Hawaii Food Tours - Hole-in-the-wall tour!

Bill and Sahara

This morning we were picked up by the friendly Bill and Sahara on the Hawaiian food tour bus. It wouldn't really be a Chath and Nuwan holiday without a food experience so we had to oblige. This came highly recommend on Trip Advisor and by all signs looked pretty amazing. 

Royal Kitchen -  Manapau

Manapau is a Hawaiian breakfast food. It's the Hawaiian version the steamed pork bun. The fillings are a little bit different and the actual bun is a Hawaiian sweet bread. You can get the steamed version just like at Yum Cha but today we had the baked version. There is a multitude of fillings including traditional char sui, curry chicken, kahlua the traditional Hawaiian bbq pig and even portugese sausage

The bun is delicious, we tried the kahlua pig and the char sui. The char sui was the best by far. A fabulous way to start the day.

Liliha bakery for Coco-Puffs

This is kind of like a profiterole. A choux pastry shell with a chantilly cream icing and a chocolate custard filling. This traditional American style diner is always packed and is famous for having been featured on Hawaii 5-0. The video inside is has the particular episode in question on repeat. The puff is incredibly sweet (by Aussie standards) but very delicious. I still prefer a traditional profiterole but would not say no to more of these! This bakey sells 7000 of these puffs a day. Curiously Liliha translates to "being nauseated by rich and fatty foods"

China Town

Honolulu's China town is basically an Asian melee, Korean, Philipino, Chinese, Vietnamese and even traditional Hawaiian shops. We ventured in on foot and surrounded ourselves with Asian food galore. 

Rice-paper Factory

This place is a bit of an institution, the only one of it's kind it Hawai'i. A factory that makes rice noodles by hand. We saw the huge steamers that are used to steam the rice flour and water mixture of trays. A group of women then roll them into slabs that are then flavoured with spring onion, pork and shrimp. Some a left plain and sliced into noodles.

BBQ Chicken

We ate the rice noodles with delicious Korean BBQ chicken and teriyaki sauce.

Pork wonton and "pepeiau" dumplings

For lack of a better name this was like a pork meatball topped with egg noodle. A form of Hawaiian yum cha. It's eaten with  a hot sauce made of mustard and soy sauce. We ate these with Pepeiau dumplings, like Hawaiian gow gee, filled with pork, prawns and radish.

Spam

Spam is huge is Hawaii. Brought here in the 50's to feed the GIs in the absense of real meat, spam is a staple here. People love it and are proud to admit they love it. A really popular food is spam musubi, here's what Wiki says on the subject. 

Spam musubi is a popular snack and lunch food in Hawaii composed a slice of grilled Spam atop of a block of rice, wrapped together with nori in the tradition of Japanese omusubi.

Inexpensive and portable, spam musubi is commonly found near cash registers in convenience stores all over Hawaii.

Lychees and Longan

We had some lychees and longan too. Delicous but different to Australia.

Sashimi

I'll leave this to Nuwan, I do not eat raw fish!

Coconut Tarts and Apple Bananas

These apparently need to be eaten together.. The coconut tart is a cross between a coconut macaroon and a biscuit.  The native Hawaiian banana is the apple banana, slightly tart, short and stout it's quite yummy and goes very well with the coconut tart.

Pineapple and Lychee Smoothies

A delicious smoothy finished off with some LHM vodka.

A little bit of time left to explore china town and we found these
Ohu - a Hawaiian fish

and Baby baby gourd still on the vine

Cracked Seed

What on Earth is Crack Seed???
Crack seed, a popular local snack in Hawaii, comes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and flavors. Also known as Li Hing Mui or See Mui, crack seed is actually a variety of dehydrated and preserved fruits. If you've never tried this local favorite, read on!

Presevered plums have actually gone through a huge cycle in Hawaii, originally highly salted the plantation worked quickly figured out that eating salty snacks was actually dehydrated. The salted plums them became hydrated and a less salty version. Nowadays it is sold with the seed cracked,(hence crack seed) , with the seed or even seedless. The snack is also known by it's traditional chinese name Li Hing Mui. It's so popular they've even turned it into a powder that can be sprinkles on everything from margeritas to popcorn. We tried a small dried, deseeded version. An acquired taste, I don't think it's for everyone.

Char Sui House

Exactly as it's described the best BBQ house in Hawaii. Here we ate Char Sui and 5 layers of heaven (roast pork belly with crackling). Having lived in flemington where Hong Kong style BBQ houses are pretty good and pretty common I have to say this place was pretty amazing. 

Malasadas

Last but certainly not least. 

A malasada is a throwback to Hawaii's Portugese history. A yeast dough like a dough nut it fried, minus the holds. This creates a ball of crisp fried dough that is fluffy. It is sprinkled with sugar and if you're after some extra sweetness filled with custard; chocolate, coconut and even guava. 

All in all a fabulous day with a food coma to top it off at the end.!