What I Ate Wednesday – Maui

While in Hawaii, we ate such great food that I knew I needed to showcase it on the blog.  For today’s WIAW, I am taking a look back at our delicious meals from the beautiful island of Maui!

{drinks}

Pina Coladas and Mai Tais were pretty much our drinks of choice the entire time with an occasional Hawaiian beer for him and mojito for me.

{saturday}

We got to our hotel just in time for dinner and decided to try out a restaurant at our resort called Japengo.  Japengo was voted “Best Sushi on Maui” so we knew we had to try it.  The whole restaurant is open air and we got an awesome table outside with a perfect view of the sunset.  We started out by trying the Sashimi Style Hamachi & Watermelon which was delicious!  How cool are those lychee pearls??

 Hamachi + Watermelon + Siracha Tempura Bits + Tobiko + Lychee Pearls + Ponzu

Next up was the Char Siu Glazed Pork Ribs.  The sauce was slightly sweet with a really cool redish/pink color…and so were our fingers after eating them 😉

 Pork Ribs + Korean Pear & Green Apple Slaw

Four our main course we split two of their specialty sushi rolls.  We settled on the Blackened Ahi and Honolulu Rolls.  I especially loved the sweet chili sauce on the Honolulu roll!

Honolulu Roll: Tuna + Avocado + Cucumber + Sweet Chili Sauce + Tempura Crunchies / Blackened Ahi Roll: Blackened Ahi + Avocado + Maui Onion + Ponzo + Garlic Crumble + Spicy Dynamite Sauce + Tobiko + Crab

For dessert we ordered one of their more popular options which is the Tengu Ka’anapali Pie.

Brownie Crust + Banana + Macadamia Nut Ice Cream + Whipped Cream + Caramel + Chocolate

{sunday}

On our first full day there we drove the Road to Hana.  If you ever go to Maui, this is a must do!  The roads are very curvy and at times a little scary, but the views are absolutely breathtaking!  There are several stops along the way of beautiful waterfalls and ocean and mountain views, but there are a also lots of little fresh produce/juice stands.  For lunch that day, we pretty much snacked long our drive at different stops.  The first food stop was at the the halfway point where we stopped for the famous banana bread.  It was still warm when we got it!

We also stopped at a little market and got the most delicious coconut candy.  I can’t believe I forgot to take a picture of the actual candy!  The candy is made by baking fresh young coconut with different flavorings.  The guy who made it offered vanilla, sugar cane, and “volcano” which was made with different savory spices.  We ended up getting a bag of the sugar cane and volcano.  Here is a picture of the place we bought it from.

On our way back from Hana we stopped at Coconut Glen’s for some homemade vegan ice cream.  We tried the coconut and pineapple banana flavors.  It wasn’t overly sweet but was so yummy and refreshing!

After the long road to Hana, we stopped in at Mama’s Fish House for a late lunch/early dinner.  After doing some research on restaurants beforehand, I knew we needed to stop at Mama’s.

At the recommendation of our waitress, I ordered Mama’s most popular dish – the Crab and Lobster Stuffed Mahi.  My fish came with grilled corn and asparagus which I have to note was cooked perfectly!

All of the fish is caught fresh that morning and they note on the menu the name of the fisherman who caught the fish.  We thought that was pretty cool!  Kevin ended up going with the A’u Ku which is the Hawaiian Swordfish. His dish came with coconut rice, grilled bananas, and a fresh papaya salsa. We definitely both cleaned our plates with this meal!

{monday}

Today was a pool day!  Our hotel had an awesome pool area where we spent the entire day soaking up the sun!  The nice thing about staying at the pool is we had poolside service all day so we could order food and drinks from our chairs and never had to leave.

For lunch, we ate fish tacos while sipping on cold drinks.

For dinner that night, we ended up going back to Japengo.  Normally I am against hotel restaurants in general let alone repeating the same one twice, but Japengo was so good we just had to go back.  In addition to sushi, they also have tons of fresh fish dishes so we knew we needed to go back to try more of the chef’s creations.  I started off with a spinach salad topped with strawberries, goat cheese, and banana bread croutons.  Banana bread croutons??  I might need to try making these at home!

Kevin opted for a simple tekka roll to start.  He loves tuna sushi!

For our main courses, I opted for the Grilled Local Mahi Mahi.  This might be one of the best fish dishes I have ever eaten.  My mahi at Mama’s was good, but everything about this dish was great!  I couldn’t get enough!

Mahi Mahi + Young Coconut Salad + Lemongrass Beurre Blanc + Forbidden Rice

Kevin chose the Grilled Ahi Tuna (told you he loves tuna).  His fish was grilled perfectly medium rare with a pink center and he ate every last bite.

Ahi Tuna + Hibachi Glaze + Garlic Fried Rice + Hamakua Mushrooms + Wasabi Butter

{tuesday}

Sadly this was our last day here and we had to check out of the hotel by 2 PM.  We spent all morning at the pool again before heading out.  On our way to the airport we stopped in a town called Paia to checkout the Paia Fish Market.  Chef Curtis Stone declared their fish tacos the “best thing he has ever eaten” so we figured we should check them out for ourselves.  We both ordered the fish tacos for lunch.  You get a choice of one or two.  I ordered two but was only able to eat one.  The plate of food was HUGE and comes with cole slaw and your choice of cajun rice or potatoes.  The tacos were really good and fresh tasting, but neither of us decided it was quite worthy of the title of best thing we’ve ever eaten.

There you have it!  A little look into our Maui vacation via the food we ate.  Hope you enjoyed!

Linking up with Jenn today.

xoxo – Paige