Dining in Kauai: Family Vacation

I think I told myself too many times that I need to indulge in food while on vacation this year. Sorry, did I say too many? I meant just enough times for the perfect vacation balance of just a hint too much ice cream everyday and glorious seafood (or should I say presidential?).

First up, some amazing pit...baked?...roasted?...cooked? yes, cooked, pig from a luau we went to. For half a second I considered, hm, maybe I shouldn't put this picture up first, or put a warning on it. But then I remembered my philosophy on food. If you can't handle knowing where it came from, then you shouldn't eat it. Things have to die and they sometimes die in unhappy ways to feed you. That aside, its a local pig (d'awww), so you can feel good about that wrt to your carbon footprint.

check out that pig. and those banana leaves soaking in pig juices. yum.

 For Christmas dinner, we went to Hukikau Lanai, restaurant on the eastern side of the island, literally less than 0.5 miles from one of the hotels we stayed at. It was definitely the best restaurant we ate at while in Kauai, for a very reasonable price given that everything is more expensive in Hawaii. They had a special Christmas menu going on, but I think most of the stuff we ordered probably shows up on their normal menu as well, like the nachos and delicious free bread!

Ahi Poke Nachos with fried wonton "chips"

Look at that bread. Just spend a good minute staring at it.

Mixed Grill Entree. Just a lot of delicious local seafood in a thai chili coconut sauce.

Macademia Nut Tart with Cinnamon Ice Cream for dessert!

Obviously, I did not just eat ice cream on Christmas. One of our favorite ice cream destinations on the island was a place called Lappert's, a Hawaiian ice cream chain. They had a huge variety of different "Hawaiian flavors" like Mauna Kea's Secret, Kauai Pie, Kona Coffee, Big Island Inspiration, Heavenly Hana ect ect. My favorite was Tutu's Anniversary, which was coconut ice cream mixed with raspberry and passion fruit sorbet. It was so delicious that on our last (5th!) trip to the place on our way to the airport, my siblings and I ALL got it (see image on the left below). Of course, the other classic tropical vacationing cold treat is shaved ice, seen in the image on the right below. It's surprising how delicious plain old ice and sugar syrups can be.

   

Maybe I'll look into a slideshow format for long picture posts like this in the future. But if you made it this far, here's some pictures of Kauai itself, not just its food. Bwahaha.