers to choose from, as well.  Their wine list wasn't much to be impressed with, so I just stuck with my beer for the time being, thinking that I'd get a glass of wine with my meal.  

After a while, our waiter came back to check on us and we were ready to order.  Cindy wasn't about to break from her tradition of having seafood at nearly every dinner so she ordered up the blackened mahi mahi served with a papaya salsa and seared in a butter-ginger sauce with Cajun seasonings.  She also ordered a small Caesar salad.  

I was torn between a couple three things - the Western Australia lobster tail sounded good, but Cindy pointed out to me that it was probably frozen.  I also looked at getting the baked Pacific Zarzuella which featured clams, mussels, shrimp with roma tomatoes in a garlic/saffron sauce.  But in the end, I decided to try the beef tenderloin medallions served with foie gras in a mushroom/cabernet sauce with shallots and thyme served with buttermilk mashed potatoes.  The waiter told me the beef was grass-fed Hawaiian beef and I ordered it rare.  He said, "Are you from Europe?"

I said, "No, Iowa.  But I work with Europeans who love their beef rare." 

He asked if I wanted a salad and I noticed they had a tomato salad on the menu.  I asked if the tomatoes were from Maui and he said, "We get them from an organic farm on the east side of the island.  They're wonderful."  I signed up for that. 

Not long after we ordered, he brought our salads out.  I have to say my tomato salad was just outstanding.  There is something about Hawaiian tomatoes that are so delicious.  It was topped with roquefort cheese crumbles, sweet Maui onion slices and a small amount of greens.  Then a basil vinaigrette was drizzled over the top.  The tomatoes were sweet and juicy.  Oh, man.  I could have just eaten tomatoes all night. 

Cindy said her Caesar salad was "pretty good".  She thought the Caesar dressing was a little weak, but the salad greens were crisp and fresh. 

Our main entrees came out in a timely fashion.  I had two medium sized filet medallions with the mushroom/cabernet sauce on top with the foie gras and the mashed potatoes sort of sitting underneath.  The tenderloins were cooked a little more medium-rare than rare, but that's OK.  Better than having them more medium than medium-rare.  The meat was tender and flavorful, and the mushroom/cabernet sauce was very good.  There was a hint of thyme and shallots in the sauce. 

The foie gras, not as good as I've had in France, was still palatable.  I offered Cindy a bite of the foie gras, but she declined.  "I don't know if I'd care for duck liver," she said.  I told her I didn't think it sounded all that appetizing either before I had my first bite of it, but I'm hooked on good foie gras.  Cafe O'Lei's foie gras was good, but not great. 

Cindy really liked her blackened mahi mahi.  It was light and flaky and the Cajun seasonings didn't overpower the taste.  She especially liked the papaya salsa and the hint of ginger in the taste of the fish from cooking it in the butter and ginger.  She had a side of steamed vegetables that she said were cooked just right.  They were fresh and still had a little crispness to the bite. 

Our waiter did a pretty good job with us.  He was a little too chatty and that delayed his service to us and his other tables.  But it wasn't anything that was out of line.  The place was busy and he was working the tables for a better tip, I'm sure. 

When we returned to the hotel, our favorite valet was waiting for us to take our car.  He said, "Where did you guys go tonight."  We told him Cafe O'Lei and he asked how we liked it.  Cindy said, "It was good.  It wasn't the best we've had, but it was good."

He told us, "Did you get the recommendation from the concierges?  I don't know what they have going on with Cafe O'Lei, but they seem to steer a lot of people toward that place." 

He said that while Cafe O'Lei was good, there were other restaurants that he thought were better.  And he gave us the name of one that he highly recommended and which we tried on our last night on Maui.  That entry will come up next week, saving the best for the last blog entry on our visit to Hawaii.  

Gannon's - A Pacific View Restaurant - Wailea, HI

As our time wound down on our trip to Hawaii, we began to feel that we really didn't spend as much time on Maui as we really wanted to.  While we were sort of ready to leave the Big Island after a week to get to Maui, we knew before we went back home that we'd left a lot of exploring on the table in Maui - especially when it came to finding restaurants.  We had a lot of great suggestions from the valets who would bring our car around each morning at the Grand Wailea.  On the last day we were there, we asked one of our favorite valets where we should go for breakfast.  He said, "Have you tried Gannon's?  It's just down the road up in the clubhouse for the Wailea Golf Club's Emerald and Gold courses."  He told us it was wonderful and we should give it a try.  This valet hadn't steered us wrong so far, so we took off for Gannon's.   

Bev Gannon is one of the dozen Hawaiian chefs who founded the Hawaiian Regional Cuisine movement back in the 1990's.  Using island-raised ingredients in her foods, Gannon quickly became one of the more popular chefs on the Hawaiian Islands as she rose through the ranks of owning her own catering business that specialized in lu'au's for large companies, to opening the heralded Hali`imaile General Store in 1988 in Maui's upcountry area.  Gannon and her husband, Joe, opened the popular Joe's in the Wailea area in the 1990's.  In 2009, the Gannon's took over the Seawatch restaurant at the Wailea Golf Course and it became the fourth flag under the Bev Gannon Restaurant group.  Bev Gannon is also the executive chef for Hawaiian Airlines and her recipes are used for meals for first-class passengers. 

The Gannon Restaurants attract a large number of celebrities who have enjoyed her family style Hawaiian Regional Cuisine at the Hali'imaile General Store or the contemporary American dishes (with a Hawaiian flair) at both Joe's and at Gannon's.  In fact, Joe and Bev Gannon have a history in show business - Bev Gannon was the tour manager for the likes of Liza Minnelli and Ben Vereen for a number of years.  And Joe Gannon was well-known in the music industry as being one of the top stage and lighting designers for acts such as Alice Cooper, Julio Iglesias, Barry Manilow and Luther Vandross.  Before that, Gannon was in a folk group with the original members of the Kingston Trio, but left the group before they made it big with their first hit song, "(Hang Down Your Head) Tom Dooley".  However, Gannon ended up becoming the Kingston Trio's first manager.

Joe Gannon first met Bev when she was working with Liza Minelli in the 70's.  A few years later, Bev had left the music industry to study the culinary arts at Le Cordon Bleu in London.  After she graduated, she moved back to her native Dallas and opened her catering business - Celebrations Catering - in the garage of her house.  One day, a chance meeting with Joe Gannon in Dallas led to a relationship that took them both to Maui for a vacation in the late 70's.  Joe had already fallen in love with the islands during a stint in the Navy, and Bev saw the potential for moving her catering business to Hawaii.  Joe and Bev were married on Maui in 1980 and eventually moved there and opened up shop.  Their daughter, Teresa, is also involved in the family business, making desserts for the restaurant named after her father.

It was a right hand turn out of the Grand Wailea, then a drive of about a half-mile before a left hand turn that took us to the entrance of the Wailea Golf Club and up to Gannon's that morning (see map).   There's a large parking lot off to the side of the main entrance of the clubhouse.  Go into the main clubhouse, walk through the large lobby/atrium and then go to the right corner of the room.  The entrance to Gannon's is right there.

   
We were greeted by a hostess and we were escorted through the spacious contemporary dining room toward the patio.  The chairs, tables and and columns were heavy dark wood fixtures with wonderful views of the Emerald course to the south.  There is a three-sided red bar with a high chairs surrounding the bar.  They had college basketball and golf on the flat screen televisions behind the bar.  As an aside - I'm a big sports fan, but it's sort of weird to me to wake up on a Saturday morning at 7:00 a.m. in Hawaii and tip-off of a college basketball game from the East Coast is just moments away.   While in Hawaii, I had trouble getting into televised sporting events that were in prime time back home, but were shown at 3 p.m. in Hawaii.  I wasn't about to be sitting in a bar or a hotel room in Hawaii watching a game in the middle of a beautiful afternoon.

   
We were seated at an all-weather wooden table overlooking the golf course, the Pacific Ocean and the island of Kahoolawe and the Molokini crater.   The view was just spectacular.   I had trouble focusing on the menu because of how beautiful the view was.  With the sun to our back, the blue deep blue water was just mesmerizing.  I could have sat there for hours just looking out to the ocean and watching the golfers on the first green of the Emerald Course.

The breakfast menu at Gannon's wasn't all that large, but it was certainly interesting.  Most of the offerings were the normal fare - omelets, eggs made to order, mixed fruits and berries.  But they also had their own version of the island breakfast staple Loco Moko, plus you could order burgers, french fries and onion rings for breakfast.  The one thing that I saw right off the bat was Gannon's Maui sweet bread French Toast.  It was topped with a fresh blueberry compote.  I'm a sucker for blueberries.  I ordered that and got a side of bacon along with a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice and a large milk.

Cindy ordered a bowl of fresh fruit berries and had the eggs benedict with salmon and capers.  She also had orange juice and she got her coffee to get her going in the morning.

  

Our breakfast came out not long after we ordered (there weren't a lot of people there for breakfast) and we were soon looking at the scrumptious breakfast our waitress brought us.  My French toast featured three thick half-slices of Maui sweet bread with an ample amount of blueberry compote drizzled on top.  I don't think I've ever had any combination of French Toast and blueberries, so I was ready to give it a try.  My side of bacon consisted of five thick slices of bacon.  Compared to other places where I got a side of bacon during our trip to Hawaii, five thick strips for $4 bucks was a bargain.

Cindy's eggs benedict with salmon came with a side of home potatoes.  And the bowl of fresh fruit berries was huge.  She had no problem with me helping her eat the large, fresh blueberries in the bowl.

My french toast was just excellent.  The bread was fresh and chewy, the blueberry compote was syrup-like as I've found with some blueberry compote I've had in the past and there was a nice hint of cinnamon/sugar on the bread.  It was just excellent.  And the bacon was very good, as well.  They must have hog farms on the Hawaiian Islands because of the kalua pork and other pork dishes that we encountered while on vacation.  But we certainly never saw any.

Cindy said her eggs benedict were also very good.  "These may be the best eggs benedict I've ever had," she exclaimed.  The poached eggs were cooked not a second too short or too long, the salmon wasn't as fishy tasting as she'd experienced in the past, and the hollandaise sauce was rich and creamy.   Along with the fresh fruit berries, she was very happy with her breakfast.

Gannon's was another winner the valet came up with for us.  Before we left, we took a look at the dinner menu and were sort of dismayed that we didn't have dinner there at least once while we were on Maui.  While breakfast wasn't all that cheap - over $40 bucks with a nice tip for our waitress - it was very, very good.  Gannon's was probably the best breakfast we had while we were on vacation - and we had a number of very good to excellent breakfasts.  So my goal now it to one day be able to make it back to Maui and enjoy a meal at each of Bev Gannon's restaurants. 

Kihei Caffe - Kihei, HI

Kihei Caffe (that's how they spell "cafe", I guess) is a funky little breakfast place along S. Kihei Road in Kihei.  Situated right across the street from Kalama Beach Park - a favorite gathering point for sunset-watchers - this little outdoor restaurant has been serving up hearty breakfasts for locals and tourists alike for years.  On the recommendation of one of the valets at the Grand Wailea, we tried Kihei Caffe one morning while we were on Maui.

Kihei Caffe is owned by Barry Allison and his mother, Bunny.  Barry is a large, jovial guy who stands behind the counter taking orders and working as the cashier.  Kihei Caffe opens at 5 a.m. each morning and features breakfast until they close at 3 p.m.  They also serve a lunch menu that features burgers, sandwiches and salads, but they are most well-known for their down-home breakfasts.

We parked in the parking lot in Kalama Beach Park just after 9:30 one morning and walked across S. Kihei Rd. to Kihei Caffe (see map).  The drill is pretty simple - you go into the little hole-in-the-wall area off the street and that's where you place your order with Barry.  The menu is written on a chalk board hung at a slant from the ceiling.  There is usually a long line to get into the place and sometimes a line of people waiting to grab a table out on the patio after they order.  When your food is ready, a server comes out with the plates, calls out your name and gets your food to the table.  Simple, right?

The problem is that Kihei Caffe has almost too much to choose from, you sometimes don't have enough time to figure out what you want.  And Barry keeps the line moving.  We were only sixth in line when we were there that morning and Cindy was having trouble figuring out what to get.  Me - I'm pretty easy.  Just give me a sausage, mushroom and cheese omelet and I'm fine.  But Cindy didn't know if she wanted eggs, waffles, pancakes, fried rice, or what.  They also had Mexican specialties such as huevos rancheros served on homemade tortillas from Barry Allison's Tortillas, Barry Allison's side business.

There was so much to choose from and Cindy was feeling rushed and people were lining up behind us and Cindy was beginning to panic because it was our turn and she didn't know what to get but she knew she better order something or the people behind her would get mad and what if that big guy behind the counter got mad at her for holding up the line and...

Whew!  That's how Cindy felt when it came time for her to order.  She ended up ordering the steak and eggs ("Eggs how?" is Barry's catch phrase.) and coffee.  Like I say, I was pretty simple and boring - omelet, sausage, mushroom and Swiss cheese.  Large glass of milk.  Home fried potatoes came with both of our breakfasts.  And ohhhh....  Look at those cinnamon rolls!  Large homemade cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting were in a case on the counter.  We had to have one of those.

We paid Barry at the counter (no credit cards, cash only) and took our coffee, milk and cinnamon roll outside to find a seat.  We were lucky to find a small two seater table just outside the door.  We sat down and Cindy was still flummoxed.  "I didn't know what to get and I didn't want to hold up the line.  So I just blurted out steak and eggs.  I'm not even certain I want steak and eggs," she said in an exasperated tone.

The outdoor seating area at Kihei Caffe is a series of small tables under umbrellas.  Being that it's on the main drag of Kihei, we sort of enjoyed the people watching while we ate the cinnamon roll and waited for our breakfast to show up at the table.  And the cinnamon roll was as good as it looks in the above picture.  It wasn't overly gooey, but it was loaded with cinnamon sugar and easily pulled apart or could be easily cut with a fork.  I couldn't tell you the last time I had a cinnamon roll.  And I've had some very good ones in my day, but the one at Kihei Caffe was one of the better ones I've had.  It definitely rivaled some of the ones that I can get back home in the Quad Cities where the competition between restaurants with their cinnamon rolls rivals the competition between pizza places in Chicago, Italian restaurants in St. Louis, and barbecue places in Kansas City.

Soon after we finished our cinnamon roll, a waitress came out and called out my name.  I turned around and waved at her and she brought our plates to the table.  Presentation isn't a big thing at Kihei Caffe as our food was sort of just flopped onto our plates.  But I'm not that picky about presentation at breakfast.  Kihei Caffe is a breakfast joint, plain and simple.  No fancy linen or fine china at this place.

My omelet was OK, except they forgot to put the Swiss cheese in the omelet.  And it looked like the mushrooms weren't necessarily cooked with the omelet, but sort of thrown in on top as an afterthought.  It was a little flavorless without the cheese, but I wasn't going to bitch.  The home fried potatoes were greasy and somewhat overcooked.  I wasn't going to eat them anyhow.  Like I say, my omelet was just "OK".

Cindy approached her breakfast with a little apprehension.  She could tell her eggs "over-easy" were over-cooked from the lack of yoke and the burnt edges.  And just a quick look at the six ounce sirloin that was supposed to be medium in temperature was also over-cooked.  She cut into the steak and it was like cutting into leather.  She did eat the eggs, some of her potatoes and about two bites of the steak before she declared she was done.  I said, "Are you sure?  Do you want something else?"

She sort of went, "Ah... Nah.  I'll just get something big at lunch to tide me over to dinner."

Cindy would give Kihei Caffe a "thumbs down" for her breakfast.  I'd give it an "Eh..." for mine, although the highlight of the whole meal was the cinnamon roll.  We contemplated getting a couple cinnamon rolls to take back to the hotel to put in the fridge in the room.  But then we remembered that there was no refrigerator in the room.  Oh well...

I know Kihei Caffe is known for their breakfasts, but it wasn't close to being one of the better places we visited while in Hawaii.   It was a funky little place with down-home food that was average at best.

Maui Brewing Company - Lahaina, HI

Another famous brewpub in Hawaii is the Maui Brewing Company in Lahaina.  I had that on my list of places to visit while we were on Maui, but we just never got around to doing it.  Thanks to Cindy's keen eyes and a little bit of backtracking, we did go there for lunch on the last day we were on Maui. 

We usually ship a number of items back home when we're on vacation to free up space in suitcases for things we want to return home immediately with us.  Before we left Maui on our last day, we took a lot of stuff (dirty clothes, tour guides, macadamia nuts, knick-knacks, etc.) to a UPS Store in Lahaina to ship back home.  After that was done, we still had about three hours to kill.  We were trying to figure out someplace to go eat lunch before we had to go to the airport for the first leg of our long trip home.

We had visited downtown Lahaina a couple days earlier and decided that we didn't want to eat lunch at any of the tourist-trap restaurants they had in the area.  We thought we'd work our way back toward the airport and see if there was any place that sort of jumped out at us where we could stop. 

As we were stopped at a traffic light in Lahaina, Cindy looked over and exclaimed, "Hey, the Maui Brewing Company!  Isn't that where you said you wanted to go?"

I was past the entrance of the place and had to do a turn-around up the road to come back.  I turned into the entrance to a strip mall parking lot and headed toward a sign in the back that said, "Maui Brewing Company" with an arrow pointing to the left.  I turned the corner and headed back toward a large industrial looking building.  It was quite obvious this wasn't the brew pub but the brewery.  Disappointed, I started to turn the car around and Cindy noticed an open door on the side of the building.  She said, "If someone's in there, they should know where the brew pub is." 

I went in and the place reeked of crisp, baked hops.  Yep, this was the brewery.  I didn't see anyone, so I hollered, "Hello!" a couple of times.  Finally, a guy and a lady came around the corner and asked if they could help me. 

I said I was looking for the brew pub and he said, "Oh, that's up the road a bit.  This is the brewery."   I asked how far up the road it was and he said it was about six miles to the north.  We were almost there when we were at the UPS store just earlier. 

The lady came back around the corner and had a brochure on the brew pub that included a map to the place, along with some Maui Brewing Company stickers.  They gave them to me and I headed back outside.  As I getting ready to get into the car, another car pulled up and a lady asked out her window, "Is this the Brew Pub?"

The guy hollered back to the lady, "Get another brochure, honey!"

We took off back up north on the Honoapiilani Highway toward where we were earlier in the day, past the large resorts and toward Napili Bay.  In the meantime, Cindy had programmed the address into the GPS and it took us to a strip mall at the northwest corner of Honoapiilani Hwy and Hoohui Road (I love Hawaiian street names).  Back in the corner of the strip mall was the Maui Brewing Company brew pub (see map).

The Maui Brewing Company began in 2005 when Garrett Marrero (right) and Melanie Oxley joined forces with Tom Kerns, who owned the Fish and Game Brew Pub on Maui.   Marrero's background was in personal financing and investments in his native San Diego and first visited Maui in 2001.  He had a longtime love for craft brews and decided to move to Maui to start his own micro-brewed beer.

With Kerns' help, Marrero and Oxley started a production facility (the location we went to first) in 2006.  After helping get Marrero established, Kerns eventually sold the brew pub to Maui Brewing Company in 2008.  He then "retired" but turned up again as the guy behind Tako Taco on the Big Island and who is in the midst of establishing a small micro-brewery behind the place.  Click here to see the post on our visit to Tako Taco.

Marrero's goal was to make both the brewery and the brew pub "sustainable" as they use ingredients in the beer and for their food that is locally grown on Maui.  Maui Brewing Company's beers use unique ingredients such as coconuts, pineapple, guava and other sustainable produce in the brewing process.

 

 
The interior of the Maui Brewing Company could be easily described as industrial.  It's a large space with an open black ceiling that exposes the truss beams across the top.  There are four skylights that allow natural light to come in during the day, cutting down on the need for lights in the restaurants during the day.  There's a large bar toward the back of the dining room with a series of tables and booths throughout the place.  One of the more unique features of the place were the lights on the wall and from the ceiling.  They had taken small kegs and made hanging lights out of them.  And it was like they had taken the same small kegs, cut them in half and hung them on the wall in front of a light.  It was a rather ingenious use of old kegs. 

Marrero's philosophy of being a "green" company encompasses both the brew pub and the brewery.  The tables they use at the brew pub are made with recycled materials.  In fact, much of Maui Brewing Company's philosophy is based upon reducing the carbon footprint they produce.  Their beers are available in cans and not bottles as bottles can break and you definitely don't want broken glass on a beach.  Plus, Garrett Marrero's philosophy is that light can cause beer to go bad.  No light can get into a can of Maui Brewing Company beer.  The cardboard trays they deliver the can beer to at various retail locations are picked up and re-used each week.  They try to use the cardboard trays as often as possible before recylcing the cardboard at the end of their life-span.   

We sat at a table toward the center of the room and we were given menus to look over.  They have a grease board menu on the wall near the bar that lists all of the beers they have on tap.  I saw one that sort of caught my attention - the Exotic Ale made with lilikoi.  Anything with lilikoi caught my attention, actually, and I ordered one of those.  Cindy ordered up a glass of the Big Swell IPA, a hearty and hoppy India Pale Ale that had a little higher alcohol content that the Exotic Ale.

The food at the brew pub also has a "home-grown" theme with Maui-raised beef, produce and and fresh fish caught off the coasts.  The beef they use at the brew pub is from the Maui Cattle Company ranch on Maui.  They call their food "from farm to table and beyond."

The menu at the Maui Brewing Company was very interesting with a number of soups and salads, a load of yummy sounding appetizers, sandwiches and pizza.  Their entrees included a coconut beef stew - beef and veggies in a hearty broth made from the brewery's Coconut Porter.  They also had a number of pastas, jambalaya and ribs on the entree menu.

I'd only had one hamburger while I was in Hawaii and none while we were on Maui.  The only burger Maui Brewing Company has on their menu is the Maui Cattle Company burger, a 1/2 pound burger served on an onion bun with Maui-grown lettuce, sweet onions and tomatoes.  I'll tell you, I miss a lot about Hawaii, but Hawaiian-grown tomatoes are at or near the top of my list of things I miss the most.  You can also include a number of toppings including goat cheese, jalapenos, and onion rings.  I got Swiss cheese and mushrooms to top off my burger.

We'd had sort of a large breakfast a few hours earlier (I don't think you can get a small breakfast on Hawaii) and Cindy was torn between getting a sandwich or one of Maui Brewing Company's delicious sounding salads.  She finally settled on getting their Butterleaf wedge salad - a large chunk of Maui-grown butterleaf lettuce, topped with bleu-cheese crumbles, macadamia nuts (that was the clincher for her) and finished off with chopped tomatoes and a gluten-free dijon vinaigrette dressing.

I'd finished my Exotic Ale - it was OK, not as good as I hoped.  It was sort of light and would have been a good beer on a hot summer day.  I tried a small sample of Cindy's Big Swell IPA and it was good, so I went with one of those for my second beer.

I got up to use the restroom before our food came and I wandered over to the bar area.  The bar top was made of stainless-steel so the wood wouldn't deteriorate from sweating beer glasses.  But what was rather interesting about the bar was the cooling strip along the back edge.  The white strip in the not so clear picture at the right is the cooling strip that will allow people to rest their beer on the strip, keeping it cold as they pause between drinks.  I've been accused of being a quick drinker when it comes to beer because I don't care for the taste of beer above 40 degrees (F).  I could literally sip my beer if I had a cooling strip like this.

Nawwww....

 
Our food came out soon after and the presentation was very nice.  Cindy's salad wedge didn't look like a conventional wedge salad like we'd get back on the mainland.  It was a large collection of large leaf lettuce - I guess that would be butterleaf lettuce - with a healthy amount of chopped tomatoes and blue-cheese crumbles and drizzled with the dijon vinaigrette.  It looked good and healthy.

My burger was equally good looking.  Large, chopped fresh sauteed mushrooms on top of the melted Swiss cheese on the burger made my stomach jump.  A large butterleaf lettuce leaf along with sweet Maui onions and a slice of a Maui tomato garnished the side.  Beer-battered fries came with the meal, but I was sort of upset afterward that I didn't order up a side of their beer-battered onion rings because the beer-batter was very good.

The burger was thick and juicy and the toasted bun was light, but not to chewy.  I like a good onion bun on a burger and the one at Maui Brewing Company didn't disappoint.  The Big Swell IPA, although somewhat filling,  was a good compliment to the burger. 

About half-way through the meal, our waiter came over to check on us.  I was low on beer and he asked if I wanted another one.  I was getting sort of full, so I perused the board for a lighter-bodied beer to finish off my meal.  The waiter said, "We have the Hot Blonde which is a lager, but it's infused with chipotle peppers.  It's got kind of a smoky taste with a little bite in the end."  I like hot stuff, but not so much in my beer.  I ended up getting a Pau Hana Pilsner.  Cindy was doing fine with her original Big Swell IPA.  She could have benefited from having the cooling strip at the bar.

My burger was very good.  The grass-fed Maui Cattle Company beef was juicy and flavorful.  The tomato had this amazing taste explosion in my mouth.  I finally figured out why they scan your bags for fruit and vegetables when you leave Hawaii for the mainland - they don't want you taking Hawaiian tomatoes or lilikoi back home with you.  They want to make them only available on the islands so you'll have to come back at some point to enjoy the taste.

Cindy also declared her salad as very good.  The bleu-cheese was pungent and flavorful.  And she really liked the dijon vinaigrette.  She said it was the perfect lunch for her after the big breakfast.

And I have to say that of the three beers I tried, I think I liked the Pau Hana Pilsner the best.  They were all very good, but I sort of liked the pilsner taste of the Pau Hana over the Big Swell IPA.

I'm glad we were able to go to the Maui Brewing Company.  It's the only one on Maui and it would be tough to top if another brew pub were to pop up at some point.  The beer was good, the food was very good and the service was attentive, yet laid back.  It was also a little expensive - our bill with tip came to nearly $50 bucks.  But it was our last true meal while we were in Hawaii and it didn't disappoint in the least.

The Gazebo - Lahaina/Napili Bay, HI

After our whale watching adventure earlier in the morning, we decided to drive up the west coast of Maui to a spot north of Lahaina - the tourist mecca for Maui - to have breakfast at The Gazebo.  Someone who Cindy knows back in Iowa told her that we had to go to this place for breakfast at some point, but she also said that we had to be prepared for a wait as it can sometime be 45 minutes before you can get seated.  We had the address and I punched it into the GPS and took off up to Napili. 

Actually, The Gazebo is part of the Outrigger Napili Shores rental condos on the northwest side of Maui (see map).  We were a little confused in that we pulled up to the address we'd programmed into the GPS and there was this hotel, but no restaurant in sight.  Finally, Cindy noticed a small sign under the main sign for the Outrigger that simply said, "The Gazebo".  We finally figured out that it was behind the condos near the shoreline.  We parked in the lot of the rental condos and made our way back through to the pool area.  Just beyond the pool area was the restaurant. 

And yes, there was a line to get into the place.  It was small and definitely not set up for a place to put your name in and just wait.  You had to be in line and hanging around just to get in.  But it afforded us both some time to individually step out and look around at the property.  Actually, from what we could see from open curtains in some of the condos, it was a pretty nice place.  And the views of the ocean didn't suck, either. 

There's also a little gift shop area set up outside The Gazebo where Cindy was able to get her morning fix of coffee while we waited in line.  Hawaiian coffee smells so good and I'm sure it tastes good, but caffeine makes me jumpy - and considering I haven't had much caffeine in the past 18 months, it would probably make me more jumpy now.

There's a great view from the point just beyond The Gazebo that looked out into Napili Bay and across the straits to the island of Molokai.  Counting the two islands we were on and the two off-shore islands we'd already seen on Maui, Molokai was the fifth of the eight Hawaiian islands we'd seen on our trip.  (We had a layover in Honolulu on Oahu, so we saw six of the eight islands during our trip.).  It was a warm, yet windy morning that day with low clouds hanging over the east side of Molokai.  

We finally got up close enough to the front to take a look at the menu that's encased in plastic near the front steps.  The Gazebo opens at 7 a.m. and closes at 2 p.m. serving both breakfast and lunch.  They're famous for their macadamia nut pancakes, a concoction that was first served up years ago by original owner Kimo Kiakona.  Thousands of tourists over the years have tried the macadamia nut pancakes which have a heavenly whipped topping that some say is a combination of homemade whipped cream, maple syrup, sugar and chopped macadamia nuts.   Some reports I've read on the stuff says that it's addicting with people coming in with jars just to scoop the topping off the pancakes into jars to take home with them. 

 
The current owners of The Gazebo, Lucy and Jerry Corson, continue the macadamia nut pancakes along with a number of other breakfast specialties such as a combination of their macadamia nut, banana and pineapple pancakes, omelets and different variations of Eggs Benedict.  Their lunch menu is pretty standard with salads, burgers and sandwiches.  

The Gazebo is not large - seating possibly 55 people - so it's no wonder there's always a significant wait to get in.  But like most of Hawaii, the pace on Maui is slow and no one's in a real hurry to get anywhere.   It was actually about 35 minutes from the time we got there around 11 a.m. to the time we finally sat down.  We figured a big breakfast would take care of us for both breakfast and lunch that day.  

We were seated in a back area of the restaurant at a small table that looked out into the bay and across to Molokai.  The chairs were the cheap plastic kind that are uncomfortable to me and sort of flimsy - even with my weight loss.  Most of the restaurant is open-air, but we had louvered windows at our table that helped keep out the gusty winds from the Northeast that blew strong all week while we were on Maui.  

Cindy had to go with the macadamia nut pancakes with white chocolate chips and she wanted a side of The Gazebo's fried rice.  Their fried rice is unique in that they fry the rice up with Portuguese sausage (cured pork sausage with onions, garlic and paprika), ham chunks, peppers and instead of scrambling an egg with it, they put the egg on top - your choice of an omelet, or a fried or scrambled egg.  She got the omelet on top of the fried rice.  Cindy said, "This may be too much food, but if this is the last meal we'll have until tonight I may need it."

I went more simple - I got a Supreme omelet with three eggs filled with Portuguese sausage, bacon, mushrooms, onions, green pepper and Swiss cheese and a side of bacon.  I figured that would hold me for the rest of the day. 

Now, I've said in many of my earlier posts about our trip to Hawaii that breakfast is big on the islands - and the portions are equally as big.  When they brought out our food and set it on the table, we barely had room for the large plates of food.   This is Cindy's order in the above photos.  The fried rice was a HALF-ORDER!  It could have been enough for two meals. 

My omelet was also good sized and it came with a side of fried potatoes and whole wheat toast.  My bacon was a little too crispy for my taste, but edible.  Portuguese sausage is an interesting concoction and it was pretty good with the omelet.  But the Supreme Omelet was pretty good and I was happy with it.  And, yes, that's a ton of black pepper on top - I like pepper on my eggs.

Cindy bit into a combination of the whipped macadamia nut topping and her pancakes.  Her eyes lit up and she said, "Oh, my God!  You've got to try this."

I can see why some people say the whipped topping The Gazebo puts on their macadamia nut pancakes is addicting.  It was a rich and vibrant taste sensation.  It was sweet, but not overly sugary.  It did have sort of a maple syrup flavor to it, or maybe it was the combination of the maple syrup Cindy put on her pancakes along with the whipped topping.   Either way, the macadamia nut pancakes were outstanding, definitely a taste explosion in the mouth.

Cindy soon found that her pancakes alone would have been sufficient for breakfast.  I made short work of my omelet and bacon, foregoing the the toast and the fried potatoes just to help her finish her pancakes.  They were so good that I wasn't going to allow them to go to waste.  She made a little bit of a dent in the fried rice, leaving the bulk of it on her plate.  I tried a couple bites of it and it was pretty good.  However, sort of like biscuits and gravy, I don't get the appeal of fried rice as a breakfast dish.  I'm sure it's popular in Hawaii because nearly every place we went to for breakfast had some sort of variation of fried rice on the menu.  But it wouldn't be the first thing I'd get.  Sort of like the Loco Moko that I got at the Hawaiian Style Cafe on the Big Island.  Yeah, it was interesting, but not something that I'd get again for breakfast.

 

I'd say The Gazebo was above average average compared to some of the breakfast places we'd eaten at during our trip.  My omelet was good, but not the best I've had.  The macadamia nut/white chocolate pancakes, however, were everything they were said to be - rich, huge, filling and wonderful.  You certainly don't get cheated on portions at The Gazebo.  And while I don't like to waste food, I was happy to leave a large portion of the fried rice on the table.  The service was good, the view was excellent and if you can get around the pesky - and brave - sparrows who try to dive in to steal a morsel of food off your plate, the ambiance of The Gazebo was wonderful.  I'm glad we made the trip up to the northwest side of the island for breakfast that day.  It's sort of tough to find, but well worth the trip if you can go.

Spices - Kihei, HI

We had driven by Spices on South Kihei Road a number of times during our visit to Maui and I was sort of intrigued by the open air restaurant connected to the Maui Coast Hotel.  We did a little homework from our hotel room (even with a horrible internet connection) and thought Spices sounded pretty interesting.  We decided to go there for dinner one warm Hawaiian evening. 

Spices wasn't far from our hotel - about a 10 minute drive to the restaurant (see map).  There wasn't a lot of people in the place when we got in about 7:30.  We were seated next to the open ledge looking out onto S. Kihei Rd.  That was sort of a mistake because it was sometimes loud with traffic and exhaust fumes permeating the air. 

The dining room was open and airy with a number of tables throughout the place.  There was a small bar in the corner and a nice little outdoor fountain with a few tables near it.  No one was seated outside that evening.  The decor was sort of a contemporary Hawaiian theme.  It was very comfortable. 

Our waiter was a pretty nice guy and very good at his trade.  We were given menus and we ordered up a couple drinks - I had a Kona Big Wave Golden Ale and Cindy had a mai tai.  I also looked over Spices very short wine list trying to find a nice white wine to go with dinner.  There wasn't much to be had.  I finally ordered a Kendall-Jackson chardonnay.  

We looked over the menu on line before coming to Spices and there were a lot of intriguing things to try.  One thing was the garlic clams - a pound of fresh clams sauteed in butter and garlic.  We decided to try that as an appetizer.  

The waiter brought out the clams and the wine and we dug in to the plate.  The clams were *OK*, really nothing special.  I would have thought the taste sensation would have been a little better given that they were sauteed in butter and garlic, but they didn't really have much pizazz.  It was rather disappointing.  

We ordered up dinner after the clams were gone.  One thing that jumped out at me when I first looked at their menu on-line earlier in the day was the mahi mahi piccata.  They take fresh mahi mahi and cook it like a veal or chicken piccata with a light breading, then cooking it with a butter wine sauce with mushrooms and capers.   They served it on a bed of rice with a side of fresh steamed veggies.  Now, THAT sounded interesting to me. 

Cindy was torn between Spices' Hawaiian-style mahi mahi - they take a mahi mahi filet and encrust it in macadamia nuts and top it with a tropical fruit salsa - or the special that evening which was baked opakapaka, which is also known as "pink snapper".  Opakapaka is plentiful all over the tropical regions of the Pacific Ocean, but they seem to grow rather large around Hawaii.  Cindy decided to try the opakapaka and it was served on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes. 

It really wasn't all that long before our entrees showed up at the table.  Cindy's opakapaka was a large filet that had a light cream sauce on top.  Three grilled shrimp came with the fish which was served on some steamed vegetables.  Cindy said the opakapaka was "good", but not great.  I tried a bite and it was good.

My mahi mahi piccata was overly disappointing.  It was nowhere close to being a true piccata-style meal.  The piccata sauce was more of a glaze and the fish was overcooked and dry.  It just wasn't very good.  The veggies were good, however.  They weren't overcooked or lifeless to the taste.  Sadly, it was a mediocre meal compared to other places we were at while we were in Hawaii.

Since we tried Spices, I've read reviews from travelers on some web sites that denigrated the food at the place.  I will say the waiter we had was very good and very attentive, but the level of service and the atmosphere at Spices is the draw.  I understand they have very good breakfasts at Spices, but my dinner was pedestrian, at best.  Cindy's opakapaka was good, much better than what I had.  But overall, Spices was probably the worst meal we had while we were in Hawaii.  That's too bad as the place seemed to have a lot of potential.

Mama's Fish House - Pa'ia, HI

Before we went to Maui, we talked to a number of people who had been there before.  Nearly everyone said, "You have to absolutely go to Mama's Fish House for dinner at some point."  Everyone raved about how great the food was there.  When we got to Maui, the consensus among the locals was that it was tough to beat Mama's Fish House for the best fish on the island.  Even before our visit to Mama's, our expectations were high.

In the late 1950's, Floyd and Doris Christenson decided to turn in their staid life in San Diego for a sailing trip around Polynesia.  For three years, the Christenson's lived in French Polynesia learning about island cuisines and how to prepare different types of fish that were caught by natives.  It was in Polynesia where their daughter and son were born.  And while they were in French Polynesia, Floyd Christenson landed a bit part in "Mutiny on the Bounty" starring Marlon Brando.

The family eventually moved to a home on the north shore of Maui.  In 1973, the Christenson's bought an old nightclub on Ku'au Cove and renovated it into a restaurant.  They leased the building to Hilda Costa who was the original "Mama".   Costa ran the restaurant for three years before leaving the restaurant to the Christenson's.   

The Christenson's eventually turned the restaurant into one of the best seafood restaurants - a favorite spot for tourists and celebrities, alike.  Over the years, Mama's Fish House has hosted the likes of Frank Sinatra, Reba McEntire, Roger Clemens, Ann-Margret and a large number of performers and professional athletes.  A number of autographed portraits of famous people who dined at Mama's Fish House were on the walls near the bar area of the place.  Some of the regulars in Mama's Fish House are actors Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson who, we were told, have houses in the hills just up from the restaurant.  (As an aside - Willie Nelson owns Charley's restaurant in Pa'ia and has a home not far from there.) 

Today, Karen Christenson Marshall, Floyd and Doris' oldest child, runs the day-to-day operation of the restaurant.  Doris and Floyd show up periodically and Doris loves to tell stories of the times they sailed around Polynesia. 

Mama's Fish House only prepares freshly caught seafood at their restaurant.  They contract fishermen in the area to catch a bounty of different types of Pacific Ocean fish.  On the menu for that evening, they list the type of fish, who caught it and where it was caught.  That's kind of a nice touch to recognize the fishermen who put in long hours to put the fish on the tables at Mama's. 

Mama's decor is definitely island-themed with a Polynesian feel to the place.  Mama's Fish House employs their own in-house designer, Bill Kohl, who continually updates the items in the place from the antique doors to the knick-knacks around the place.  

The Christenson's have also bought up property around the original Mama's Fish House over the years and they now feature nine cottages for nightly rentals - all designed on the inside by Bill Kohl.  The cottages feature a number of amenities and run between $175 and $595 a night.  Four of the cottages are ocean front properties while the other five are called "garden cottages".  

The head chef at Mama's Fish House is Perry Bateman (right).  Bateman, in his early 40's, has been with the Christenson's since he was 19.  He was never trained to be a chef, but picked up a lot of his skills on the job.  He started out on the hot line in the kitchen, then worked his way up to sous chef.  Bateman took over the kitchen at Mama's when he was 30 and has a good grasp of Hawaiian style cooking.  Growing up, his family owned a restaurant on Maui - the only one that was serving true Hawaiian cuisine at the time.  Bateman's knowledge of the ingredients that go into Hawaiian cuisine "is what makes Mama's work," Karen Christenson Marshall once said in an interview.  One of Bateman's signature meals is an "Upcountry style" dish featuring fresh fish, tomato, avocado and caramelized onions grown on Maui.  Bateman's - and Mama's - motto is "Quality before price".

It was on our way back from the Road to Hana on the Hana Highway on the north side of the island (see map) and we stopped in about 5:30 for an early dinner.  Actually, we were pretty hungry because we had a big breakfast, but really nothing other some snacks on our trek to Hana and back.  Plus, Cindy needed a drink after the drive back from Hana - something that she hardly ever asks for these days.

After leaving our car at the complimentary valet parking up front, we made our way around the ocean front side of the building to the hostess stand.  Since it was relatively early when we got into Mama's Fish House, there was little to no wait to get a table.  We were seated in an area near the bar, but nowhere close to the open windows that faced the ocean.  That was sort of disappointing, but we sort of figured out a little later on as to why that may have been the case.

We were dressed rather casually - even casual for Hawaii.  I was in a black "Iowa" t-shirt and shorts.  Cindy was in an orange sleeveless top - stylish, but still pretty casual.  We had always changed our shirts before we went out for the evening - me usually into a Hawaiian or button-down short sleeve shirt - and Cindy in a nice top.  Since we were just coming back from Hana and had dressed down on purpose thinking that we'd stop and frolic in one of the many pools along the Road to Hana, we didn't want to go back all the way to the hotel, change clothes and then drive 23 miles back to Mama's Fish House. 

We noticed similarly dressed people around us and when we both got up to go to the restroom at various points, we both noticed people who were more nattily dressed seated in the dining rooms with the open windows looking out to the tree-drenched beach and the ocean beyond.   We just figured they wanted to keep the "riff-raff" in one area and put the classy folks in another.  And as I always tell Cindy, the money coming from our jeans or shorts spends just as well as money that comes from a pair of wool or cotton slacks.   

Our waitress came around to greet us and asked us if we wanted anything to drink right off the bat.  Cindy laughed and said, "Mai tai!"  I told her to make it two.  When she brought them back, Cindy's eyes got pretty big.  They were served in these large mugs and filled to the top.  I was liking this place already. 

The menu at Mama's Fish House was rather interesting with a mix of traditional Hawaiian food and fresh seafood.  They had deep-sea caught ahi tuna, monchong caught off Kona, mahi mahi caught not far from Mama's off the north shore of Maui.  They also had something called "lau lau" - mahi mahi, Pacific salmon, pork and lu'au leaf cooked in ti leaves, South Pacific style.  That sounded rather interesting to say the least.

We started off ordering Mama's onaga ceviche appetizer.  Ceviche is something we were introduced to in Mexico a number of years ago.  They take chunks of freshly caught fish and is marinated in lime juice for up to 12 hours.  The acid from the lime juice literally cooks the fish and the taste is - well, it's killer.  And the onaga ceviche at Mama's goes a step further as they also marinate it with cilantro and chili pepper.  It sounded just as good as it tasted.  It was served with a chunk of avocado and fried banana slices.  It was absolutely mind-blowing.  We almost ordered another one.

A lady seated at a table near us was served something that looked absolutely scrumptious.  Cindy couldn't keep her eyes off her plate.  Cindy finally asked the woman, "I'm sorry, but what is that?"

The lady turned to Cindy and said, "It's the stuffed mahi mahi.  And it is wonderful!" 

And that's what Cindy ended up ordering.  It's stuffed with lobster and crab meat along with sweet Maui onions.  It's then rolled in a macadamia nut mixture and cooked to give it a nice light crust.  Grilled asparagus spears and a rice pilaf came on the side with the stuffed fish.  Cindy was hooked when it mentioned the macadamia nut crust.  It was sort of expensive - about $40 bucks.  But, hey we were on vacation.

I ordered the seared ahi tuna for my dinner.  It's quickly grilled with a peppercorn/Hamakua mushroom sauce and served with a side of breadfruit-mashed potatoes.

We also ordered a bottle of white wine from Mama's interesting wine list.  They featured a number of obscure wines - ones I was definitely not familiar with.  And I have to say that I can't remember what kind of wine I ordered for our dinner although it was pretty good and went very well with our meal.

Our main meals came out and the presentation on the plates was exquisite.  We were so hungry by this point we just dug in.  I have to say my ahi tuna with the peppercorn/mushroom sauce was very good.  I don't know if it was the best I've had, but the fish was very fresh and very tasty.

Cindy's stuffed mahi mahi was outstanding.  We traded bites and we decided that even though the ahi tuna was very good, the stuffed mahi mahi was out of this world.  The macadamia nut crust was light and didn't overpower the fish.  But the lobster, crab and onion stuffing was a great taste combination with the mahi mahi.  Cindy was literally in heaven.

Our waitress, who was very good in a laid back sort of way, came around to check on us.  She asked how our meals were and I think Cindy and I both answered, "Great!" at the same time.

     
Of course, we had to have dessert after that fine meal.  One thing that jumped out at me was the crème brulee made with lilikoi.  I was addicted to anything that had lilikoi in it and I told Cindy I wanted to try one of those.  Our waitress offered to bring us one of Mama's signature desserts - a homemade tropical fruit sorbet with ice cream - as a complimentary gesture.  Cindy and I sort of looked at one another, shrugged our shoulders and said, "Sure!"

The crème brulee was just orgasmic.  I don't know if I'd ever had a crème brulee that had such a forward citrus taste to it.  We made very short work of the dessert.  The fruit sorbet/ice cream dish was very good, as well.  But it was nowhere as good as the crème brulee with lilikoi.

After we paid our bill (over $200 with a nice tip for the waitress - it wasn't cheap) we took a walk around the property so Cindy could get some pictures of flowers, Polynesian sculptures, tiki torches and a Hawaiian canoe that was planted on the beach.  The wind was still coming in rather briskly off the ocean, but it wasn't as bad as it was earlier in the evening.  With the sun setting behind the mountain that sits on Maui's north side, it was getting sort of dark under the abundance of palm trees that surrounded Mama's Fish House.  It was sort of neat to be the deep shade with a lot of blue skies and fluffy clouds off in the distance.

Cindy also bought some of Mama's Hawaiian blend coffee beans that they sold at the outdoor hostess stand.  I don't know if it was any different from the other Hawaiian coffee that she bought at other places, but she just was wanting some memento from Mama's Fish House.

We were overly thrilled with our visit to Mama's Fish House.  We knew going in that our expectations could be too high given the glowing reports we'd received before our visit.  But everything we heard from people stood up to the test and more.   I really can't think of one thing I can bitch about Mama's Fish House.  Oh, maybe I could bitch about the sudden downpour as we were waiting for our car.  I felt bad to send the valet running out to get our car and bring it to the waiting area.  Bad enough to give the soaking wet guy a $5 buck tip.  But I later decided I should have only given him $2 bucks because the seat was wet from him dripping on it.

But that was it!  Mama's Fish House is a great place to eat.  Highly recommended by Cindy and I if you ever get to Maui.

The Road to Hana

If whale watching was the number one priority for Cindy on our trip to Hawaii, traveling the Road to Hana (pronounced HAW-na) had to be priority 1A.  Located on the east side of Maui, the road to Hana is over 30 miles of twisty roads, one-lane bridges and enough spectacular scenery to fill up the memory of your digital camera in one day.  

We had read up about the Road to Hana in a number of tourism books and web sites before we embarked on our trip.  First of all, they said to budget one full day for the trip.  It's very slow going with a lot of cars sharing the roads in both directions.  Given that it's the only way to get to Hana by vehicle, you're also sharing the road with delivery trucks and other large vehicles.  Add to this, the incredible vistas along the way and you're stopping quite a bit to get some great pictures.  The top piece of advice we read and heard from some who had already taken the trek was to leave early in the day.  Even though it's 32 miles from the start of the road until you end up in Hana, it can take up to 3 hours to get there.  

We decided to start our morning at the breakfast buffet at the Grand Wailea.  We got into the breakfast area about 7:30 a.m. and proceeded to eat a hearty breakfast.  The breakfast buffet at the Grand Wailea was nice, but it wasn't what I would call outstanding.  The hotel thought differently, however, as evidenced by the bill for $36.95 per person for the breakfast.  That was the first and last time we had breakfast at the Grand Wailea.  

The Hana Highway starts just past the airport entrance and goes around the north end of the island.  Just past the small village of Pauwela, the highway goes from a nice wide road to an interesting narrow asphalt road with little to no shoulders.  Vegetation comes right up to the roadway and you begin to run into tight blind curves on uphill grades.  The Road to Hana isn't for the faint or timid drivers. 

The weather wasn't cooperating, either.  All week long while we were on Maui the wind was blowing at gale force speeds.  The weather had changed from a mild sunny morning when we left the hotel to a windy, cloudy misty day on the east side of the island.  Occasional on-shore showers would alternate with partly sunny skies along the route. 

According to one of the guide books we took with us on the trip, there was supposed to be some general store at the start of the Road to Hana where we could get sandwiches, water and guide maps.  Well, I certainly didn't see much of anything like that near the "0" mile marker.  Cindy was a little miffed that we didn't stop and get something.  But I told her that I was sure that we could get something to eat in Hana if we needed it. 

About 10 or so miles into the trip, there's a primitive road side rest area that Cindy wanted to stop at after it took us about 35 minutes to go the initial few miles.  There's a lot of stopping along the way to let cars come through the one-lane bridges (there are over 50 one-lane bridges on the road and over 600 curves - some of them are 180 degree hairpin turns), and to allow the more impatient people to pass.  The top speed we got to was about 25 miles an hour. 

At the rest area, there were a lot of tourists who had stopped, as well.  A lot of small bus tours take groups of people along the Road to Hana, as well as a number of "rent-a-locals" that will drive you and your group on the Road to Hana.  The "rent-a-locals" know the good photo opportunities and along the way and also know the road like the back of their hand.  I suppose if you drive it every day of your life, you're going to know which curves are more treacherous than others. 

While the Road to Hana starts out hugging the shoreline in places, it goes inland for a ways as it ribbons around the sides of small mountains that look out onto small valleys of rice paddies and pineapple trees.  There were a number of turnouts and scenic overlooks on the way to Hana.  This picture actually turned out pretty well considering it had just begun to pour rain on me as I was focusing for this shot.  And it was a cold rain with that blustery wind, too.

Along the Road to Hana were a number of waterfalls, water pools and small streams coming out of the mountains.  However, due to the drought they were experiencing on the Hawaiian Islands, a lot of the streams and waterfalls were either dried up or a trickle of water compared to what they normally are.  The guide books said that the pools are so pristine and the waterfalls so intense that you can wade out into the water and stand under the falls.  We brought our swimsuits and towels with us in anticipation of being able to walk into some of these pools, but for the most part it was pretty disappointing.  Coupled with the cool, blustery weather, the idea of playing under waterfalls that day pretty much escaped from our heads.

We did find some nice waterfalls along the way, however.  The problem is they were well off the roadway and you had to take a little bit of a hike to get to them.  Or, if they were close to the road, there were "No Parking" signs all about because there was no shoulder to park on.  In some cases, I'd let Cindy out of the car to get some closer pictures of some of the waterfalls, go up the road a bit, double back and pick her up. 

We stopped at one spot where we read there was a nice waterfall and pool.  There were a lot of cars there and there was a small roadside stand selling water and snacks.  But there was a big sign that warned against leaving anything in open sight in the car if you trekked back to the waterfall.  I guess local thieves pray upon the tourists along the Road to Hana.

We started to walk along this path back into some heavy vegetation, not exactly knowing where we were going or what we were going to see when we got there.  A couple hundred yards into the hike, we came across a group of 20-somethings who were coming from the waterfall.  Cindy asked them how far it was to the waterfall and one of the guys said, "It's about a half-mile." 

One of the young ladies in the group said, "Yeah, and it's not much to see.  It's a big pool, but the waterfall is hardly a waterfall.  It's more of a trickle."  We decided to follow them back to the parking lot and continue on our way.     

One of the roadside stops on the Road to Hana is Halfway to Hana - a small building where we stopped to get some water and their famous homemade banana bread.  With the stops, slow traffic and just general laziness, it took us just under two hours to get half-way to Hana.  Halfway to Hana was a popular spot for both tourists and locals to stop for a morning snack and something to drink.  We hung out there at a picnic table for a while as Cindy ate her piece of banana bread.  I'm not big on bananas, but it did smell pretty good. 

Back on the Road to Hana, we tried to make mental notes of places we wanted to stop at on our way back up the road on our return trip.  The picture below was one of those places - a beautiful vista of a valley stretching out to the ocean.  Dense green vegetation on the hillsides hid the fact that Maui was experiencing their worst drought in 30 years. 

We finally made it to Hana just before noon - almost three hours after we first got onto the Road to Hana.  We decided to go down the road even further to visit the Seven Sacred Pools in O'heo Gulch, about 10 miles past Hana.  These pools are situated in the Haleakala National Park and are said to be one of the most beautiful places on the island.  Actually, there's way more than seven pools as the gulch, itself, runs about two miles up into the mountains.  There's a hiking trail and some great lookouts, but the main pools are located close to the shore. 

As we got about four miles outside of Hana, we found this little place where an elderly Hawaiian native lady was selling some homemade jewelry and offered free restrooms to tourists along the road.  My wife is sort of like a five-year-old when we travel and it seems that she has to pee every 45 minutes.  But we've been together for so long now that it's normal for me to just ask her when I see a sign along the way that says, "Public Restroom".   

I'm kinda glad we stopped because she had a wonderful flower garden full of yellow hibiscus.  We've got a couple of hibiscus plants back home, but they certainly don't bloom like the ones did in this lady's yard. 

As Cindy was using the bathroom, I was sort of looking around the porch area of this lady's house.  On the outside wall of her house were two framed autographed pictures of Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre.  He was pictured in his New York Yankees uniform back when he was managing that team.  I said, "Huh!  Joe Torre!"

The lady said, "Oh, yes, Mr. Torre has a home not far from here.  He comes out here often and he comes to visit when he's here.  A very nice man." 

I noticed she was selling packages of macadamia nuts from Naborly Farms - a nut farm near Hana owned by entertainer/actor Jim Nabors.  The lady told us, "Oh, yes, Mr. Jim Nabors owns 100 acres near here.  He lives on Oahu, but comes here about once a month.  A very nice man."   (She thought everyone was a very nice man.) 

We didn't buy any because we had already sent three or four cases of Mauna Loa macadamia nuts in cans back to Iowa.  They were addicting. 

  

Along the side of the parking area of this lady's place were these trees with orange flowers.  Now, I'd noticed these trees when we were on the Big Island.  They were actually sort of beautiful with these big flowers, sometimes in abundance on the trees.  We asked the lady what kind of trees they were.  She said, "They're African Tulip trees."

Cindy said, "Oh, they're just beautiful!"

The lady said, "We don't like 'em here.  They're an invasive species.  And they're messy.  When they drop the petals, they get all over the place.  We try to take 'em out if we can." 

Oh! OK.  But they were still my favorite tree to see while we were in Hawaii.

We told the lady we were going to the Seven Sacred Pools and she said, "Well, a lot of the pools are dried up and have very little water in them.  It's the first time in 30 years that the pools are running dry.  You can go on over, but it's not as nice as when the pools are full."  Cindy and I decided to skip driving the remaining distance and decided to head back toward Hana. 

  

We ventured back toward Hana and decided to take a side road that went a little closer to the ocean.  We came across this beach - Koki Beach - that was situated in the midst of a rocky cove.  The wind was just howling and the waves were crashing on the large rocks located just off shore.  It was sort of beautiful and surreal at the same time.  A group of young European 20-somethings were there and I helped them out by taking their picture near a solitary Hawaiian flag with a small dormant volcano in the background.  Quite honestly, I don't know why anyone would want to surf at this spot.

Koki Beach is just down from Hamoa Beach - one of the most pristine beaches on Maui.  Author James Michener wrote about Hamoa Beach, "Paradoxically, the only beach I have ever seen that looks like the South Pacific was in the North Pacific. Hamoa Beach on Maui Island in Hawai'i; a beach so perfectly formed that I wonder at its comparative obscurity."  And, of course, we missed going there.  There is no parking at Hamoa Beach and the only access is down some steps from the road.  We honestly didn't know it was there until we got back home. 

We got back into Hana and drove around.  There's really not much to the town - a school, a couple three churches, a couple restaurants.  That's about it.  There are about 700 people who live in Hana and it is one of the last undeveloped areas in Hawaii.  And that's probably because of the long and treacherous road to the place.  There is a small commuter airport that gets people in and out of the area, but the flights are few and far between. 

At one point in time in the early 20th Century, Hana was a bustling little town with as many as 3500 residents.  They used to have a couple movie theaters, a number of restaurants and other places for people to go.  Population began to drop off after World War II and the sugar plantations began to close.  Many people moved to the other side of the island to work on sugar plantations there. 

One of the more obscure facts about Hana is that famed aviator Charles Lindbergh spent his final years living near there before he passed away in 1974.  Lindbergh is buried in a church cemetery near Hana along with his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. 

There is a nice little harbor around Hana Bay that we drove out to.  There was a pier along with a black sand beach that wrapped around the south side of the bay.  Just past the pier is a rocky point where people snorkel along the reefs.  Given that Hana is on the windy and rainy side of Maui, I can't see where there would be all that many opportunities to enjoy the bay. 

   One of the more famous places to visit in Hana is the Hasegawa General Store.  The store celebrates its 100th year of being run by the Hasegawa family and has survived natural disasters and a huge fire that burned down the original building a little over 10 years ago.   The Hasegawa family moved the general store into one of the towns long-closed movie theaters as a temporary location, but never ended up moving after that.  The Hasegawa General Store has just about one of everything - food, dairy, produce, snacks, shirts, dresses, movie rentals, make-up, first aid kits, hardware, CD's - you name it, they probably have it.  The aisles are narrow and some of the things on the shelf are dusty, but it's a quaint throwback to simpler times where all you have is the general store to take care of the needs of the local residents.  But I will say nothing was cheap in the place.  Milk was $8.79 a gallon, a can of soup was $2.39.  I bought a shirt for $22.00.  Cindy bought some snacks that weren't overly cheap.  But as we found out everywhere we went in Hawaii, nothing was cheap. 

We took off from Hana around 1:30 and began to make our way up the road again.  We took our time to stop at some of the scenic turnouts which were on our right on the way back up the road from Hana and easier to get to than on the way down.  This is one little cove that had a steep rocky lane down to a pristine beach that I was chicken to try.  We saw people down along the shore and knew they had to get down there somehow, but I'm guessing it was by jeep or four-wheel drive.  I didn't think our rental car would be able to make it and I didn't feel like seeing if it could. 

But there were numerous little turnouts that afforded some pretty beautiful views of the coastline and the ocean beyond.  The weather began to get a little better as we drove up the coast from Hana and by the time we got about 10 to 15 miles north of town (which is about 17 to 25 miles of driving on the road), the clouds were beginning to break and the warm sun was coming through. 

Parts of the Road to Hana tunneled through large forests of bamboo trees that hung next to and up over the roadway.  At some points of the drive because of the cloudy conditions and heavy vegetation, you almost needed to use your headlights to make sure oncoming traffic would see you.  Cindy was overly amazed at the amount of bamboo trees that were all over the place.  The bark on bamboo would be a variety of colors from deep green to yellow to red to brown.  We tried to get some pictures from the car a couple times, but they just didn't turn out.  And with a lot of cars behind us, we just couldn't stop and take a picture of the colorful bamboo stalks. 

  
As we finally got off the twisting Road to Hana and back on the Hana Highway, it was good to be able to drive more than 20 miles an hour again.  Driving 55 almost seemed to fast.  But it was certainly good to not be hitting the brakes and making blind hairpin turns at the crest of a hill along side a steep incline down a mountain to the ocean.  As we drove along for a bit, we came across Hookipa Beach Park which is internationally known as possibly the best place in the world to kite surf.  The wind is blowing in nearly everyday at gale force strength and the waves are huge.  Word has it that kite surfing originated on the north shore of Maui and kite surfers from all over the world converge on Hookipa Beach to surf the big waves.  Along with kite surfers, the surf off Hookipa Beach had a handful of windsurfers and traditional surfers.  Cindy and I are mesmerized watching surfers where ever we go.  I think we stood there for nearly an hour just decompressing from the stressful drive we had to and from Hana earlier in the day. 

Yes, the Road to Hana is stressful, but the beautiful scenery along the way outweighed the difficulty of the drive.  I've talked to people who have made the drive to Hana as we did and the consensus is, "I'm glad we went, but if we go back to Maui we won't do it again."  I have to agree with that.  It was a beautiful drive and we had been warned in guide books and by the locals that the Road to Hana was a tedious and treacherous drive.   Even Cindy was wrung out and declared she could use a drink by the time we got to the restaurant that evening.  Still, it's one of those things one should do at least once on a trip to Maui.

 

 

Whale Watching - Maui

Quite possibly Cindy's number one priority while in Hawaii was a chance to take a boat ride out into the Pacific to view the humpback whales up close.  There's no shortage of charter services on the islands that will take whale watchers out to see humpback whales leisurely roll, jump or frolic in the waters.  We had a chance to go while we were on the Big Island, but were told by some of the locals that the best whale watching was just off the west coast of Maui.  Since we were going to be there the next week, it worked out for the best.  It turns out that the height of the whale watching season is in February and March - the exact time we'd be in Hawaii. 

Each year, hundreds of humpback whales begin to migrate in November from just off the Alaskan coast to the Hawaiian Islands to give birth and raise their young calves, or to breed again.  During this time, the whales don't eat - they lose as much as 50% of their body weight in the winter time, going back in April and May to the fertile waters of the north Pacific.  One of the things we found out while we were in Hawaii is that the more blue and clear the water, the less amount of nutrients are present in the water to sustain large schools of fish.  

Female humpback whales are usually slightly bigger than males and when they give birth to their calves, they guard them against any interloping males who may want to kill the young whales during the winter courting season.  Calves will stay close to their mother who feeds them milk that is 50% fat and is pink in color.  Calves will grow quickly and the mothers will nurse them for about six months.  After about a year, the young whales generally go off from their mothers and the life-cycle will continue for the mother who will breed in the waters off the Hawaiian coast.

The courting process is a part of the whale's ritual while swimming around the Hawaiian Islands.  As many as 15 to 20 males will vie for the affection of a single female humpback.  Sometimes the competition between the "escorts" can be fierce with a combination of breaching (when a whale comes completely out of the water), tail or fin slapping, and charging other males to establish a dominance in the group.  

Along with the posturing that males exhibit during the courtship process, the whale's song is a large part of the annual ritual.  Only males make the the song which is a combination of varying air pressure exerted through the whale's nasal cavity.  Underwater microphones - hydrophones - can easily capture the singing of a handful of whales in the immediate area.  The interesting thing is that all whale songs are the same.  However, one whale may begin a different intonation of the same song and other whales will follow suit. 

Each whale has a distinctive tail - or fluke.  It's like the whale's fingerprint, if you will.   Marine biologists in Hawaii have taken thousands of pictures of whales flukes over the years and compare them to check to see if the same whales come back to the Hawaiian waters each winter.  I understand that many of them do. 

As I said earlier, we had a number of different whale watching charters to choose from when we were on Maui.  In talking to the bartender at the Bistro Molokini at the Grand Wailea, she told us the most popular one - Pacific Whale Foundation - was generally a large boat stuffed with as many people as possible, including a lot of kids at times.  She said, "You want to go with the smaller charters.  Yeah, they're more expensive, but you can move about the boat a lot more easily.  And you don't have to deal with the screaming and whiny kids."  She gave us the name of a guy who did the smaller charters and she told us to use her name when we talked to him.  

We considered doing that until we got to talking to some other people who had done the Pacific Whale Foundation's charter.  Cindy didn't feel comfortable calling someone up and scheduling a charter.  We decided to go ahead and make reservations for a morning charter on one of the Pacific Whale Foundation's boats that were based out of a harbor in Ma'alaea.  The price of the charter was $28.75 per person.  We found out later that many smaller charters would be twice or more the amount we paid.  Cindy also felt, the bigger the boat, the better.  

It was a cool morning when we set out for the Ma'alaea harbor.  20 minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot near where the Pacific Whale Foundation's boats waited to take people out to see the whales up close.  The process was a little confusing for us - we'd paid on line for the charter and there was a boat that was loading passengers when we showed up.  We went up to one of the PWF's people who was checking tickets and he told us that we needed to go across the street to the foundation's store to check in and they'd give us our tickets. (see map) 

The Pacific Whale Foundation is a non-profit organization that has studied humpback whales for nearly 30 years.  Their charter tours are conducted by two naturalists who give a running commentary of the whale's habits and rituals during the two hour cruise.  The PWF also has charters to take people to see schools of dolphins and also have boats that go out to the Molokini crater for snorkeling excursions.   

After getting checked in and getting our tickets, we had about a 20 minute wait until a guide came to gather the group of about 60 people - people of all ages - in the courtyard in front of the store.  She gave a quick talk about the foundation, their mission and what to expect on the tour.  After that, we walked back over to the harbor across the road.  Turned out that we could have left our car at the lot at the harbor marina instead of driving it over to the lot in the strip mall where the foundation's store was located.  

The person conducting the tour was Patrick, who said he has been studying whales for about 11 years; and the captain of the boat - Captain Timmy - had been in Hawaii for about 13 years, but had been piloting boat charters for about 20 years.  Both of them looked like they were in their mid-30's.  And both were pretty good guys.

Cindy and I found a spot in the upper deck of the boat - a catamaran-style boat that was pretty stable, even in rough waters.  We were very fortunate that morning because all week long while we were in Maui, the wind howled.  But for some reason, the ocean was calm and the winds were very light when we went out that morning.  We noticed later in the day the wind had picked back up and the sea had turned choppy, even in the bays around the island.  

 

 

As we were leaving the harbor, Patrick asked the people on the boat for a show of hands of people who were on a whale watching tour for the first time.  The majority of people put their hands up.  He asked to see the hands of people who had gone on a tour between two and five times.  A few hands went up.  He then asked to see the hands of people who had gone on the tour over five times.  A few more hands went up.  He finally asked if there was anyone who had been on a tour more than 10 times.  About six or seven hands shot up, including a lady seated next to us.  She said, "I think this is my 20th-something time I've been out on a charter to see the whales.  Honestly, I've lost count."   

We got off shore by about a mile and Captain Timmy started to steer toward a group of whales that he spotted off in the distance.  By law, a boat cannot come within 100 yards of a whale.  That's not to say that they haven't been surprised by an occasional whale that somewhat sidles up to the side of the boat.  Patrick told us that sometimes a female with a calf will use the boat as a barrier between her and an aggressive male "escort".  I asked Captain Timmy if he'd ever been bumped by a whale.  "Oh, yeah," he shot back.  I asked him what it felt like and he said, "It feels like getting bumped by a 60 ton whale.  It can be a jolt and it can scare the heck out of some folks."  

 
 
Now, we just got a new Panasonic camera before we went on vacation.  It has more pixels than the older Panasonic we had and was more compact for easier storage and carrying around.  I was manning that camera and Cindy had her little "point and shoot" camera.  The biggest mistake I made with the new Panasonic camera was that I did not activate the "rapid fire" feature that would take up to seven pictures with the click of the button.  Of course, Cindy was on the ball and had that feature activated on her camera.  She would take six or seven pictures of a whale breaching - the process when the whale shoots straight up out of the water.  Five of the pictures might be blurry, but one would be perfect.  But she did get this pretty spectacular breach shown above.  I know I missed some great shots without having that feature activated.  

Nonetheless, we did manage to get some excellent pictures of whales cavorting around us.  At one point, a whale breached not more than 40 yards off the port bough of the boat.  Patrick and Captain Timmy both went "WHOA!!!" when it did that.  I was late on the switch to get a good picture, looking off in another direction when I caught the breach out of the corner of my eye.  The sound of the upper body of the whale hitting the water sounded like the most intense "cannon-ball" dive I'd ever heard.  It was way cool.  The same whale did about four or five more breaches and each time I was late on the switch, but I was able to at the very least get this shot of him. 

About halfway through the charter tour, Patrick and Captain Timmy spied what appeared to be two calves swimming with a mother.  I don't know if they were naturally astounded by this, or putting on a show for the tourists, but they were both excited to see that.  Apparently, female whales will give birth to twins, but it's a very rare event.  However, with the fortunate sighting of two calves with a mother came the revelation that one of the calves was doomed.  Patrick said, "The mother doesn't have enough milk to feed both calves, so she'll pick the one that she wants to live and let the other one die off."  

When asked how long the doomed calf would be able to sustain, he said, "Boy, maybe a month at the most."  He said it could also be that the second calf could have come from another mother who abandoned it or possibly died in the process.  "Either way," he said, "it's not going to make it for very long."  

There was certainly a lot of activity that morning.  Once again, I couldn't tell if the enthusiasm both Patrick and Captain Timmy showed was sincere or if it was a show for the tourists to entice them to come out on the boat again.  But they were excited for the amount of sightings we had as we cruised around the bay just off Ma'alaea and Kihei.  And for a novice first-timer like me, it was pretty impressive.  Seriously, after a while, I was sort of getting bored by the whole thing.  Cindy, though, thoroughly dug the experience.  "I didn't want to go back in (to port)," she told me afterward.  

 

For our first excursion to see humpback whales I was pretty impressed.  It was a pretty fun experience going on the Pacific Whale Foundation boat.  I'm glad we went in the morning when it was more calm.   And while there was a screaming kid on the boat, he settled down when we got out in to the bay, so it wasn't all that bad.   It was money well spent on a tour that was not only exciting, but I certainly learned a lot more about the nature of humpback whales.  It's a must-do if you go to Hawaii in the late winter months. 
  

  
     

Isana - Kihei, HI

On the recommendation of our bartender at the Bistro Molokini at the Grand Wailea, we had sushi at Isana on our first night on Maui.  We had told her that we were thinking about going to the Sansei location up the way in Kihei.  She told us, "Sansei is very good, but I sort of like the atmosphere at Isana better.  And for me, it's difficult to choose between the two as to which has better sushi.  They're both very good."  So it was off to Isana that evening.

Isana bills itself as the largest Korean restaurant on Maui.  Hmmm...  A Korean restaurant that serves sushi?  I guess I didn't know that sushi was served in Korea.  But, then again, I don't make it to Korean restaurants all that much, as in ever.  So what did I know?  Our bartender did tell us that Isana was a little more funky in its decor.  "Sansei is definitely upscale compared to Isana, but it has a great funky vibe to the place." 

We found Isana on South Kihei Road (see map) and walked in around 7:30.  We went to the small sushi bar and took the last two seats that were open.  Cindy ordered up a green tea right off the bat and I got a large bottle of Sapporo.  That was a good sign - they had Japanese beer.  Our waitress offered us a regular menu, but we declined and looked over the sushi menu.  In addition to sushi and traditional Korean food, Isana also has a Korean Barbecue menu.

We immediately ordered a couple of spicy tuna roll to get things started.  The bartender at the Grand Wailea was right - Isana had a funky kind of vibe to the place.  There were a lot of neon signs throughout the place.  There was a second floor to the restaurant and on the landing heading up to the upper floor there was a wall-mounted carving of two humpback whales.  I don't believe anyone was dining upstairs that evening as it looked pretty dark up there.  

By the time the spicy tuna rolls showed up, we were ready to order up regular sushi.  We tried their maguro (tuna), hamachi (yellow tail), shake (salmon), shiromi (red snapper) and both ebi (sushi) and amaebi (sweet shrimp).  I asked our sushi chef if they had any smoked salmon and he gruffly said, "Only fresh fish."  Oh, OK.  That's fine with me.   

The area around the sushi bar was rather festive with a lot of laughing and drinking going on.  We were having a good time and I was getting a little plowed on the Sapporo.  I only had two, but I think the effects of the mai tais and the previous beers I had back at the hotel, along with the lack of any substantive food since breakfast was starting to get the best of me.  When our large tray of sushi showed up, I was ready to quit drinking and start eating. 

And the sushi was very good, as advertised.  I was very impressed with the maguro tuna, so much that I ordered four more pieces along with four more of the shake salmon.  The tuna was very fresh and it melted in our mouths.  The red snapper was OK, but the yellow tail had great flavor to it and was easy to chew.  The sweet shrimp was not as good as the regular shrimp.  The waitress kept checking on us for drinks and the sushi chef was pleasant enough when we were eating to see how we were doing. 

 

 

Isana was a little expensive - total cost of the sushi and drinks were well over $100 bucks.  I thought it to be a little higher priced than Sansei, but the quality of the food was on par.  I don't know if the tuna at Isana was as good as Sansei, and I was a little disappointed they didn't have smoked salmon, but sushi purists point out that sushi should be fresh fish only.  So Isana was more of a purists type of place.  

A few days later, we saw the bartender at the Bistro Molokini back at the hotel and thanked her for steering us toward Isana.  She said, "It is a funky place, but it has some great sushi, doesn't it?"

It sure does... 

</

Stella Blues Cafe - Kihei, HI

On our first full day on Maui, we ventured out into the Kihei area just north of our hotel.  We decided to go to breakfast at a place one of the valet guys at the Grand Wailea suggested - Stella Blues Cafe.  Being a pretty popular place, it showed up as a pre-programmed destination for food on my Garmin GPS.  I hit a couple buttons on the screen and we were soon headed in that direction.

Stella Blues Cafe is the brainchild of Ray Enis and his wife, Janie.  In 1986, the Enis' opened the first bagel shop on Maui.  Bagels at that time were about as foriegn to the Hawaiian Islands as poi would be to a New Yorker.  They gave away hundreds of bagels initially just to get the locals to try them.  After bagels caught on, their bagel shop had great business.

Ray and Janie sold their business in 1990 and traveled to Thailand to experience life in that country.  After about a year in Thailand, they moved back to Maui and decided to open another restaurant, this time with a Grateful Dead-theme to it.  Ray named the place after his favorite Grateful Dead song, "Stella Blue".

 

 

 

 

The place was an immediate hit in a culture where breakfast and home-cooked meals were big.  The small restaurant could only accommodate about 40 people and the wait was sometimes about 45 minutes to an hour.  In 1998, the Enis' moved across the street to a new location in the Azeka Mauka strip mall that effectively gave them an additional 250 seats.  The decorated the place with Grateful Dead memorabilia and continued to stress that "laid back" feel to the place.  Daily operations are handled by Ray Enis' son, Kyle Boverman.   

It was around 9:30 when we got into Stella Blues.  It's sort of tucked back in a corner of a strip mall with ample parking out front (see map).  We had our choice of eating inside the main dining room, or outside on the patio.  We decided to do the outside seating. 

 

 

It was really a no-brainer.  It was a beautiful morning.  The early morning Maui sun was beating down, so we sat at a table that had a large umbrella near an area that had a retractable awning that would allow people to sit there even in the rain.  The patio area was spacious and comfortable with metal grated tables and chairs.  The patio epitomized Stella Blues laid-back feel.

Looking over the breakfast menu at Stella Blues Cafe, their selection wasn't overly large, but it was pretty impressive.  They also had a special that day - a fruit crepe that featured a variety of berries topped with homemade whipped cream.  That's what Cindy ordered along with a half-stack of Stella Blues' pancakes.  "Just to try them out," she said.  She knew I'd help her eat them.

I was torn between a lot of things on the menu.  It was down to getting a sausage, mushroom and cheese omelet or their French toast.  The French toast is Maui sweet bread dipped in a vanilla and cinnamon egg batter, then grilled to a golden brown.  I couldn't resist.  I went with the French toast with a side of bacon.

They were pretty busy at Stella Blues and service was a little slow.  It took us about 10 minutes before our waitress came back to take our order after she brought coffee for Cindy.  It was another 25 minutes - easy - before our food showed up.   But the wait was well worth it. 

The French toast featured 3 thick slices of bread and I had my choice of maple syrup or lilikoi.  I alternated using both types of syrup.  There's just something magical about lilikoi syrup. 

Cindy's crepe with the variety of berries was big.  The pancakes weren't going to get close to half-way eaten.  But she said the crepe was very good.  I took a couple bites of the pancake with some lilikoi syrup on them.  They were a little thick for my taste, but they were still pretty good. 

There was no-way we could finish everything.  I still had about half of my French toast, well over half of the 1/2 stack of pancakes and Cindy had a lot of her crepe left.  Our waitress came around and asked if we wanted anything boxed up.  We declined, although we could have eaten what we had left over for breakfast the next morning.  But there was no way we could warm everything up being in a hotel room with no oven or even a microwave.  Plus, we just knew it wouldn't taste as good reheated.

We liked Stella Blues Cafe a lot.  The food was good and overly plentiful.  The restaurant also features a varied dinner menu and live music on Friday and Saturday nights which features a four-course meal with the show.  We were tempted to go back, but with all the various dining options in the area, we just didn't do it.  Still, Stella Blues was one of the better meals we had on Maui.   It got two thumbs up from Cindy and me.    

Grand Wailea - Wailea, HI

During our stay on Maui, we stayed at the Grand Wailea resort in the Wailea-Makena area on the southwest side of the island (see map).  This place was, by far, the nicest place we've ever stayed at.  And the prices at the hotel reflected how ritzy the place was.  The room we stayed in went for $699 a night, a beer at any one of the bars on the property was $7.00, and breakfast at the hotel's breakfast buffet was $36.95 per person.  As I've said before, the only way we would have been able to pull off staying at a place like this was because of using Hilton Honors points.  And it took me something like 480,000 points to stay there compared to about 250,000 points to stay for the same amount of nights at the Hilton Waikoloa Village on the Big Island of Hawaii. 

Our flight to Maui was overly pleasant as we took Hawaiian Airlines, named by the Airline Quality Rating report as having the best performance of 18 airlines something like four out of the last five years.   We flew three legs on Hawaiian Airlines during our trip to Hawaii and each time was one of the most pleasurable flying experiences I've ever had.  I just wish mainline airlines would have as comfortable seats, as efficient boarding processes and as pleasant personnel as we experienced with Hawaiian Airlines. 

As we got into Maui's Kahului Airport, our bags were literally waiting for us at the baggage carousel.  We walked out to the rental car area and the bus to take us to the Hertz counter was waiting for us.  Two minutes later we were on our way to Hertz and two minutes after that we pulled into the Hertz lot.  I went into the building, went to the Gold Member line and they had my paperwork ready to go.  I signed the contract, gave them my credit card (we'd already pre-paid last fall to get a good deal), and they pointed to where the car was.  We went out, loaded the bags and took off.  It was a lot better than our experience when we landed on the Big Island a few nights before.  Within 25 minutes of walking off our plane, we were on our way to the hotel.

It's about a 20 minute drive from the airport to the Grand Wailea.  As we arrived at the hotel's valet stand, a young Hawaiian girl welcomed our arrival and placed a lei of flowers around Cindy's neck and she placed a lei of banana leaves around mine.  Actually, I sort of wanted the flower lei.  I'd never seen a banana leaf lei before. 

The Grand Wailea first opened in 2003.  And like the Hilton Waikoloa Village, the Grand Wailea used to be a Hyatt property until about five years ago.  Hilton signed a 30 year management agreement for the resort in the summer of 2006 and turned it into one of their high-end Waldorf-Astoria Collection properties.   Even with the downturn in the tourism economy in Hawaii, I heard the Grand Wailea was actually looking to expand.  But I understand that Morgan Stanley investment company owns the resort and the property is pledged as collateral against a $1 billion dollar loan that is due in 2011.   The investment firm is trying to negotiate a new loan agreement, but if it does default on the loan it appears that Hilton may be waiting in the wings to take over ownership. 

We entered the spacious and open air lobby area of the Grand Wailea and went to the desk to check in.  The lady at the desk said that we were in a courtyard-view room.  I asked if we could get an upgrade to a top floor ocean view room.  She said that wouldn't be a problem.  Since I booked the room last fall with my Hilton points, I knew there would be an upgrade charge above the free rooms we were going to get.  I asked the lady, "How much is it a night for the upgrade?"

She said, "It's $38 dollars a night, but I'm not going to charge you for the upgrade as you're a Hilton Diamond member."

(It was supposed to be a $25 a night upgrade for our room at the Hilton Waikoloa Village.  I thought they had charged me for the nights we stayed there, but a quick perusal of our bill showed that they did not.  Hilton Diamond members are eligible for free upgrades at most Hilton properties, even when you're using points to get free rooms.)

The only problem is that the room they had for us had two queen beds instead of one king bed as we requested.  Cindy asked, "Is it possible that we can have that room for one night, but then move us to another room with a king bed for the rest of our stay?"

The lady didn't hesitate and said, "Sure!  We can do that!"

And they did.  We spent the first night in a room with two queen beds and then the next day they moved us 10 doors down to a room with a similar view of the ocean and a king bed.  Actually, the bathroom in the king bed room was nicer than the one in the one with the double queens.  And with just one bed, it was much more roomy than the other one.  We had some great views of the sunset each and every evening we were on Maui.  The one to the right is no exception.

This is the view when we'd walk out our door looking to the east.  There were a number of condos and houses on the hillside surrounding the Wailea Old Blue golf course.  What is known as the Maui Upcountry is in the background.  There were also some spectacular moon rises over the ridge on the first couple three evenings were were there. 

The Grand Wailea has a number of restaurants on the property, but we found all of them to be somewhat pricey.  As we became acquainted with the property with a little walkabout after we got settled in, we stopped off at the Bistro Molokini for a couple mai tais and something light to eat since we hadn't had lunch that day.  They had a wonderful seared ahi tuna appetizer that we devoured and then ordered another one because it was so damn good. 

We were talking with one of the bartenders and looking out over the ocean to one of the Hawaiian islands that was off in the distance.  She said, "That island over there is Kahoolawe.  That's the island in the chain that the government used for target practice during World War II."  She was telling us that a group of people got the government to pay for clean-up of old shells and unexploded ordnances back in the 90's in a movement to eventually have Kahoolawe become a natural wildlife park.  "But they've only cleaned up about 40 percent of the island before they ran out of money earmarked for the project," she said.

She pointed at a littler island just off of Kahoolawe.  "And that's Molokini - that's what this place is named after." Molokini (right) is a small crescent-shaped dormant volcano that is partially submerged.  It's a popular place for divers and snorklers. 

The island of Lanai was also easily visible to the northwest of the Grand Wailea.  The waters between Maui, Kahoolawe and Lanai were full of humpback whales that were easily visible from the deck from our top floor room.  Cindy spent her mornings sitting on the deck and watching the whales pop up from time to time in the early morning light. 

The Grand Wailea was situated right next to the ocean, but unlike the rocky shores that surrounded the Hilton Waikoloa Village there was a nice, sandy beach that abutted up to the property.  There was a public walkway between the beach and the hotel grounds and it was pretty busy with walkers and joggers.  We walked down to the south end of the walkway one morning and were nearly run over on a number of occasions.  It wasn't very wide.  Thankfully, they didn't let bikes on the trail.

The Grand Wailea also has a large spa - the Spa Grande - on the property.  It was voted one of the Top 10 spas in the U.S. by Conde Nast Traveler and a couple other travel magazines.  As spas go, it was pretty nice.  We decided to do a "spa day" - actually it was more of an afternoon.  They have "his" and "hers" parts of the spa, but both are about the same as far as amenities are concerned.  Cindy signed me up for a foot and scalp massage.  But part of the spa experience is that you get to use the hydrotherapy facilities for 60 minutes before you get your massage or spa treatment.  This included these five warm baths that featured a sea salt treatment, a eucalyptus bath, some sort of Hawaiian bath and a couple others that were designed to get the stress out of your body. 

You lay in these baths for up to 10 minutes (I only did about five minutes, each), then you got out and showered off.  They had conventional showers, or they had these jet showers that shot water out of the wall from different directions.  The first time my male appendage got smacked by one of those jets of water, I was out of there. 

The best shower was this three-inch wide spigot that was about 10 feet above a marble seat in a small bath.  Water just flowed out of this thing and you could sit on the slab and position the water on the back or your neck or back.  It was just fabulous.  I immediately wanted one for our home.  Quite honestly, it was the highlight of the spa for me. 

They also had a large Roman bath, a eucalyptus steam room, sauna, whirlpools, and hot and cold baths.  I sat in the hot bath for about five minutes, then got into the cold bath.  I got up to my knees before I said, "Screw this!  I didn't come to Hawaii to get cold!"  And it was cold - the water temp was easily 55 degrees, if not lower. 

So, after all that, an attendant - a male attendant, in my case - comes and gives you a skin exfoliation with an exfoliation sponge.  Now, I just thought it was a little weird they did that.  It sort of made me feel rather uneasy to have a man who wasn't a nurse sponging my body.  But he was a good guy and was making small chat with me to make me feel more at ease.  And he didn't sponge off my naughty bits, so that was good. 

I got a robe and went to this terrace to wait for my foot and scalp massage.  The terrace overlooks the grounds and pools of the property and has a nice view of the ocean, as well.  It wasn't long before my masseuse, Ursula, came to get me.

Ursula was a middle-aged blond, slightly built German woman who had trouble pronouncing "W's".  So I was "Vill" to her during the massage process.  I got all settled under a sheet and she came in and asked what I'd like to have done first, my feet or scalp.  Now, when I get a haircut and the girl shampoos my hair, I could just let her go on and on because there's nothing better than someone else shampooing your hair.  I figured that since I just got a pedicure before we came out to Hawaii - which included a foot massage - I'd go with the foot massage first and the scalp massage second. 

Ursula had some strong hands, I'm telling you.  That was, by far, the best foot massage I'd ever had.  I thought if the scalp massage was even half as good as the foot massage, I'd be overly satisfied. 

But it wasn't.  She just sort of "kneaded" my scalp.  She didn't get down to the surface and really massage the scalp with her finger nails.  I was telling DaMel Howard at Salon Luce in Davenport as I was getting a haircut after we got back, "Abby does a better job of massaging my scalp when she shampoos me than this lady did at the spa.  I should just flip Abby a twenty and a say, 'Keep this up for another 15 minutes, would ya?' "  I was highly disappointed in the scalp massage. 

After the massages, I was allowed to go back and use the hydrotherapy area of the spa.  I went back in and sat under the one of the big faucets, shown here on the right.  Oh man.  That was great.  I could have sat in there all afternoon, but Cindy was waiting for me.  I almost went back just for the hydrotherapy part of the spa.   

Much like the Hilton Waikoloa Village, the Grand Wailea had a number of paintings, sculptures and other artwork around the property.  This was one of their "artists in residence" working on a wood sculpture on the grounds.  But unlike the other hotel, the Grand Wailea didn't have a series of upscale stores and shops to buy things.  Oh, the property had some small shops and the like, but nothing on the scale of the what the Hilton Waikoloa Village had to offer.  However, the Shops at Wailea upscale shopping mall was located less than a 10 minute walk from the Grand Wailea.  We only discovered the place the day we were leaving. 

And like the Hilton Waikoloa Village, there were a number of Japanese tourists at the Grand Wailea.  Menus and signage were in both English and Japanese.  But there didn't seem to be as many - if any - gay couples that we saw; and the amount of kids at the Grand Wailea was not as many as what we encountered at the Hilton on the Big Island.  I'm guessing the cost of the hotel probably had something to do with that. 

We found that we got better information and recommendations on restaurants and what to do and see from the parking valets than we did with the concierges.   I thought the valets, in particular, were pretty strong with their insights as to the better places to go in the Kihei/Wailea/Makena area. 

I would have to say the only bad thing about our stay at the Grand Wailea was the wireless Internet connection.  When I could get on - and the signal wasn't all that strong to begin with - to check something out like a restaurant or an attraction, I usually got kicked off when the signal strength would drop.  And I will say once again the prices were pretty high at the place.  But other than that, the service we got from an overly accommodating staff, the beautiful rooms with the great views and a world-class spa helped make it an enjoyable stay at the Grand Wailea.  I'm going to have to save up for about four years just to be able to pull off another week long stay using Hilton points.

Contemporary Hawaiian Music

Spending a lot of time in the car as we did on both the Big Island of Hawaii and on Maui, we found a lot of different types of music can be found in Hawaii.  Most of it is traditional Hawaiian music - ukulele or slack-key guitar-based music with words in the native Hawaiian language.  But we did find one station - KLHI, also known as Native 92.5 - that introduced us to a new style of music that we certainly weren't familiar with - Contemporary Hawaiian.  I'm not talking about traditional Hawaiian music by Don Ho or by Israel "Iz" Kamakawiwoʻole, but new age Hawaiian by groups and artists such as Rebel Souljahz, Rushouze and Amy Hanailai'i Gilliom.   

FM radio stations don't cover as much ground as AM stations, mainly because their broadcast radius is determined by the height of the antenna and how much power they use to transmit.  Their signal is categorized as "line of sight", meaning that if you have clear access to the tower and the broadcast signal is strong enough, you should be able to get the station.  KLHI transmitted from a hillside on the southwest side of Maui, not far from where we stayed in Wailea.  We were able to pick it up pretty well on the Big Island, especially if we stayed on the northwest side of the island.  However, once we got up into the hills around Waimea the signal would rapidly diminish.  Even on the east side of Maui, we would have trouble getting the station in because of the high terrain between us and the station. 

We found ourselves sort of getting sucked in by this Hawaiian Contemporary Music that Native 92.5 played.  The musical stylings feature strong elements of reggae.  And they even had a name for this style of music - "Jawaiian" - because it closely resembled Jamaican music structures.   But in this style of music we also heard bits of soul, hip-hop, jazz and even Mexican Tejano.  There was a strong brass element in many of the songs with trumpets covering many background fills.  But the key to songs were the strong harmonies on nearly every tune.  Hawaiians have some great voices. 

The music was infectious, but not overpowering.  It was the type of music that you'd suddenly sort of start to bob your head to the beat.  We heard some religious songs, but not many.  We also heard some political songs, such as "The Warrior" by the Polynesian artist Fiji where he sang about the civil rights abuses that still exist in parts of that region on earth.  But for the most part, many of the songs were either original songs by Hawaiian artists, or reworked 70's and 80's soft-rock songs that were given a native Hawaiian signature.  A number of artists used the vocal effect known as "auto-effect" such as was used in Cher's 1990's hit, "Believe".  Native 92.5 would rotate 25 to 30 songs on a daily basis.  To see the current song list of what they're playing, click here.

Contemporary Hawaiian Music is relaxing and not taxing like some music can be.  Reggae can be sort of tedious and monotonous, but I didn't really find anything repetitive about "Jawaiian" music.   Some of the better artists we heard on Native 92.5 included The Green (formerly Next Generation), Sean Na'auao, B.U.B.Z., Ooklah the Moc and Inik (pronounced E-nick).  Of course, the station also featured true reggae artists such as Bob Marley, his son, Ziggy Marley, Third World and Jimmy Cliff.  They even played music from the innovative Jewish/Reggae artist Matisyahu.  There was really nothing better than cruising down a seaside highway with Native 92.5 cranked up in the car.  It brought the whole Hawaiian culture that much closer to what we were trying to experience.

You can get Native 92.5 on your computer and I suggest you give it a try.  Click on this link - Native 92.5 Listen Live - and it will take you to a front page.  If you have a high-speed connection, click on the 64K button.  If you don't have one already, you'll have to do a quick download of an Abacast plug-in player for you computer, but it's safe and quick.  It's worth the minimal effort to listen to some great music from the Hawaiian islands. 

There's not much that we could bring back from Hawaii that really helped capture the essence of what life out there was all about.  But closing my eyes and listening to Contemporary Hawaiian Music on Native 92.5 gives me that soothing sense of a Hawaiian lifestyle that we enjoyed for a couple weeks during our visit.

Maui

For the second part of our trip to Hawaii, we spent some time on Maui - the garden island.  The only problem is that much of Maui was brown and dry during our visit, primarily due to a strong El Nino pattern that had cut off most of the moisture the island depends upon to make it the lush tropical paradise it's been known to be.  Still, there were parts of the island that still had some intense tropical forests, some beautiful scenery and a more contemporary feel than the Big Island. 

The difference between the Maui and the Big Island is evident from the start as you land at Kahului Airport.  While the Kona Airport is more like a series of tropical huts, the Maui airport is modern and comfortable with jet bridges (compared to having to use stairs or ramps to get on and off planes at Kona), wide concourses and nice shops.   The area around the Maui airport is more urban (there's a Costco just past the entrance to the airport) than the Kona airport which is basically out in the middle of a lava field north of Kailua-Kona. 

With all that, there's also a lot more traffic on Maui.  That was sort of a pain at times, but it wasn't anything that we hadn't run into before.  We found Maui to be more touristy than the Big Island.  We spent some time in Lahaina and as a friend told me after we came back, "It's sort of like Estes Park, isn't it?"  Meaning, they had all these shops that catered to tourists - many of which sold t-shirts (like "I Survived the Tsunami - 2010), fake lei's and other schlocky overpriced items.  We spent about two hours in downtown Lahaina - and that was about an hour too long.  Easily, the Lahaina-Kaanapali resort area of Maui was the most touristy area we encountered during our visit to Hawaii.  The downtown area of Kailua-Kona rivaled Lahaina's downtown in terms of shops and restaurants that catered to tourists, but Lahaina was more blatant about it.

Our hotel was the Grand Wailea in Wailea-Makena on the southwest side of Maui.  Now, that place may have been the most fancy - and the most expensive - place we've ever stayed.  The hotel was on 40 acres of beach front property that had splendid views of the western hills of Maui, as well as the Hawaiian islands of Kahoolawe (including the crescent-shaped Molokini crater) and Lanai.  The ocean-view top floor room we stayed in normally went for $699 a night.  Like I've said before, if I didn't have the Hilton Honors points there was no way we would have been able to spend even a night at the Grand Wailea.  It was a beautiful place. 

We had some great meals, although I have to say that I thought the restaurants on the Big Island - overall - were better than the ones on Maui.  We took a day long road trip to Hana, we watched surfers try their luck on the huge waves on the north shore of Maui, and we went whale watching out in the Pacific just off the Maui coast. 

Before we made plans to go to Hawaii, we had talked to a number of people who had been there before.  We wanted to know what island would be the better place to go to - Maui or the Big Island of Hawaii.  We heard good things about both, so Cindy said, "Can't we go to both islands?"  After spending nearly a week on both islands, I really can't tell you which island I liked better.  Both had some interesting aspects that I liked, while both had a few things that I didn't like.  But the "likes" of both places easily outnumbered the "dislikes" of both places.  I could easily live on either island.  But I'd have to be making 10 times the amount of money that I do now just to be able to afford the Hawaiian lifestyle. 

But I will say that I think we didn't spend enough time on Maui.  There were places that we were discovering on our last day on the island.  I do think if we went back, I'd want to spend more time on Maui  

Hawaii

Cindy and I just returned from a nearly two week trip to Hawaii - the first time both of us had been to the Hawaiian Islands.  I had saved up years and years of American Airlines and Hilton Honors points that I'd accrued from being on the road for my work.  I have to thank my boss, Daniel, who allowed me to keep my points rather than turn them into the company as I've heard other companies will do with their employee's frequent flyer or frequent stay accounts.  But he feels it's a great perk for his guys who put in a lot of time on the road. 

Last summer, I got a letter from American Airlines that stated I'd lose over half my points if I didn't use them by October of 2010.  Cindy and I had always talked about going to Hawaii using my points, but we just didn't know when.  American Airlines forced my hand to make a decision for us to go sooner than later. 

We couldn't go last year as I'd used up my vacation time due to my hip replacements and our trip to Savannah and Hilton Head last May.  And the earliest I could get away from work for a vacation was going to be in late February.  Before we were able to book the trip, Cindy had to see if she could get a couple weeks off during late February and early March.  Her workplace was able to accommodate her request and I booked our flights and nights in Hawaii last fall. 

Travel to and from the islands was going to be brutal thanks to the schedules American provided us for free flights.  We had to leave the Quad City International Airport at 6:30 a.m. and we had to go through Dallas/Fort Worth to Los Angeles International then out to Kona's Keahole International Airport on the Big Island.  We had significant layovers in DFW and at LAX - a minimum of 3.5 hours at both airports - on the way out.  DFW is not a bad place for a layover, but the American Airlines terminal at LAX is a step above a Greyhound bus station. 

We got into Kona at 9:20 p.m., Hawaiian Standard Time - 1:20 a.m. Central Standard Time.  By the time we got our rental car and had to take a detour to our hotel - it was 52 miles of mainly mountainous roads instead of the flat, direct 17 miles for the detour due to a traffic accident that had closed the main road to our hotel -   it was 11:30 p.m.  By the time we got to our room thanks to a slow tram at our hotel, it was midnight.  That was 4 a.m. back home - or the same time we got up to start our journey to Hawaii the day before. 

Coming back was even more brutal.  We had taken Hawaiian Airlines up to Maui - a great airline, by the way.  I wish more airlines on the mainland worked with the same efficiency, accessibility and friendliness - as well as having great planes with a lot of room - as Hawaiian Airlines.  Coming back, we had to fly from Maui to Honolulu - endure a 35 minute layover - and then fly on to Kona.  We had to get our bags from Hawaiian and then truck them over to the American Airlines counter.  We had a little over a two hour layover at Kona before taking off after 11 p.m. local time (3 a.m. back home).  We got into LAX around 6 a.m. local time there and had a 7:05 a.m. flight to Chicago.  Our layover in Chicago was only supposed to be 90 minutes, but the pilot who was supposed to fly our plane to Moline called in sick.  So, we had to wait for 30 minutes PAST our scheduled departure time before a pilot showed up and flew us home.  From the time we left Maui to the time we unlocked our door, it was a shade over 18 hours.

We had gotten up at 6:30 local time the day (Saturday) we left (10:30 a.m. back home).  When we got to bed on Sunday night at 9:30 p.m. (5:30 p.m Hawaiian time).  My math isn't too good, but I figure I was up for 35 hours because I just don't sleep on planes.  And American Airlines planes are not comfortable whether they be for a short or a long haul.   After this trip, I won't be flying American all that much any longer.  I'm starting to accrue points on United now, primarily because they have more direct and convenient flights out of the Quad Cities than what American has.  And they've sort of turned into the lesser of all evils when it comes to air travel for me. 

In addition to the free flights and free rooms, we used some savings we'd built up and had a pretty good tax return this year.  It was the only way we were able to pull off the trip to Hawaii.  And it was probably the only way we could have done it, so we looked at this as a once in a lifetime trip.  If you've never been to Hawaii, here's a tip - make sure you have a shitload of cash or a lot of room on your credit card.  The place ain't cheap.   The cheapest price we found on a gallon of milk was $8.49.  The cheapest gas was $3.77 a gallon.  Beer was a minimum $8.99 a six pack - and that was for domestic American beers.  Cindy remarked more than once that she thought it was completely wrong that a gallon of milk was more expensive than a pack of cigarettes.  We're not smokers, but even we knew that $6.99 for a pack of cigarettes was pretty high. 

We went at a pretty good time.  We've had a brutal winter in Middle America.  I figured that if we went at the end of February, we'd be sick of winter (we were), and that the weather would moderate by the time we got back.  I wasn't too far off.  It was 18 degrees when we left and we had six to eight inches of snow on the ground.  When we got back, the majority of the snow had melted - save for the drift piles, snow in shaded areas and along fence rows - and the temps had been in the 30's and 40's while we were gone.  Temps later this week are supposed to reach close to or into the 50's.  So, the timing for weather was good. 

It was sunny to partly sunny nearly every day we were in Hawaii.  Temperatures ranged from the upper 70's to lower 80's, but they would drop into the low 60's if you went up in elevation.  The only rain we ran into was on the windward side of the islands on a couple of occasions.   We took the precaution to tan at a tanning salon for a couple weeks before we left, but we still needed sunscreen while in Hawaii because the sun is pretty much right overhead year round.  We burned a couple times, but aloe vera and skin lotion took the burn and the sting away pretty much overnight.  She's pretty fair-skinned, so it's actually the darkest Cindy has been since, well, probably since we've been together. 

About the only problem with the weather had to do with the wind.  A strong high pressure system sat north and east of the islands for a full week pushing some heavy winds on shore.  I thought high pressure systems were supposed to mean good and tranquil weather, but they must mean something else around Hawaii.  Although the temperatures stayed warm, the wind for the last full week we were in Hawaii blew from 15 to 25 miles an hour sustained primarily out of the northeast with gusts of as much as 50 miles an hour at times, especially overnight.  We were told that Hawaii is usually a breezy place, but even the natives were amazed at the prolonged strength of the wind. 

Also, in regard to timing, late February and early March is the prime time for Humpback Whale watching off the west coasts of the big island of Hawaii and Maui - the two islands we were going to visit.  We were able to see the whales from our hotel rooms and we took a two-hour excursion while we were on Maui to see the humpback whales up close. 

While on both Hawaii and Maui, we were able to take in a lot of the local culture and restaurants.  Everything from the seafood to fruit was so fresh that it we had some of the most memorable meals ever.  Cattle ranching is big on Hawaii and Maui, so the grass-fed beef was pretty good, too.  Breakfasts are big in Hawaii and we visited a number of spots that served some great morning food. 

We had rental cars on both islands - a Mustang convertible that had a 4-cylinder engine that was a real dog; and a Toyota Camry that Cindy was scared to ride in until I convinced her that Hertz was too big of a company to allow a car that hadn't been fully checked over for defects to leave their lots.  We drove over 660 miles on the Big Island and 399.9 miles on Maui (I checked the odometer when I turned in the car).  My idea of a vacation is to lounge around the pool or a beach reading a book.  But Cindy had read about all these great and beautiful drives on Hawaii and Maui that we had to check out.  The last thing a guy like me who drives for a living wants to do is drive during our vacations.  Sometimes the drives were out of necessity since our hotels were sort of out of the way, but more often than not it was for pleasure and exploring.  And we do like to explore while we're on vacation.

Hawaii, as a whole, is not without its problems.  Tourism is down significantly.  Tourism figures from 2009 vs. 2008 showed that people visiting the island was down 5% and those people who came spent 10% less money than the year before.  Believe me, we helped make up a good portion of that spending deficit. 

Hawaii is mired in an El Nino-induced drought.  We expected to see a lot of lush tropical plants and flowers along side fast running mountain-fed streams and waterfalls that filled huge pools of clear, cool water to jump into.  They just weren't there.  One resident on Maui told us that it's been the worst drought conditions in 30 years.  High fire danger signs were prevalent throughout both islands - even on the windward sides which usually have high rain totals.  On the leeward sides of the islands - the western sides of Hawaii and Maui - if it wasn't watered by an irrigation or sprinkling system, it was brown.  There were even leaves on some hardwood trees that were turning color like it was fall. 

Drug problems are heightened on the islands, as well.  We were told there is a large methamphetamine problem on the islands.  There were a lot of public service announcements on local radio and televisions stations which had teenaged kids talking about being hooked on meth at an early age and warning against starting at any age. 

And the days of "Maui Wowie" marijuana are over as the local and federal governments have enacted an aggressive campaign in finding and destroying marijuana fields on the island.  In fact, the state of Hawaii has a "zero tolerance" policy against people who grow marijuana on their property.  We heard of a tough story of a young mother who owned land on the north side of Maui who was arrested for having pot plants on her property.  She claims she didn't know they were there.  They were found by authorities in a heavily overgrown area on the edge of her property, completely inaccessible from her house.  However, there was a foot path on the back side of the property up from a dirt road that went to the marijuana patch, probably made by the people who planted the pot on the property.  She has three young kids, no history of trouble, no drug paraphernalia or even a hint of a holding area for the pot on her property.  However, we were told the state was trying to take away her property because the marijuana was growing on her land.  Evidently, a high-profile attorney has taken her case on a pro-bono basis. 

We fell in love with contemporary Hawaiian music, I fell in love with a new beer I found - Kona Brewing Company's Big Wave Golden Ale, and Cindy fell in love with the Hawaiian Springs brand of bottled water.  A lot of people will say water is water, but I have to admit that for some reason the Hawaiian Springs water had to be the best tasting bottled water I've ever had.  And we were introduced to Kalua pork - basically a pork shoulder that is wrapped in indigenous leaves and cooked at a slow pace over lava rock underneath the surface.  It was damn tasty.   

So, look for our reports of restaurants, scenic drives, destinations and other (what I think are) interesting details on our trip to Hawaii.  I'll be sure to fill you in on the circumstances of being evacuated from our hotel for a possible tsunami that was to possibly occur after the recent devastating earthquake in Chile.  That was sort of exciting and rather stupid at the same time.  We ate some great food, saw some great sights and enjoyed the hell out of Hawaii. 

Two things we DIDN'T do while we were in Hawaii -

1) We didn't go to a luau.  This was a bone of contention before Cindy and I left for Hawaii.  I had read about and heard about luau's from people who attended them in the past.  The overwhelming consensus was that luau's are sort of fun, but the food sucks.  And they're high-priced.  After mildly arguing with Cindy that I really didn't want to do a luau based on the reports I'd gathered, she finally called my two oldest sisters who have both been to Hawaii and been to luau's.  One sister said, "Oh, God, Will would hate it!"  The other sister said, "It's like going to the state fair and sitting at long tables with a bunch of people you don't know."  Cindy finally capitulated and we're glad we didn't go.

2) We didn't go visit the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island.   We were less than 30 miles away one day during a day trip, but it was getting later on and we didn't really have the proper footwear to go walk over the black lava.  When we got to talking to some people later on about going to see Mauna Loa, we were told that the lava flow was minimal and you could only really see it at night and that was only after a long hike.  Besides, most of the island of Hawaii is landscaped with black lava rock - especially around the resort we stayed at.  We were told that basically what we were looking at on and around the resort would be the same thing we'd have to drive about 90 miles to see - only with some pockets of sulfur-smelling "vog" emanating from fissures in the rocks. 

We liked Hawaii so much that we immediately said we'd like to go back at some point.  But unless we hit the lottery, or I find a job that pays a minimum of $250,000 a year, we won't be able to stay at the places we stayed at, nor eat at many of the places we did on this trip.  I like to tell people that everyone should be sentenced to visit Las Vegas for at least three days once in their life.  However, I will add that everyone who has the chance and the means to do it - go to Hawaii for at least a week.  It was just nani (Hawaiian for "beautiful").