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DINNER pages


17 July 2017 : to Hawaii            jump to this page > > >
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Lovely dinner in the "fancy" restaurant at Kauai Beach Resort: (clockwise from upper left) crab cakes, Caesar salad with chook, a Hawaiian concoction called hapa (Chad thinks), a sort of focaccia with chicken and pesto, and the Hawaiian version of duck two ways. Thank you, Chad.

A walk along the beach after dinner. An amazing amount of fishing trash along this windward beach.


23 July 2017 : Anini Beach            jump to this page > > >
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Dinner at Hanalei's #1 family-friendly restaurant, the spectacularly over-priced Dolphin. We remember it from 1983, a very different restaurant on a very different island. Evolution? 

Lindsey finally got one of the newer bussers to smile (by saying "Don't smile.") winning her a big smile from one of the experienced servers, who confided, "He's new." Honestly, none of the servers seemed very happy: very busy, very competent, but not having any fun. A peek into the kitchen seemed to show the same. This is a machine for feeding hungry tourists.

Ordinary food – big chunks of improperly torn lettuce, but at least it was fresh local lettuce. Superb piece of grilled Opa (Moonfish) with drawn butter, and a generously presented baked potato for us: $36. But it was lovely not to cook and wash up after... Again, Thank you, Chad, for dinner.


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The Dolphin doesn't take reservations, and has outdoor seating beside the Hanalei River.


26 July 2017 : Anini Beach            jump to this page > > >
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Rochelle and I drove into Kapaa, to the restaurant rated #1, JO2. Our superb server, Jeremiah, told us he worked there because he loved the food. We did too. Several things on the menu I'd never had before, and a very tempting "Early Bird Special" prix fixe dinner ... so we mixed and matched, and had a feast reminiscent of some of France's best.


28 July 2017 : Anini Beach            jump to this page > > >
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Just like our restaurant consultant (Damiana) said, dinner – tapas – was lovely, if a little spicy (and pricey). A superb salad of baby local greens over goat cheese with torn croutons (more kudos);

sorry, we ate before we clicked the pics: Lamp ribettes over tomatoes with more goat cheese; house-made chorizo with apple sourkraut; carrots with north African seasoning and aioli.

Lapperts at Princeville for dessert, since BARacuda is heavily into cheesecake (ick!)


30 July 2017 : Anini Beach            jump to this page > > >
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Despite the lack of proper pan and rice, I managed, with Rochelle's constant able help, a pretty fair paella, with pineapple and sashimi grade ahi gently seared, tiger shrimps from Asia and Kauai native shrimp. Delicious. Guess who didn't make it to dinner.

 

 

Tomorrow we pack up, out to dinner, and then ready to change islands.


4 August 2017 : Above Kamuela            jump to this page > > >
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Back down to town, and Red Water for a reprise on a dinner we had in 2011 ... and it worked! If anything, the place is better than it was then. We started with a Kamuela Beet Salad with amazing pickled Maui onions, and a bowl of tomato coconut bisque. Rochelle got her Fuji Roll, a fat tuna sushi roll delicately deep fried. The chef's special was Mahi Mahi in a lovely sauce. We were stuffed, so we had them set us up with a flourless chocolate cake to go.


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5 August 2017 : Above Kamuela            jump to this page > > >
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Afternoon of quiet reading and napping, then back down for early dinner at Merriman's. It's still got its groove. Ahi and mashed avocado poke and purple sweet potato chips, then a local fresh green salad, then Ono and jalapeno mashed potatoes and greens ...and then this chocolate purse with aleae salt caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream. No pictures except the dessert, because I was on birthday duty.


12 October 2017 : Ashland            jump to this page > > >
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photos: Jenny Graham, Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Tonight, our fifth and last play. Looks kinda weird. News at 11.


 Well, I dunno.

Dinner was good, at Tot, a sorta post-modern place where we've eaten before. Good flavors, Caspar style.

That's a delicious chicken noodle dish, and asian style duck soup.

The play was ...original. And inscrutable. About a quarter in Korean. Kim Jong Il appeared (as a ghost, along with our protagonist/guides grandmother, also a ghost. We knew they were ghosts because they were performing on the back of the backdrop, which let itself down to rest at an angle away from the three-quarter thrust stage. Interesting.)

Mixed themes: the experience of being genetically Korean of Korean-born parents but raised without Korean, then going home. About losing one's American identity in Korea because "everyone looks alike," and so, about racism. About the foolishness of war, and the incredible short-sightedness of planting mines in a "demilitarized zone that, after 50 years, has become the last refuge of some endangered Asian macrofauna, like bears and tigers. Who get regularly blown up by the mines...

The strangeness of getting old in such a fractured society, and a hint at the different interpretation of suicide, East and West.

The play, written some years ago and so not intentionally topical, is intriguing to us, if only because it holds up a mirror to the craziness, now on both sides.

 

 


17 October 2017 : Port Orford            jump to this page > > >
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We were a little early, coming into town from our B&B, and so we checked out the setting sun view from the bluff above the dock in Port Orford, then on to Red Fish, an "almost linen table cloth" place (according to our hostess at 12 Acres B&B) and clearly the best food in town. Also, close to the only, as PO in October is closed on Tuesdays. (Never will figure that out. You'd think the tourist serving businesses would take turns: "You close Monday, we'll close Tuesday, and the Crazy Norwegian can close Wednesday or Thursday...")

Anyway: good food for a small town without much native to it besides fish. So we ate beautiful scallops over white polenta and tomato-caper sauce, the same brilliant field greens salad we shared last night, a shrimp and crab risotto (didn't get pictured; not photogenic, but yummy), and, for dessert, blood orange mousse. 


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