Boots in the Oven

Guava Wine and Fish at Quinn's - Heading to Kona

I was totally sunburned after our walk under the bright sun to the petroglyphs.  Oops.  

Well, you know what goes with Hawaiian sunburn?

Hawaiian wine!

Luckily, there's a little winery just past Volcanoes National Park, on the Kona side.  Yay!  It's also the southernmost winery in the US.  So we stopped in. 

Honestly, I can't get all that excited about Volcano Winery's wines.  They are dealing with a lot of the same problems here that our Texas wineries have (well, not the frosts, exactly, but the heat), and are importing a lot of their juice from California.  Their guava wine is kind of fun, but pretty sweet.  Matter of fact, their wines generally reminded me of some of our Texas wines - lots of sweetness and fruit, not a lot of complexity.

A Marathon Saturday at Volcano National Park

This was a great day!  Petroglyphs, fresh fish, smoking craters, and SPAM!  Oh yeah, and guava wine!  

We started off, after I got my super-heavynormous suitcase into the car, with a crazy breakfast at Ken's.  Logan got this hilarious omelette, with snow crab and lup cheong and swiss cheese and green onions AND! Hollandaise!  Phew!  I got eggs and spam.  And hashbrowns.  

And both of our breakfasts came with a side of pancakes, with Ken's tasty tropical syrups.  Mixing the coconut with the lilikoi (passionfruit) was my favorite, though the guava was also good.  Ken's is just so solid, and tasty, and completely over-the-top.

Then we drove up towards Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, about 30 miles from Hilo.  We saw this on the way, and Logan hopped out to take a picture - isn't it amazing? I love the creativity here.

Volcano National Park is quite large.  There's hiking to be done, and wandering through lava tubes, and driving over lava flows to the ocean.  When we were there, some of the park was closed because of an ongoing eruption in the Halema`uma`u Crater on Kilauea.  Even so, there was plenty to occupy us for most of the day.

Good food (Hiro's), bad food (Royal Siam), and invisible cows: my last night in Hilo

My rental car was due back in a couple of hours, so after my totally awesome zoo trip I headed over to a likely-looking plate lunch place for lunch.

And yeah, Hiro's Place rocked.  It's a small place - the inside is completely taken up by the kitchen and an extra-long, extra-appealing steam table - but there's plenty of seating outside, especially if you're there for a late lunch.

I was excited to see neatly bundled little laulaus sitting on the steam table and ordered one.  Mine was made with pork, taro leaves and (I think) butterfish, and looked just too pretty wrapped up in its ti leaves.  I got it with a good side of the ubiquitous mac salad, this one very heavy on the potatoes, and a chicken and green bean stirfry.  Oh yeah, and a big ol' scoop of fried rice.  Big, heavy Hawaiian lunch.

In which I go to the ZOO!

More Hawaii posts?  Well, don't mind if I do!  I've got Logan home for a few days, during which we're trying to see everyone we possibly can.  There's no way we'll see everybody, but we're working as hard as we can on being social!

A word of warning - this post only has one (1) food picture in it.  I'll put it in early, so if you're bored by the Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo's awesome animals, you can check out the food and duck out.

Here it is: breakfast from the Hilo Lunch Shop!

Once again, I didn't go with Logan, just enjoyed the fruits of his hard labor.

Yeah, that maki on the bottom has a hot dog in it.  It tasted like hot dog.  I wasn't the biggest fan.  The cone sushi was good, as were the egg-rolled maki and the tofu patties - a bit of a heavy breakfast, but it got me going for the zoo!

Noodles and Museums

Firstly, L'Shanah Tovah Tikatevu!  Happy New Year to you and yours.  May 5770 be full of wonder, joy, and sweetness for you and your loved ones.

AND now back to Hawai'i!

Brunch - what better than a big steaming heaping bowl of noodles?  I headed down to Nori's, which is supposed to do a good version of the Hawaiian noodle dish called saimin.  It's kind of like ramen, but influenced by all of the cultures that have come through the islands.  

Nori's version includes perfectly al dente noodles, egg strips, fish cake, char siu pork, and lots of greens.  I also ordered mine with their delicious won ton, and got it as part of a combo with a nice little teriyaki chicken stick.  Their broth was really good, and all the ingredients and textures came together into something that was just fun to eat.

And I ordered a side mac(aroni) salad, because I'm crazy.  Whoosh, was their mac salad creamy!  And sweet!  I think it might have been half mayonnaise!  It was good, but way too rich for me to stomach more than a few bites.