Taste of Hawaii Weekend

It's that time again! Time to sample dozens of dishes put out by some of the best restaurants and chefs around Kauai while meandering through a lush botanical garden at the annual Taste of Hawaii. I flew into Kauai on Friday night ready for a Sunday of delicious gluttony. Little did I know that my family was planning a barbeque on Saturday. And the way we do barbeques is to prepare more food than know what to do with, and then somehow make room on the table for the dishes our friends and relatives bring. So now my entire weekend became about eating and eating some more. No complaints here!



Happy Hour!

Saturday's feasting began at breakfast. My aunty and uncle flew in from Oahu that morning, so my parents and I picked them up at the airport and went to Danny's, a local spot where everyone knows my parents. Another uncle met us there so we had a nicely sized group. When it came time to decide on breakfast I was torn. I really wanted eggs but one of their specials was chocolate chip pancakes. Which one to get?? So I did the only sensible thing one can do in that situation and got both. A kalua pig omelet with hash browns and a side of chocolate chip pancakes. It was fantastic and I didn't let any of it go to waste.

Later that morning I asked my dad what time the barbeque started and he answered with, “happy hour starts at 4:30!” as he eyed a bottle of scotch. Sure enough, when 4:30 came along he was pouring himself a glass of Glenlivet 12 year...so naturally, I followed suit. Cheers!



Grilled Opihi and Chili Pepper Water

When the actual barbeque began we served up chicken, kalbi beef, three types of brats, some salads, and there was a Bloody Mary bar. I stuck to scotch. There were about a dozen of us, all family and friends, and one of the big food highlights was my mom's bag of freshly caught opihi. For those who don't know, an opihi is a limpet found on shoreline rocks. It's considered a real local treat. It's also the inspiration behind the name of our family's chocolate opihi. Now I'm not a big seafood fan, but my mom grilled them up with a splash of chili-pepper water so I figured I'd give it a try. Not sure how to describe it. It's not like a shrimp or an oyster, it's like an opihi. Kind of chewy with a definite taste of the sea. Wasn't my thing, it tasted too, umm...I don't know it just didn't jive with my palate.



Roasting Marshmallows

After dinner it was dessert time. Among our choices we had Coco Puffs from Liliha Bakery, homemade pistachio cake, and fresh lychee. I had some of each but I was most excited for roasted marshmallows and s'mores. Oh yeah, that's right! I saw a bag of jumbo sized marshmallows earlier in the day and decided that was going to be my dessert and I made sure we had everything needed to make s'mores too. We got graham crackers and my brother brought some chunks of chocolate from the shop, which my dad grated into chocolate shavings. Forget Hershey's we got the good stuff! Dang, those white fluffs of heaven roasted up perfectly over the grill, oozed over the cracker, melted the chocolate, and fit perfectly on my taste buds. So good. Afterward, I was thoroughly stuffed, and looking forward to having another feast the next day at the Taste of Hawaii.

Roasted Pig with Flat-Bread

We got to Smith's Tropical Garden on Sunday soon after the doors opened. We were greeted by live music and peacocks followed by dozens of food vendors. The crowd wasn't too bad and I commenced stuffing my face, one sample at a time. There were various steak dishes, seldom pork offerings, a couple chicken plates, lots of seafood, a few desserts, some salads, and plenty of drinks. I tried just about everything and even though I'm not a huge seafood fan I still sampled it...hey gotta at least try it out right?

Bacon wrapped scallop



My favorite dish of the day was a simple one: roasted pig served with a piece of flat-bread. The pig was tender, juicy, and flavorful and the flat-bread complimented in nicely. One of the more refreshing dishes was a kale salad. It had bits of tomato, pineapple, and bacon in it. Hey, bacon makes everything better. Of the seafood I sampled I liked the grilled shrimp with a chipotle sauce on top of some kind of polenta thing. There were also a couple vendors serving scallops. One was a simple pan fried scallop with corn on some kind of sauce. Wasn't all that great. When I came to the next scallop vendor I thought about skipping it until I noticed it was grilled and wrapped in bacon. That one was awesome! Bacon really does make everything better.



Kale Salad with Bacon

Of the desserts, a couple stood out. One was a bread pudding with whiskey sauce. If you know anything about me, you know that anything whiskey automatically gets bumped a few notches higher on my list. The bread pudding itself was pretty good and the whiskey sauce might as well have just been whiskey because that's what it tasted like...and there's nothing wrong with that at all. Then there was Kawaii Cupcakes (I like the name). FYI, Kawaii, which sounds just like Kauai, is Japanese for cute. They offered mini-cupcakes in five different flavors: red velvet, lychee, lilikoi, smores, and key lime. I tried all of them and the lychee was my favorite.

Thai Iced Tea

The drink options were plentiful. The beers were good but honestly, when is beer not good? The most refreshing spirited drink of the day goes to the sangria. As for non-spirited drinks, there was a nice Thai iced tea. The people at Nani Moon were offering mead, which got me excited. When I hear mead I think of a strong, honey-flavored drink had by the Vikings...totally awesome. However, their mead wasn't like that. It was mixed with other flavors and fruits and things. Although not a Viking drink, there still was really good.

 

All and all it was a delicious day. I only managed one lap around the event and I was thoroughly stuffed. I had no room for seconds of anything. What a great weekend! Food, family, more food, and even more food. Eating epically, it's good from time to time :)

 

 

Taste of Hawaii