February 5, 2005 – Maui

And yes, we made it safely to Maui and pretty much went straight to Maui Tacos for some takeout and went across the street to watch the sunset at the park. Most days since then we’ve tried to make time to watch the sunset. And eat. A lot.

UPDATE: Chicago

We went to Maui Tacos one other time and they were just as good. We also went to a bunch of other new restaurants this time, missed some of our old favorites, and generally ate very, very well. Even the time we ate nothing but takeout food from Safeways – mmm, lomilomi salmon and Hanalei Poi, yum! And 1 1/2 inch ahi tuna steaks, mega yum.

Among other restaurants we visited:

Pupu Lounge (lunch)
KKO (Kai Ku Ono – dinner)
Kula Lodge (breakfast one day, lunch the next)
Hirohachi (dinner)
Hanafuda Saimin (dinner)
Kimo’s (lunch)
Cafe O Lei (lunch)
Fish and Poi (dinner)
Mala Tavern (catered dinner at Maui Arts and Cultural Center concert)
A beach restaurant in Wailea at some hotel

We managed to get out to two concerts as well:

Hawaiian Slack Key Masters – Tuesdays at the Ritz Carlton, Kapalua
Jason Mraz, Makana, and Tristan Prettyman at the MACC, Kahului

And yes, all three of the latter artists have journals on their websites – they’re a lot younger than most of the people appearing at the Ritz shows.

The concerts were an interesting contrast – the Ritz one was in a small meeting room-type theater and was very intimate and friendly, with some ladies doing pick-up hula (the type of hula where you’re asked to do it at your friends’ party because they know you’re really good at it). One lady was a Maui County inspector – she was great. Both were very good, but the second lady was just brimming with happiness at performing hula to the music of Dennis Kamikahi

The second concert was packed full of young girls and there was a certain amount of screaming. Jason Mraz was the headliner and was a very good musician – turned out to be a young slacker-type who claimed to be a geek. He was whip smart in his stage patter, too – picked up a can of passionfruit soda before he went on, and made “my passion” jokes the rest of the evening. Cute kid, will probably go far. It was much more of a slick production, and the catered food from Mala Tavern was awesome, to die for good. The lilikoi cheesecake? Mmmm.

Yep, it was a fun trip, and we got to hear some local music and some not-local music as well.

And more later, must try to sleep now.