the alaska of the tropics, part one (oahu)

A -
P was not thrilled that we were headed to Hawaii. From everything he'd heard, people who went to Hawaii spent half their time tanning (as many of you know, we don't really "tan") and the other half golfing (golf? we prefer croquet). Besides, Hawaii over the winter holidays? Isn't it all so very cliche?

All of his skepticism changed when our Hawaiian airlines flight attendants began slipping local words into their presentations, and P realized that words like "mahalo" and "wiki wiki" were incredibly fun to repeat. Even (especially) when they made no sense.

A: Would you like to rent a personal entertainment device for the long flight?
P: mele kalikimaka
A: You don't even know what you're saying
P: mahalo

At least it kept him entertained for the flight.

P -
I'll admit it: I was embarrassed to be headed to Hawaii for the holidays. It felt like the polar (tropical?) opposite of our standard vacations - no grimy city streets; no crumby weather; no urban culture; no long, meandering walks through questionable neighborhoods to find a food cart. I'm not really a "sit-on-the-beach-and-relax" kind of guy. It makes me tense. And seriously, what would we eat? Teriyaki bento?

So, I was surprised at how quickly I embraced the warmth that met us when we got off the plane. It probably had something to do with the sub-arctic weather Portland had gotten over the holidays. Immediately upon landing, I knew Hawaii was completely different from anywhere I'd ever been. The airport corridors were open to the outside weather. Alien-looking plants grew over everything. Vibrant-green, serrated cliffs rose up from the coastal shores. I started to feel as though I could manage a Hawaiian vacation. And we found lunch, which greatly put me at ease.


A month ago, I'd read an article about how Hawaiians were skeptical of their native son, Obama, until they witnessed him tuck into a big plate lunch at a local drive-in. To prove that a skinny, pale Oregonian was ready for the islands, I knew I'd need to try some. Conveniently, L & L Drive Inn was just a few blocks away from our first rental in Kailua. Essentially fast food with a local flavor, L & L offers the building blocks of a standard "plate lunch": protein, two scoops of white rice, and one scoop of macaroni salad. Within seconds of walking in the door, everyone in our entire group had clumsily decided to order the same thing. When our seven cartons of the "Hawaiian Special" were ready, we opened them up and dug in to the lau lau (pork steamed in a taro leaf) and a bastardized version of the luau-favorite kalua pork. Sure, it was probably seasoned with liquid smoke, but I'm not going to lie and tell you I didn't enjoy every mashed-together bite of the macaroni, pork and rice. On our way out, I noticed Spam musubi on the menu, but A held me back from stuffing myself with what is essentially processed meat sushi.

A-
Not that we didn't have Spam later during our trip. To be honest, putting this stuff in writing is making me feel a little ill and more than a little ashamed. But, we were just trying to get closer to our soon-to-be president.

Oddly enough, we were very close to the Obamas during our stay. My father was born in Kailua and the first part of our trip was a family reunion - a homecoming for my grandparents and their children. I had heard, as I'm sure everyone had (come on, who didn't see that picture of our shirtless president elect?) that the Obamas were staying in Kailua. Oahu being an island, and Kailua a small piece of the island, our rental was well under a mile from the Obamas' vacation getaway. I won't pretend that we saw them, but we did see some friendly looking secret service in Hawaiian shirts at one end of the beach we frequented. I wanted to scream, "Obama!!! Shriek!!" but P restrained me. Probably for the best - I would bet the secret service agents were still fairly nimble in flip-flops.

The morning after our arrival, plate lunch still heavy in our bellies, we were greeted with the sweet, slightly greasy smell of malasadas. The malasada is a Portuguese confection - a custardy, craggy donut covered with sugar that is a bit like a dense beignet. You may remember that neither P nor I have a strong love for donuts. These donuts, like those from Donut Plant in NYC, are the exception to the rule. Actually, I think I've come to the realization that I do like donuts - I just don't like crap.


Lest you think we ate only junk food in Hawaii, we did manage to enjoy two very traditional dishes, courtesy of my Hawaiian cousins. Alongside the pizza that had been ordered for our family reunion lunch, one of my cousins had contributed a few tubs of poke - marinated cubes of raw fish, like nigiri doused in tasty sauce - and a few bags of poi, or taro root paste. As a rule, my mainland relatives are not particularly adventurous eaters, but a few of us hovered expectantly over the tubs until they were graciously opened for our tasting pleasure. After running through the line of tubs - poke squid, wasabi tuna, and tuna with limu seaweed - and then trying each once again, it was onto the poi. Having never been to Hawaii, P was a poi neophyte. I have a bit of a soft spot for the slightly sour, purple concoction, but many are put off by its paste-like consistency. P certainly did not turn up his nose, but he admits that it is not something he would run back to try it again. I am holding out for a taste of poi with sugar and cream, as my cousins described. Seriously, how few foods are not better for the addition of those two ingredients?

P-
Despite how we're recounting our trip, it actually didn't revolve around food nearly so much as our typical vacation. Hawaii has a very funny food culture that sort of mashes-up Asian food with American fast food grub. There is a lot of gravy, pork, and rice. Not that any of that is bad, but it didn't give us much to go on. Still, we tried our damnedest to strong arm A's family into indulging our every hunger. For the most part, they gladly went along.

As we left Kailua, we detoured to Island Snow for a cone of shave ice at the Obamas' go-to shop. For a sense of how Obama-crazed the islands are, Island Snow, which doubles as a surf shop, had already reprinted their t-shirts with the 'O' in their name replaced by Obama's election logo.
More patbingsoo than sno-cone, Hawaiian shave ice can come with a scoop of ice cream, adzuki bean topping (sweetened beans found in Asian pastries) and a "sno-cap" drizzle of sweetened condensed-milk. I split mine half-and-half between coconut and lilikoi (passionfruit) and opted for the beans and sno-cap, creating a sugary, brain-freeze of a snack. So good.

After a brief hike up to a lighthouse on the Eastern-most point of O'ahu, we piled back into rental cars with A's family and drove to Honolulu to catch our flight to the big island. Before departing, we took a side trip for a late-afternoon lunch at a Filipino restaurant named Elena's. This place was much more in sync with our usual traveling style: a no-decor, florescent-lit storefront in the light-industrial/strip-mall fringes of the city. Their bathroom policy was stated as, "RESTROOMS IN NEARBY BUS TERMINAL." Classy. But really good. We don't have much experience with Filipino food, but we recently read an article about the cuisine that described it as "the comfort food of Asia," which made it sound worth trying. Owing to a wide range of European influences, Filipino food isn't nearly so spicy or pungent as that of its neighbors and much more reliant on stews and braises.


Enraptured by all of the unfamiliar dishes, we overloaded our table with a little of everything: pinakbet, pork adobo, crispy pork chicharon, banana lumpia, arroz caldo, and a house-special soup called sari-sari. The lumpia, which were little more than apple bananas wrapped in a deep-fried, egg roll wrapper, caused A and I to reconsider our aversion to the fruit. Especially when we dipped them in the ubiquitous seasoned vinegar that accompanied our meals. Even though the arroz caldo I ordered came out too hot to eat (not that I didn't try), I'd wager that it was one of the standouts of the table. A rice porridge of chicken, scallions, and loads of ginger, it was utterly satisfying. I've heard that it's a bad idea to eat mounds of food, particularly greasy food, right before a flight. Fiddlesticks. It worked for us. After all, leftover rice porridge wouldn't have fit in a 3 oz. container for our flight to the Big Island.