Empyreal Environs

I realized my previous post was a little bitter, so I thought I should write about something that is far from acrid: Hawaiian food.

I don’t do much sightseeing as I’ve pretty much seen everything on the two islands I’ll be on, Oahu and Maui. So I have been eating all my favorite foods that are hard to find in Massachusetts.

One of the first things I had was gau gee at Waimalu Chop Suey. Gau gee are like won ton on steroids. They don’t cut down on the meat at Waimalu; it’s stuffed full of pork and deep fried.

I also had laulau, which is a traditional Hawaiian dish of pork and butterfish steamed in taro leaves. It came with lomilomi salmon (sort of like a ceviche) and haupia (coconut pudding-ish jello-ish dessert).

I’ve been to two different kinds of Japanese restaurants, one that serves mostly ramen and one that serves teishoku, which are set dishes of teriyaki, tempura, and other Japanese specialties served with rice (of course), tsukemono (Japanese pickled vegetables), and miso.

One of the things that is popular is mixing satsumaimo (purple Okinawan sweet potato) in various dishes. I had it in fried mochi (sort of like cascaron) and coconut tapioca. Satsumaimo is less tangy than yams or other kinds of sweet potato and doesn’t break up when cooked. So ono (Hawaiian word for “delicious”)!

When I come back I’m going to weigh 20 pounds more, but will be tremendously happy about it.