Kauai!

Kauai!

I’m at 37,000 feet, halfway between Kauai and San Francisco, reflecting on another wonderful anniversary celebrated in the Islands!  We took a break from our usual destination of Maui, and decided to try the quieter isle this year.

Laura and I have a strong bias towards hotels that we characterize as the “National Hotel”.  The “National” is a hotel in South Beach Miami that has fabulous beach access, and while it is surrounded by the Delano Hotel and other “party late into the night” establishments, the National itself is quiet, romantic and relatively inexpensive.  On Kauai, we found our “National” in the form of the Koa Kea Hotel on Poipu beach.  The Koa Kea Hotel is quiet and romantic, without the rushing crowds of tourists, but with very nice rooms, inviting pools and excellent beach access.

A unique aspect of Kauai is that the dirt and everything that can get dirty are colored an intense rust red color from the high level of iron present in the soil.  Kauai is famous for its “Red Dirt Shirts” and its  red salt, which is sea salt colored by the local iron-rich soil.

While Hawaii in general isn’t a culinary mecca, Kauai probably has the least to offer if you don’t work hard to find the unusual.   Be forewarned!  If you pop in to a local diner or burger shack in Kauai, some of the folks here aren’t trying very hard to make good food.  We were zero for three on our attempts to find good food by randomly selecting local, interesting establishments.  The only safe bet on these menus appeared to be grilled Ahi sandwiches, which were competently executed most places.

Conveniently, the Red Salt restaurant located at the Koa Kea Hotel is one of the finer restaurants on the island, serving creative dishes that were executed flawlessly.  On the night we arrived, we enjoyed an Ahi poke arranged as a checkerboard of marinated Ahi and Snapper “squares” served over paper thin slices of cucumber.   We followed that with a salad of palm hearts and an entrée of Ono.  Remarkably, breakfast was as creative and tasty as dinner.   The soufflé pancakes with pineapple are a unique creation to Red Salt and tasted fabulous.  The Eggs Benedict, served over pancetta hash with chive hollandaise, qualifies as the best I’ve ever had.

On the north side of island is Hanalei Bay, of Puff the Magic Dragon fame.  We had hoped to sample some tapas at Bar Acuda, but sadly, our time at Hanalei was done before the 5:30pm opening time.  There are quite a few restaurants to explore at this end of the island during future trips.

The big win in local fare was a twenty something blonde running a street stand in Koloa Town, home of Hawaii’s first sugar plantation, with a banner announcing: “Monster Tacos with Homemade Tortillas”!  On a recommendation from another guest at the hotel, we tracked her down at the Friday night art fare in Hanapepe (home to Lilo & Stitch, by the way!) and ordered the fish tacos.  Our “recommender” from the hotel gushed about these tacos, and boy, was he right!  Cajun spiced Mahi-Mahi fish, piled onto a 9” homemade flour tortilla cooked before our very eyes, and then topped with cheese, shredded red cabbage, salsa fresca, tomatillo salsa, and the proprietor’s special “white cucumber sauce”.  Don’t miss this one – as of this writing, she is in Koloa Town on Weds-Sat, 11am-5pm, and in Hanapepe on Fridays 6pm-9pm.

The Hanapepe art fare is worthy of a stop (not just for the fish tacos), since there are twenty or so art galleries that stay open late and sell a wide variety of local art and crafts.  In addition to some local musicians and a few other street vendors, the turnout is at least fifty percent locals, making for an especially memorable evening.  And of course, this is a great opportunity to get a picture with “Stitch”!

Turning to the west, we explored the Waimea Canyon, but the only food there you have to shoot or hook yourself.  And then, according to the signs, you MUST go through the “Trout Check” station.  Huh?!  Not really our thing, but there was some great hiking and sightseeing.  On the way back thru Waimea we did a drive by of the Waimea Plantation Cottages, one of the hotels we had considered before settling on the Koa Kea.  Nice looking place, but the beach was rough and not suitable for hanging out.  But surprise – a brewpub on the premises!  While we both enjoyed our draft beers (a hoppy lager and a wheat beer), we did not enjoy the shrimp cocktail, Thai spring rolls, or the numerous flies at all.  We should have been amply warned by the “lunch special” of a “large hotdog with chili”.  Live, learn and keep driving.

We went for reputation on our next evening, and settled on Roy’s for dinner.  Roy Yamaguchi owns a chain of signature restaurants, including one on Maui, one in San Francisco, and I’m sure there are others. My fond recollection from a visit to Roy’s on Maui was repeated (and then some) during our visit to Roy’s at Poipu Beach.  We started with a tasty Ahi poke, marinated in smoked soy sauce.  That was followed by an Ono entrée for me, served perfectly cooked to medium rare.  The dish that made our evening was Laura’s entree, a filet of Alaskan Black Cod, marinated for three days in Miso, and then baked in a way that caramelized the outside of the fish, leaving the inside melt-in-your-mouth moist.   Although no dish could top the Cod on this night, we finished with a close runner up, the pineapple upside down cake decorated with pineapple and kiwi salsa.

No description of Kauai is complete without addressing the “chicken issue”.  There are more chickens wandering around the streets and alleys of Kauai than there are cows on the streets of Delhi!  These chickens are basically the equivalent of chipmunks at a campground: pests.  Turns out that during the 1992 hurricane, animals were generally set free to fend for themselves.  The chickens have “gone native” and now range free over the entire island.  According to one shopkeeper, “It’s the fault of the Filipinos who kept the roosters for fighting.  Against the law, you know!”  Regardless of fault, seems strange to let the Rooster become your state bird because of a hurricane.  Then again, I’m from Idaho where we have the “potato issue”…

While we had some minor complaint with the lack of a mid-day, poolside menu at the Koa Kea, the poolside bar helped make up for that deficiency and the hotel is otherwise a wonderful choice and we’d head back in a heartbeat.   And we’d definitely find those “Monster Tacos” again!

Chris