What's your guilty dining pleasure?

Oysters "Uggi" ...

Old town Alexandria, VA

+1 👍

Some food shots from our recent vacation to Hawaii...note that we had a kitchen at most places so we ate lots of salads and fruits over the 3 weeks, but on occasion we ate out.

I admit I am a pineapple freak, so I ate about a dozen while we were there (ate it at least once a day and often 2 or 3 times), but in addition I had some other pineapple based goodies, like this pineapple juice on the right, and frozen pineapple gelato type thing on the left:



This was at the Dole plantation on Oahu. Also had brunch at a place in Waikiki that had a tropical iced tea, so tea with pineapple juice:



During our trip I met up with someone from Hawaii that I serviced an Omega for, and someone who gave me a ton of excellent advice about what to do on the islands we visited. We had dinner with him and his girlfriend, but I didn't take any photos. It was a new food experience for me - it was at a Yakitori restaurant, so various types of grilled chicken on skewers, and of course some cold beer. It was great!

After Oahu we were on the Big Island for about a week, and there we mostly made our meals since we were at an AirBNB place with a full kitchen, but the last day we stopped at Kona brewing for some bevvies and lunch:



The wheat beer was great! Jacqui had fish tacos:



And I had some sliders - very good and on sweet buns made with Taro that were interesting and had a purple hue:



We did stop at a lovely place in Hawi on the Big Island called Sushi Rock. Now I am not a fish guy at all, and certainly not raw fish, but feeling adventurous after a big morning hike we had a late lunch and some sushi. For "first timers" they recommended the "tropical treat" nori maki, and I have to say it was pretty good:



Next stop was Maui, and we ate out more there since we were at a resort with limited cooking facilities. While driving the Road to Hana (which was a blast) we stopped along the way and had Ahi tuna fish and chips at the Nahiku marketplace:



So as you can see I'm eating a lot of fish for a guy that really doesn't like fish much. The last fish I had was the best...at the restaurant on our resort (run by some contestant from Top Chef - can't remember his name) I wanted to try some seared tuna, but since I wasn't sure I was going to like it I convinced my wife to get a chicken dish, so we could switch if needed. She likes fish and wanted to get fish, but agreed to get the chicken just in case...then they brought me this:



Seared Ahi tuna, on ginger mashed potatoes, with a ginger beurre blanc (all very subtle so it didn't overpower the fish) and some mushrooms. It was fantastic! I did share some with Jacqui but she ate chicken...and wasn't too happy with me...😬

Our last day on Maui we hit a local place and decided to try Loco Moco...apparently a popular dish with the locals...we split the Loco Moco and also had a side order of onion rings, that we quickly realized we didn't need, but they were very good and very crispy:



Here is the Loco Moco...



This definitely falls under the guilty pleasure category...in the bottom of the dish is a cup or so of cooked white rice, then on top of that a couple of hamburger patties, then sautéed onions, brown gravy, and topped with 3 fried eggs. It was delicious, but certainly not anything I will make a habit of eating!

I will say we enjoyed the food we had in Hawaii, and if anyone is wondering, no I didn't eat any Spam while I was there, but it was available all over the place!

Cheers, Al

Definitely try to make it to Luger's. A colleague and I go once a year and order the steak for 4, then we collapse. No salad, no bacon, no sides - just the steak. Living in Chicago and working in client service we both frequent a lot of steakhouses, my colleague even has a steak blog - Luger's is number 1. I had to look through my phone to find this pic, it was taken 1/22/2015 which means I am 3 days late for my annual visit....😲