Kauai Part 3; Venice

Kauai Part 3

We left the Marriott at  Lihue and moved to the Westin in Princeville. The Westin is a hotel/timeshare/condo resort in the planned resort of Princeville. Princeville is beautiful and has several top golf courses. It also has a St Regis hotel. The St Regis is an over the top place with a Jean Georges Vongerichten’s restaurant http://www.jean-georges.com/restaurants/united-states/princeville/kauai-grill/ . The hotel is on a cliff overlooking Hanelei Bay, think The Decendents. Westin guests have privileges at the St Regis, so we could use their beach. The Westin sort of overlooks the ocean but it high on a cliff. No beach.

Upon check-in we were offered all types of deals including an upgrade from our studio to a 1 bedroom. We paid $75 for this and we also signed up for a luau. The 1 bedroom unit was very nice and I had a full kitchen with granite countertops. It was the 5th anniversary of the hotel and they were having a special luau with some of the top talent on the island.

 

 

The luau was in a tent in the middle of the resort. We had a lightning storm in the middle and lost power for about 20 minutes. It was interesting. The food was good as the hotel chef created some Hawaiian food.

It was also the 100th anniversary of the Kilauea Lighthouse. Apparently the lighthouse was important because it is located at the westernmost part of the Hawaiian Islands and boats used it a marker for arriving in Honolulu. It is on a beautiful small peninsula. http://www.kilauealighthouse.org/

I finally relented and cooked a meal for us at the Westin. I found some nice steaks at the supermarket, Princeville has a great Foodland supermarket and then I found a small wine shop that had some excellent wines at reasonable prices. I bought Brancaia Tre Toscana IGT 2010 and 2009 Vietti Langhe Nebbiolo Perbacco. Both were about $20 and they were very good. The Westin had a number of very good outdoor grills for use and I grilled the steaks.

 

We had very poor weather in Princeville. We made reservations for our first  helicopter ride on the second day we arrived. We went to the airport and the weather was rainy and cloudy. The helicopter people told all would be well in the air. What else would they say. We used Sunshine Helicopters  since they were the only company to operate out of the Princeville airport. The copter was deluxe but the weather spoiled the experience. We were underwhelmed. We saw some spectacular spots but nothing blew us away. I took videos and some pictures. The pictures are through glass windows and rain and clouds.

On our last day on Kauai, we had a 5pm flight so we headed south to Poipu. We had been to Poipu earlier in our trip and had found a farmers market in fancy out door mall. WE found the PIe Lady stand and bought a slice of Mango/Passion fruit pie. It was great. A thick pie loaded with slices of mango. We also had a beer at Merriman's casual restaurant at the mall. http://www.merrimanshawaii.com/kauai.htm  Peter Merriman is a Hawaiian chef who I believe started a restaurant on the Big Island. We ate their years ago and it was very good and very expensive. He has since branched out and open a number of restaurants in Hawaii. He used local and organic ingredients. When we reached Poipu on the last day we went to the Marriott Vacation Club and had lunch at their place on the beach. We had a good fish sandwich. We then realized that we had made a mistake by not staying in Poipu. The weather is much better than Princeville and the beach is gorgeous. Poipu is also not that far from Lihue. The photo above is a local joke. Kauai has wild chickens everywhere. NY Theater We saw Venice at the NY Public Theater http://publictheater.org/  on Lafayette Street last weekend. It is a new musical by Matt Sax who also stars in the play. It is a Public Lab production so the tickets were $15. The play was very good. Some Shakespeare type plot with rap and other genres of music. The music was engaging and Matt Sax is great. The actors are top flight. It is only playing to the end of the month. Go see it! Recent wines:   2005 Vieux Château Champs de Mars Johanna Good Bordeaux; $18 I have stored this wine for several years. 2012 Brancott Estate Sauvignon Blanc $10. OK NZ wine. I have had better vintages of this wine. 2011 Domaine Drouhin Oregon Chardonnay Arthur $30 I love their wines. Excellent chardonnay with some oak. Good fruit. Expensive wine is the only negative. 2012 Tiefenbrunner Vigneti delle Dolomiti IGT $9. Forgettable but drinkable Italian white. 1999 E. Guigal Châteauneuf-du-Pape $35 when released. My oldest stored bottle. Wine Spectator #1 wine of the year several years ago. The wine was great. It was at its peak. A touch of port-like flavor. I am really enjoying CDP's these days especially the 2010's. 2010 M. Chapoutier Côtes du Roussillon Villages Les Vignes de Bila-Haut $11. This wine always tastes different. I like this bottle. WA gave it a big score. Good value. 2012 Domaine Drouhin Oregon Pinot Noir Édition Rosé $20. Great rose but not a light sipping wine. 14% alcohol. Apparently the 2012 vintage in the Willamette Valley is great. Hopefully this wine is leading the way. Pinot Noir grape is used for this wine. 2007 Mount Veeder Winery Cabernet Sauvignon . Surprised me. A good California cab. Not overly complex but good balance and not a fruit bomb. We liked the wine. My garden is beginning to grow. I have harvested lettuce. Looks like it may be a good growing season. Sour cherries should be coming to the local farmer's markets soon. Looking forward to them and the resulting cherry tart. Enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.