Tag Archives: food

Eating Our Way Through the North Shore

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This weekend we headed back up to the North Shore. I am falling in love with this view as we crest over the hill and head down to the shore… When you actually see it in person you can hardly tell where the sky ends and the water begins. Also if you go earlyish in the morning you won’t sit in hideous traffic like we had to last time!

 

We made a quick detour to Turtle Beach since we had such good luck last time we were there.  Gorgeous water, beautiful coastline. I can’t wait to do more exploring up here. It’s just so, so different than Honolulu.

 

 

No luck this time. I don’t know if we were just too early or what. Not a turtle in sight. Insert sad trombone… Mckenna was really bummed, so was I. We had actually brought our snorkeling gear with us so we could snorkel with the turtles.  Omar on the other hand was thrilled because he was NOT in the mood to be at the beach. Weirdo.

 

Onward! We made our way over to Hale’iwa to poke around town and find something to eat. Please note Mckenna doing her best to look like my little Hawaiian girl by throwing a shaka! I may have made my poor husband pull over at both signs on the road (actually I made him pull over for the first one, he pulled over for me before I even had a chance to ask for the second!)

 

First stop on the agenda: Masumoto’s Shave Ice.  A Hawaiian must do. Everyone and there mother will tell you that you have to go to this place so there is usually a huge line.  I grabbed this shot as we were leaving. When we got there we only had a few people in front of us, almost zero wait. Also it gave us time to look at the CRAZY menu!

 

 

 

 

Below is the menu. It was VERY hard to narrow it down to 3 flavors! You can also get ice cream on the bottom of your snow cone sorry, shave ice, and/or condensed milk drizzled over the top. So far I have been a purist and haven’t tried it but I am going to have to start experimenting! Oh and they have a specific way they want you to order… how many, size, cup or bowl, etc…

 

 

This machine is an ice shaving beast. And the girl was crazy fast scooping and making the perfect scoop shape (and also clearly thrilled I am taking her picture.)

 

Yummy shave ice! What is not shown is that Omar dropped his shave ice about 30 seconds after sitting on a bench outside. There were tears. But he then got to share with all of us, and pose with my cherry/watermelon shave ice.

 

 

Verdict: All shave ice pretty much tastes the same to me. Stop by if you are there, otherwise go to one of the other million stands on the island.

 

 

 

After our shave ice we decided to get dessert. What? This day had no rhyme or reason to our eating schedule!

 

Just ended up grabbing a photo op and some cookies. We were a little disappointed by the baked goods selection for a bakery, but they do also bake their own bread and have a nice little lunch menu. Service, hmmm. Our order taker was friendly but literally stopped us 3-4 times in the middle of our order to deliver food/talk to other people. Super cute little place though. $1 cookies!

 

 

 

 

$1 cookie display. My walnut chocolate chip was really good. And Omar didn’t drop his!

Right across the parking lot is this trailer with dozens of chickens on it. You cannot miss the smell, it is divine.  We had other plans for lunch so we decided to pick up a chicken for dinner. $9 for a chicken ($9.50 if you want it cut up). We also picked up some pineapple cole slaw. Yes I know, I was dubious too. But it is really good.

 

 

Grab a 1/2 or whole chicken and sit at a table and eat it. When we ate it for dinner there was only a backbone left in the serving dish, my kids picked the chicken clean. Great sauce or rub or whatever it is that they put on it.  And when you are done you can wash your hands in the cutest sink ever. I love beach towns.

 

 

Next stop: Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck another must do according to every guide book, friend and tv show.

 

 

 

Super simple menu makes it easy to order.

 

 

While you wait grab a Sharpie and sign your name. Good luck finding a spot!

 

 

 

 

Omar got the spicy shrimp which weren’t that spicy to him because he has a ridiculous scale of spiciness from eating habaneros every single day. They were wicked spicy, I couldn’t handle them.

 

 

I got the scampi which were good. Both of our shrimp may have been a smidge overcooked. Good but we are also lazy and don’t like peeling our shrimp. (first world problems I know…)

 

 

 

So great day eating and trying lots of must try things. If you haven’t gotten up there yet, DO IT!

Sunday in Waikiki

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So Sunday I had wanted to head over to Kaneohe Bay on the eastern side of the island, but we ended up deciding to make our way back down to Waikiki and go to the Honolulu zoo.  Of course the parking near the zoo is an absolute madhouse on the weekend.  When we were staying at our hotel down here we had purchased a month long parking pass at the hale Koa hotel parking garage ($90 for the entire month!) So we decided to park there again and just walk to the zoo, stopping for lunch along the way.

We stopped for lunch at the Yard house, which I definitely recommend. They have something like 130 different beers on tap. Omar got a 1/2 yard of some local beer, Kona blonde something, I got a pint of a pear cider (yum!). Lunch was good, I got the BBQ chicken salad and it was delicious… avocado, roasted corn, shredded BBQ chicken, can’t wait to go back. Prices were pretty standard for Waikiki and they do have lunch specials.

This is also the point where I realized that I didn’t have my memory card in my camera. I was SO upset! And I didn’t even have my back up point and shoot in my purse like I usually do. So now I get to lug around my DSLR for no reason all day. I did take some crappy cell phone pictures but it’s not the same.

After lunch we keep walking. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. Omar is getting ready to turn around when I spot the zoo.  They have a military and local price so we got in pretty cheap. We only had a couple of hours before the zoo closed so we had to make it fast.  The kids really loved the howler monkeys, those suckers are loud!  For the most part the exhibits are nice, reminded me a bit of the Norfolk Zoo in some places.   The elephants didn’t make an appearance, nor did the lions.  I was most bummed about the fact that by the time we made it to the kids area of the zoo they were closing it. That area closes a 1/2 hour before the zoo closes so we only had a couple of minutes to crawl inside the big koi tank, check out the cool guinea pig house and see the goats.  The kids liked it so we’ll have to go back.

Loooooong walk back to the car, passing some shops that I really wanted to stop and peek into but everyone else was just done.  I keep seeing Hawaiian style quilts and they are just beautiful. They are going on my to buy list for Hawaii!

Also, yesterday we went and stocked up on snorkeling supplies. I can’t wait until my stuff gets here in over a month and Omar needed some of his own. he actually got this really nice mask that I’m a little jealous of, but he couldn’t get a good seal on any of the cheapo ones.

So this weekend we are going to try a new place to snorkel, hopefully one that isn’t as crowded as Shark’s Cove was. It seems like all the best places are going to be crazy crowded.  We’ll have to see what we can find.

Hotel Living

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I am officially over living out of a hotel room. One week, that’s all it took.  Plus we’ve been lucky because I’ve been dropping Omar off at work then running around with the kids so we aren’t stuck in here all day. But man, it sure didn’t take long for me to miss cooking. And dressers. And a bedroom door between me and my children.  We moved from our hotel right smack dab in the middle of Waikiki to one right near the base. Our temporary housing allowance was getting cut off because we refused a house to wait for the house we really wanted, and that means we have to start paying out of pocket for a hotel. So goodbye beach hotel, hello cheap hotel. I’m not complaining, it’s clean, has wifi in the rooms, a pool and is SUPER close to the base.

We did have some delicious Chinese food for dinner tonight. Let me just tell you that Chinese food in Europe? Is not what you are used to, we got used to it over there but man was it so good to have our unauthentic American Chinese food again!

Also Cinnabon for breakfast (yes I know I will soon be 200lbs). Little Omar said to me “Mom, you need to learn how to make cinnamon rolls like these!” Honey I am sorry, the closest you will get will be from the tube. I haven’t had the patience to make yeast breads in forever.

It’s been pretty fun taking Omar out to eat everywhere, it’s all a first for him. First Cinnabon, first Taco Bell, second time at Popeye’s (the first was in Germany of all places!) Although I did almost disown him for saying he didn’t like the cheddar bay biscuits at Red Lobster (and yes we are planning on hitting up EVERY SINGLE chain restaurant on island!)

Found out which school my kids are going to. Not 100% happy with it. I can change it to another school but I am not sure how much of a pain in the butt that will be or even if they will approve it.  I hate the way they draw district lines. We end up going to a school that is across a highway instead of the one that my daughter could ride her bike to.

I think we are going to explore the beach on Hickam tomorrow since it’s just up the road. I’ve heard that it’s nice. I’m still kicking myself for not packing my snorkel stuff. I’m trying not to buy more but I don’t know if I can wait until our stuff gets here in September!

The end of the month can not get here soon enough, I am ready for a house!

Lazy days of summer…

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On Friday after graduation my love took me to my favorite place for a graduation lunch. Puerto Sherry, Blanca Paloma, my happy place. I’ve mentioned it a time or two.

This is the place my heart will always think of when I think back to my time here. I just love it.

 

Oh and my favorite yummy, delicious salad. Ensalada Spagnola. Fresh mozzarella and pesto. Yes please.

And little Omar and I have been splitting this as well, the provolone and feta bruschetta.

And Omar gets some version of the pizza… ham and mushroom this time…

The rest of the day was spent hanging out at home. Got Omar’s sea bag packed so that is ready to go for the plane. I was giving him a hard time wondering if he even remember how to pack a sea bag because it’s been so long since he’s had to do it!  He does need some new uniforms as he can get by with less than what is required here but we can buy those in Hawaii.

Also made of list of EVERYTHING else I need to try and get done in the next few days, lots of checking out things.  Still stressing out about the dog situation. Just hoping everything goes okay with getting him on all three airplanes, picking him up, and dropping him off at the pet sitter.

Rented “Wanderlust” off of iTunes… Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston, I really expected more of you. It was one of those movies where most of the funny parts were shown in the preview. Omar did make a comment that I was a likely candidate for a commune after I made a remark about how they were living sustainably. Whatever.

Saturday we ALL slept in and it was wonderful, in fact I almost overslept for my hair appointment. I woke up at 9:40 for a 10am appt! Out the door in 5 minutes and still had time to grab a caramel macchiatto from the coffee shop next to the salon! Was just getting highlights and a trim, the girl left the color on for a bit longer than I would have liked so it’s pretty blonde when I really just wanted caramel.  Omar says it looks good and he’s not one to sugarcoat my hair choices! It’ll work for summer, especially since I am moving to the land of endless summer…

I had to stop and do some shopping for a baby shower I was going to this afternoon (what, I almost ALWAYS shop the day of a party, it’s terrible I know!) I swear, nothing makes me want to have another baby like shopping in the infant girls section.  (And no, no more babies for us, we are done!)

I was shopping for a gift for this lovely lady Amber. She is having her second baby, her first girl! She is such a great person, always smiling and happy!  We used to work together, she quit before I did so she could relax for the rest of her pregnancy. We had lots of fun friends there, and TONS of food. Oh my, the hostess outdid herself. I must have had three helpings of berry trifle!

(I want that dress in my size! Seriously, how adorable is that!) Congrats Amber! Wish I was going to be here to meet your baby girl!

Make This!: Pumpkin Spice Cookies

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In the midst of cleaning out my pantry to get ready to move I had a can of pumpkin that I really wanted to turn into something yummy.

A few clicks online and I found the most ridiculously easy recipe ever. Two ingredients turn into delicious cookies.

Pumpkin Spice Cookies

1 can pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix!)

1 box spice cake mix

1/2 c. water

Mix together. I used a scoop so they would all be the same size. These don’t change much after baking so try to make sure they don’t come out too funky looking!

 

I used my small Pampered Chef scoop and these took about 10 minutes at 400.

After they were done I did a quick swirl of (store-bought!) cream cheese frosting over the top. SO. YUMMY! These are dangerous because they are one bit each so I keep grabbing one every time I walk by.

Eat This: Nutella S’mores

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Oh how many years I have wasted not eating these! I was sitting around thinking to myself that I could REALLY go for some s’mores (what? it’s summer, don’t judge me!) but I am not the person who has Hershey bars just randomly sitting around my house. (those suckers are GONE within a day)

What do I keep on hand? Nutella. Once I thought of this I was astonished I’ve never heard of these before. (Yes I am sure millions of people have but I am a bit of a Nutella addict and I was surprised that this isn’t all over the place.)

Commence Nutella s’more making!

Of course this is ridiculously easy and doesn’t really need directions, but you need to have these in your mouth!

The cast of characters. And even if you are like me and have a box of graham crackers that were slightly stale and some marshmallows starting to stick together, I promise these will still be yummy!

Some of this action needs to happen.  Those marshmallows were roasted over an open electric burner. The firepit was just too much work. I am not proud of this.

C’mon, you don’t really need instructions right? The moment you even read Nutella s’mores you were already digging in your cabinets.

Come to mama…