Kauai Part 2; Far From Heaven

Lihue is a  real Hawaiian town, not a tourist town and we ate at Hamura Saimin for lunch. Saimin is soup with noodles. The restaurant has a few counters and you sit on stools. We met some people who had grown up on Kauai, moved and were visiting relatives. They gave us a great history lesson on the island.

The saimin was very good. We had dumplings in our soup in addition to the noodles. We also had skewered beef.We finished our meal with their famous lillikoi chiffon pie. Lillikoi is passion fruit. It was light and delicious. The cream on top was cool whip. Spam and cool whip- Hawaiian traditions! My lillikoi pie is more intense. If you need the recipe let me know. It is simple.

The mother of our Kauai friends who still lives on the island bought us some shaved ice. Shaved ice is another Hawaiian specialty. We had had it before and were not impressed. They take a huge scoop of crushed ice and pour flavored syrups on the ice. This shaved ice was great. It was strawberry and another flavor. The flavors are artificial so that may be why you need to find the right flavors at the right place. Lunch cost about $18 for 2.

Another great food spot in Lihue is Fish Express. BTW I found that Yelp and TripAdvisor were very good for finding small, local food places. We were looking for great fish on the island and generally found it in small places. I would generally avoid the fancy restaurants on the island. Fish Express is on the main road across from the Walmart (hiss). We had Ahi sandwiches for $8.99 with fries. The sandwich was great, the fries -soggy.

We did try 1 place which Trip Advisor has as the #1 place on the island. Hukilau Lanai.  http://hukilaukauai.com/   http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g60616-d1390699-Reviews-Hukilau_Lanai-Kapaa_Kauai_Hawaii.htmlA reservation was hard to obtain but we  got one. The place is precious. It is in a time share hotel and is nicely situated -half indoors and half outdoors. The fish came with too many ingredients and the sauces were poor. I am not a sauce person. The Marriott knows how to prepare fish, not this place.  If you read the Trip Advisor reviews you will see why I don't recommend going to fancy places on the island.

 The wine list was cheap, eclectic and lousy. They have very interesting white wines that do not go well with the food and are not enticing. We originally ordered a white wine from Slovakia from Bastianich. http://bastianich.com/wines_adriatico_ribolla.cfm This winery make good wines but we did not like this wine. We returned the bottle and the waiter then told us that the manager, who buys the wines, told him that this wine was not very popular. Oh well, maybe he will tell the next person before they order the wine.

They accepted my rejection of the wine without issue and we then ordered a Wolfberger Pinot Blanc from Alsace. $25. The wine was good and basic, not complex but it was fine with the meal.

 

 

Miscellaneous

Had a chance to try the Silver Oak 2007 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon at a friend's house. It was very good. It was light and had a nice nose. Flavor was good. Silver Oak is not a favorite of the critics and they have even stopped reviewing it. The WS gave it an 86. It is an expensive wine. Oh well.
Also had the Privada from the Norton winery in Argentina. $18 at Costco. Nooorton! No connection to the Honeymooners. The wine is a blend of Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon. I am not usually a fan of this type of wine, but it was good. A little grapey but drank well.

We saw Far from Heaven in previews at Playwrights Horizon on 42nd street in NYC. Chttp://www.playwrightshorizons.org/shows/plays/far-heaven/  .http://www.nytimes.com/video/2013/06/02/theater/100000002258279/excerpt-far-from-heaven.html#100000002258279 The run for the play is almost completely sold out. It was not good. We love Kelli O'Hara http://kelliohara.com/  and she is always great when she has decent music to sing. The music was just dialogue set to music. It did not do anything for us. The play is based on the movie with Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid about Connecticut suburbs in the 50's. It deals with race and homosexuality. The director is Michael Greif. I recognized him from the website and he sat in front of us. About 30 minutes into the play he got up and had the house lights turned on and stopped the show in the middle of the song. He explained that their were props not on stage and  that the scene was not working without the props. There was break for 5 minutes and then the play resumed and the song was restarted. Never experienced this before. It had nothing to do with our lack of enthusiasm for the play. The play opens today and we will see what the critics say. The great thing about seeing a play in previews is that you are not biased by the reviews.

A good friend of mine died this week. Among other things he was a big Yankee fan and he loved puttanesca sauce. We would talk about my love for food and wine when we ate out. If he liked a food, he could eat it all the time.  He could eat puttanesca sauce on pasta for every meal. One day for lunch in NYC, unknown to me, he asked the waiter to bring out 3 glasses with different red wines and my friend asked me to identify the grapes of each wine. The pressure was on. I did it! I got each wine correct but I realized how difficult it is to taste wine doubly blind - meaning not knowing the wines you are tasting and not knowing what wine is in each glass. Most wine tastings are done with knowledge of which wines are in the tasting.

I will miss my friend immensely.