My Oahu food journey continues with a couple of nights at Waikiki Beach. (Read about the
beginning part of the Oahu trip including visits to the historic kitchens of Plantation Village, an excursion to Ma'o Farm, and lunch at Town Restaurant and He’eia Kea General Store & Deli.)
Waikiki Beach is Honolulu's tourist capital, as the towering hotels clearly indicate. While there are several notable restaurants that aren't in hotels, it's hotel restaurants that offer the best views of the beach -- and a great deal of delicious food.
Home for this portion of the trip was the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort and Spa, whose towers rise above an open air mall. Many rooms at this hotel offer a panoramic view of the beach, and its surfers and its sunsets. It felt very much in the thick of things.
And all that energy made me -- of course -- hungry. Here's what I found to eat:
Japengo at the Hyatt Regency
Japengo's Coconut Creme Brulee. Photo by Alison Stein Wellner.I had a remarkable dinner at the newly opened
Japengo. This Asian fusion restaurant is worth a visit even if you’re not staying at the hotel. The restaurant is darkly sophisticated (making up for the lack of ocean view) but the food is the main attraction. The torched hamachi (yellow tail with garlic miso glaze and
negi onion) and its scallop butter yaki were so tender that they seemed to simply dissolve in the mouth. The best dessert on the menu has a similar effect -- the sublime Japengo Coconut Crème Brûlée disappeared very, very quickly.
Download Japengo's menu (PDF).
Breakfast at SHOR
SHOR Hash for breakfast at the Hyatt Regency. Photo by Alison Stein Wellner.For breakfast, the Hyatt has another winner with
SHOR, an open-air patio elevated above the street, so you can see the water. There's an extensive buffet, but carefully consider the menu, which combines eggs and seafood to great effect, particularly the seafood omelet, made with shrimp, blue crab, goat cheese from Maui's
Surfing Goat Dairy, and mornay sauce, and the SHOR hash, with king crab, ham and cabbage. Whatever you order, don't miss a few cups of the seriously rockin’ strong local coffee.
Download SHOR's breakfast menu (PDF).
Mai Tai Bar at the Royal Hawaiian
Getting ready for sunset at Royal Hawaiian's Mai Tai Bar. Photo by Alison Stein Wellner.It’s hard to beat sundown cocktails at the
Royal Hawaiian’s Mai Tai Bar, on the beach at Waikiki. And even if your cocktail tastes tend towards the dry, it’s fundamentally difficult to avoid ordering a Mai Tai, as the sun sinks into the sea and you keep a sharp eye out for the famed “green flash”. I missed that flash, though -- perhaps because I was distracted by that Mai Tai, which was well-balanced and not too sweet.
bin 1901 at the Moana Surfrider
bin1901 at Moana Surfrider. Photo by Alison Stein Wellner.Once it was dark, a few steps away from the Royal Hawaiian, I sampled the Moana Surfrider's newest food concept,
bin 1901. It’s billed as an organic wine bar, but while there are several organic wines featured on the menu, but most of the wine is not, in fact, organic. (This is either an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on your perspective.)Still, wine is taken seriously here: you can also get a wine education, via iPads which the wait staff will give you to help guide your wine selection, and you can order a custom flight of three two-ounce pours.
bin1901 is in the Moana's lobby, just adjacent to the hotel’s signature restaurant beachhouse -- and you can get the whole beachhouse menu delivered to your bar table, to the sound of live piano music. Best bites include the perfectly composed raw bar, the rack of lamb with a plum wine demi-glace, and an outrageous coconut lemon haupia cake.
