Blushing Dahlia

swim top| swim bottom| sunglasses

Alright, finally getting around to posting an iPhone diary/ round-up of my trip to Hawaii. For some background, we stayed in Honolulu on Oahu, but specifically Hawaii Kai. Instead of a hotel, my family and I stayed in a house on the canals. Really beautiful house and very calm and relaxing area. It’s nice to stay in a house with a kitchen so you don’t have to eat out every meal. With a toddler, eating out multiple times a day can be exhausting, so having access to a kitchen and snack from the fridge was perfect. Also this house had a pool (which was awesome) and a beautiful lanai (aka a porch) that overlooked the canal. Mornings and evenings were peaceful. Wow loved to grab coffee at Island Brew Coffeehouse and bring it back to the house to enjoy on the lanai. It was so good and their breakfast menu looked awesome. I had the Nutella toast one day, but my best friend/photographer, Karen, tried the French toast. That looked like heaven. My sister’s bestie got the waffles and that looked almost too good to eat! Some days I would get a smoothie from there along with my iced coffee. I loved the PB&J, which was an açaí smoothie with peanut butter. Caden loved this smoothie and would share it with me. I knew it was an easy way to get some fruit in him, because two-year olds can be selective. The actual coffeehouse looked like a nice place to sit and enjoy your coffee and the staff was friendly. I highly recommend this place if you stay near by.

We were close to Koko Marina, which had lots of little shops and restaurants. One night we went as a family to Kona Brewing at Koko Marina. If you like beer it’s a great place to go. I’m not that into beer so I was excited for the food. Another night, just us girls went for late night snacks and I tried their Lychee Coconut martini, which was interesting. I liked it, but wouldn’t say I loved it. One night after dinner, we went to Bubbie’s and got some mochi! I love mochi ice cream!! SO many flavors to choose from. You could also opt for regular ice cream. Below is a picture of their menu. It’s the perfect little treat after dinner.

Next is the debate on who has the best shave ice. Obviously, I didn’t try every single shave ice spot on the island so I can’t say who has the absolute best, but I’ll share which ones I loved. The first one we tried was Kokonuts Shave Ice. This one out of the three we tried, had my favorite mochi. I love getting my shave ice with mochi on the bottom and then snow cap on top, which means condensed milk poured on top. At Kokonuts, I chose the mango and lychee as my flavors. It was good, but that mochi was probably my favorite part. The next shave ice place we tried was Island Snow. This place had the best flavors out of the three places I tried! Down below is a picture of our shave ice from Island Snow. I got the guava, lilikoi and POG (passionfruit, orange and guava). Karen got snazzberry (similar to boysenberry flavor) and lilikoi (passion fruit). Caden loved shave ice, couldn’t wait to have some! We went back a second time and I tried one of their all natural flavors. I got the lychee and it was sooooo good!! This pace had the best taste. The flavors were strong. The mochi was good, but still loved Kokonuts mochi more.

The last place for shave ice was Keneke’s. Before trying the shave ice, we got some lunch. I got the teriyaki chicken, which was delicious. My sister got the teriyaki beef, her bestie Rachel got something similar to loco moco, but replaced the gravy with teriyaki and Karen tried the kahlua pork. They serve you generous portions. I ended up taking some home to eat later. We had heard about this place being some random place on the way to Waimanalo beach. If you aren’t paying attention, you might drive right past it. The food was great and is definitely worth the stop. I thought their shave ice was just okay. I got the guava and lilikoi ( kept getting similar flavors to compare). Flavors didn’t stand out to me and the ice wasn’t the same texture as Island Snow or Kokonuts. I would definitely come back for the BBQ though because it was yummy in my tummy!

Finishing off this first vacation round-up with Leonard’s home of the malasadas! Now what’s a malasada you ask? Well it’s a Portuguese donut, minus the hole. Nothing beats a hot, fresh malasada. We went to the bakery and got a big ol’ box! I personally love the original (just plain sugar on the outside) and the guava filled which was the flavor of the month. Karen really liked the cinnamon sugar one (no filling inside). The custard filled was also good, but not my favorite. I was too busy enjoying the original to try the chocolate filled or coconut filled! Fortunately we had the malasadamobile close to where we were staying and could get fresh malasadas whenever we pleased!

p.s. as you can see we enjoyed a lot of food. Sometimes I was too excited to take pictures! I’ll be rounding up some more places to eat and places to visit in part 2.

p.s.s. everything is linked below!