Foodie at the Finish Line: Maui Mo' Bettah

Hurray! I've finally had a chance to download our pics so thought I'd share shots of some of the yummy things we ate while we were in Maui -- I must remember this blog is FOODIE at the Finish Line so some of you non-runners are probably thinking OK, enough with the running...let's hear about the FOOD!

Last year when we went, we ate out a ton...which if you've ever been to Hawaii, you know that food is insanely expensive - I almost had a heart attack when I saw our Visa bill! This time, we thought we'd try to mix it up and eat home a bit more often or eat out at less expensive places.

Breakfast on our first day - we have a little "welcome home" ritual where we always go to a little place at the hotel next door to us called the Gazebo, where they have an awesome breakfast. They don't open until 7:30, but there's always a line up so you have to get your butt out there by 6:45 - 7am to make sure you get a seat. I had eggs benny, Hubs had a big kahuna omelette (bacon, cheese, chorizo - so deelish) and we shared a short stack of banana mac pancakes. Ahhh, we're home.

That night, we went out for the THE.BEST.DINNER.EVER. We'd heard a lot about Merriman's but never went...now we don't know why we didn't go sooner. They use all local ingredients, and only the freshest stuff. We shared this salad which was local greens, carmelized Maui onions, blue cheese, house smoked bacon and the most delicious tomatoes I've ever had...all topped with a smooth avocado dressing. Hubs was asking me the other day about the best thing I've ever eaten and I had to say this was probably the best in recent memory. I savoured every single bite of this. So simple, so good.

Also, note the beverage in the upper left hand corner of the picture. This was the strongest mai tai I've ever had - I had three sips and I was starting to feel all glow-y and squinty! We were only five minutes away from home so I could just stumble home.

My main course - medium rare ono, served on celeriac/potato mash with a wine reduction - amazing.

Here is Hubs main course - grilled wild boar, served on gnocchi with garlic chips and sauteed local kale - even better than my ono. We were very unclassy and switched plates at the half way point but we didn't care!

While we at dinner, this was the view from where we were sitting...does it get any better than this??!

Every Saturday in Kahului, there is a swap meet on the grounds at Maui Community College. Hubs and I went last year, so dropped by for a quick visit and found this stall, selling the most beautiful tomatoes I've ever seen - no chemicals and locally grown.

Look at these beauties! They were as delicious as the ones we had at Merriman's, if not better. They weren't watery at all and tasted like tomatoes - seriously incredible. We had these sliced for dinner with some Annie's goddess dressing. Yum!

Later on that day, we went to this little hole in the wall restaurant in Wailuku called Sam Satos. Hubs had read that this place had the best saimin on the island - they make their own noodles apparently. Hubs had the saimin soup while I had the dry saimin, which was kind of like chow mein. Hubs was meh about his (it needed a bit more oomph) but I really liked mine. They also had baked goods so we picked up some blueberry and apple turnovers which I neglected to take photos of, but they were pretty good.

Ahhhh. Ruth Chris. This is our fifth trip to Maui and we always go there for dinner. They have the best steak and prime rib, and they serve it on a 500 degree plate to keep it hot...the meat is still sizzling on the plate! It's their 45th anniversary so they had a special menu which both Hubs and I chose. Our starters - Hubs had the house salad with a lemon basil dressing (very good) and I had the Louisiana gumbo. OMG, this was good! It was a teeeeeeny bit salty, but I'm a self confessed salt hound so I really liked it. I'm going to try and dig up a recipe for gumbo and take a stab at it, I enjoyed this so much.

Here is our dinner - Hubs had a 16 oz rib eye (huge) with mashed potatoes, while I had the steak with creole shrimp and mushrooms - had to get some veggies into my dinner! If you look closely at my steak, you can see the bubbles from where it's still sizzling.

And the piece de resistance - dessert! Raspberry and mango sorbet, which was fabulous.

After dinner, Hubs wanted to take some pictures with his fancy pants camera, so we stopped by the Malaa Ramp where I took this pic just as the sun was setting. There's nothing like sunsets in Hawaii!

Fast forward to our last night in Maui - we went to a new place called Star Noodle as Hubs had also seen some advertising for this (ahhh, so wonderful to have a husband who is a total foodie like me!). We almost didn't make it in as they're supposed to open at 5pm but the kitchen wasn't ready so we couldn't get in until 5:30. They kept brushing us off! Finally they let us in but if they'd done it one more time I would have walked.

Our starter, which was dried squid, local fiddleheads and Maui onion with a sesame dressing. Interesting, but good.

I picked the local saimin (I have a love affair with noodles), which had chicken broth, kamaboko, green onions and spam. Hawaiians loooove spam and I have to say, I kinda liked it. Super salty though and it's terrible for you, but it was yummy in my tummy *said in secret whisper voice*

Hubs had the Star ramen - pork broth, roast pork and an egg. He thought it was OK, but wished they had given him a knife as the piece of pork was huge.

Pictures on our last night...

To negate all this delicious food, we tried to fit in some runs, so I thought I'd show you our route. These are actually last year's pictures, which we took after we came back from a hike but they give you the gist.

This is the view of the big hill as you're leaving the Ritz Carlton in Kapalua. Yes, this is the same hill where I whupped those youngun's asses! And yes, that is Hubs in his straw hat (so cute!).