1 We started off with 3 days in Honolulu at The Modern. This is the view from our balcony overloooking the Waikiki boat harbor.
2 The pool and harbor view
3 Lunch at one of our faves in Chinatown, actually inventive Vietnamese street food by chef Andrew Le at The Pig and the Lady
4 Inside of The Pig and the Lady with communal tables down the center
5 Bar area
6 Table condiments, love the sriracha in the Cafe Du Monde cans
7 I vaguely remember this was a mezcal drink with sriracha ice cubes. The longer you took to finish, the more the ice melted, and the hotter it got!
8 Max's delish chicken curry and gin with house-made tonic
9 Pork belly french-dip, vietnamese style with pickled eggplant and lots of basil and cilantro
10 One of our to-dos on this trip was to get an appraisal on Max's shell lei that we purchased on Kauai over 15 years ago. We lost the paperwork long ago, and in…
11 Nā Mea sells native Hawaiian crafts, runs classes, and acts as a community gathering place. This guy was singing traditional tunes by the lithographs.
12 This fellow was demonstrating making hala leis, from the fruit of the pandanus tree.
13 Yep, lots of activity at Nā Mea that morning. These ladies were meeting for their weekly weaving circle. The quality of the hats made by several of them was…
14 And this is Kai Hyde, the appraiser we came to Nā Mea to meet. Relatively young, he has been doing appraisals on the Big Island and Oahu for many years. He took…
15 It had been more than 5 years since we last went to Alan Wong's. So time again for an incredible, inventive, and authentic Hawaiian culinary experience.
16 Big Island tomato and avocado salad with li hing mui (salty dried Chinese plum) vinaigrette
17 One of Alan Wong's signature dishes- Poke Pines. He takes ahi poke balls, wraps them in wonton wrappers that are fringed. Then quick fries to make them look…
18 Ginger crusted Onaga, baby corn shoots as garnish
19 Opakapaka
20 The dessert of all desserts, the supremely intense Lilikoi Creme Brulee
