Aloha!

Aloha in Hawaiian has two meanings; Hello or I love you!

Last November I went on a Hawaiian vacation with eight other family members to celebrate my middle sister’s 50th Birthday! Hawaii is one of my favorite vacation destinations, as I absolutely love the islands. My last trip there was a few years ago with two of my sisters to celebrate my 50th!

Our family visited the island of Oahu and resided at the Hilton Hawaiian Village and the Double-Tree hotels in Waikiki. We were there a total of five nights and spent our time relaxing and being typical tourists.

We accomplished a lot in five days, so I am not going to try to include everything in one post! My vacation will be covered in three parts, as I would like to highlight several of our vacation adventures.

Food in Hawaii

As a foodie, Hawaii is a great place for different food experiences and especially fine dining. After arriving at the airport and waiting for our transportation, I picked up a fine dining restaurant guide. This guide had an overwhelming number of restaurants highlighted; the goal was to find one where we could go celebrate my sister’s birthday. Then and there I decided that I would have to let her or other family members decide where to eat and I would go along. I am relatively easy to please when it comes to exploring new places to eat.

For our first night of dining, it was previously decided that we would dine as a family at the Shore Bird Restaurant at the Outrigger Hotel. I’d introduced my sister’s to this restaurant during our last trip and thought it would be an experience for those that were visiting Hawaii for the first time. The Shore Bird is on the beach and at night their famous grill comes alive as guests show off their skills, grilling their own meat and fish. Yes, you grill your own food!

 

Appetizers, Entrees and Desserts at Roy’s Restaurant

We enjoyed a very nice birthday celebration dinner at Roy’s.  Although our service was unusually slow (so we were told by the waitstaff) the food was delicious and we were given free desserts due to the long wait. I highly recommend Roy’s!

Wailana Coffee House

We also dined a couple of days at the Wailana Coffee House for breakfast, which was a block from both hotels. We especially like the coffee house because their breakfast is not only tasty with large portions, the prices are great!

Happy Hours

If you want to experience different restaurants and save money, I recommend that you try restaurant happy hours.  Most restaurants feature them and the happy hour menu items are from the dinner menu. MW Restaurant on Kapiolani Boulevard and Doraku at the Royal Hawaiian (Shopping) Center had great happy hour menu selections. Delish!

At Doraku I had a happy hour meal and signature drink for $16!!

One morning I had breakfast at the Hilton Hawaiian Village and ordered one of my favorites, Eggs Benedict! However, this version featured an interesting twist, by being served with Kalua pork instead of Canadian bacon.

The only establishment that I didn’t enjoy much, although it was given so much hype (even on the Hawaiian Airlines inflight advertisement) was a restaurant named Cheeseburger. I thought the food was mediocre, except for the milkshakes!

Overall, our dining experience in Hawaii was great!

Next time: The Honolulu Zoo!