One of the things that I’ve been really looking forward to on our vacation in O’ahu was recommended by a friend, called the “Hole in the Wall Food Tour”. I was sold on the idea of being carted around sampling some of the island’s best “cheap eats”, which can be easily overlooked on a stay at an exotic tropical vacation. Jen and I had a bit of difficulty finding the exact pickup location of our tour, navigating the massive parking garage from our directions of the Ala Moana Center to the Ala Moana Hotel with just a few minutes before the start of the tour, but managed to hop on our bus just before the departure time and nothing but seconds to spare. We hopped on our tour bus, a large, black, luxury Mercedes Benz people mover, was already filled with the eight other tourists, along with our guides Matthew and Keira, proprietors of the Hawaii Food Tours company. Matthew’s pedigree includes a long career from an apprentice to an executive chef in LA, as a personal chef to celebs, and as the food and restaurant critic for the Star Advertiser, Hawaii’s largest daily newspaper. It would prove to be the exceptional resumé that really added the depth of knowledge and love for food that made our tour something beyond the ordinary.

Our first stop off was the Royal Kitchen, a small where we were treated to the baked manapua. The recipe takes the traditional baken Hawaiian sweet bun, and fills it with ingredients of your choosing. I opted for the savory Cha Siu (chinese barbecue pork), while Jen ordered the super sweet Black Sugar filling. I’ve had these types of buns at various dim sum locations back on the mainland, but none as piping hot fresh or delicious as the one I had here. I made short work of my bun and made googly eyes at Jen’s as she enjoyed each bite of hers, giving me the evil eye for quietly calculating how I could get it away from her hands.

As we loitered about in front of the restaurant, Matthew and Keira peppered us with tidbits of history and trivia, giving some color and personality to the area and time understand that the island has a rich history that doesn’t simply revolve around leis, luaus, and dolphins. So there. Suck it, dolphins.

Before we left, a short Chinese woman (are there really any other kind?) came running out with a styrofoam box and thrust it upon Matthew with a string of inaudible words, to which he thanked her, and presented to us with a box of sliced, roasted Chinese barbecue pork. If there’s any meat that can beat out bacon for me, it’s this stuff. I had many childhood summers in Hong Kong plowing through pounds upon pounds of this stuff, and to this day I start making prehistoric grunting noises of delight whenever I come across a particularly good serving of it. While Royal Kitchen is definitely known more for their baked manapuas, they’re no slouches when it comes to their pork.

Our next stop on the tour was Liliha Bakery, such a historic landmark of O’ahu that it was even used as the backdrop for one of the scenes from ABC’s television show Lost (the diner in Season 2 where Kate had a flashback of meeting with her Mom).

 The crown jewel of Liliha Bakery is their Coco Puff pastry – a round pastry shell nearly bursting and overfilled with a chocolate pudding, and topped with a supersweet chantilly frosting. Another dish in the tour where I nearly devoured the food whole, and jealously eyeing Jen’s food. The tension was palpable. She silently cursed me and I relented, leaving to enjoy her food in peace. These things are meant to be eaten without hesitation. The flaky pastry was already on its way to a soggy disintegration as we ate them outside the restaurant, and I doubt they’d make it all the way back to our hotel room, whether due to the nature of the pastry, or me getting my grubby hands all over them to shove them into my mouth.

Our next stop was where we’d spend a majority of our time on the tour, Honolulu’s Chinatown, which I credit to being much more of a real Chinatown than DC’s Chinatown has even proven to being. The streets are lined with diminutive shops and open air markets hawking fresh seafood and plentiful, inexpensive produce. If you’re going to be in Oahu for a significant amount of time, this is the place to do all your shopping and avoid the “sticker shock” of imported produce from major supermarkets on the island.

We were given a behind the scenes look at the Ying Leong Look Funn Factory, a dying industry of hand made noodle factories. The process is amazing, watching sheets on sheets on sheets of noodles get steamed and hand folded, then served delicious strips coated in sauce and fixin’s. Seeing things like this always interest and amaze me, the will the dedication of masters of older generations tenaciously holding onto their craft doing things the old fashioned way, things that shouldn’t be forgotten entirely, but are, all in the name of modernization. I’m a sucker for nostalgia not of my own.

We sampled three varieties, the shrimp & spring onion, pork & spring onion, and plain, along with a heaping portion of Korean BBQ chicken from Jackey’s Kitchen in the Maunakea Marketplace. The Marketplace was filled with tons of vendors of shops hawking fresh, exotic fruits and vegetables of all kinds. After a 20 minute shopping spree, it was back to sampling the foods that Keira had gone off order and bring back to us, a circle of foodies intently listening to Matthew describe each food and awaiting our turn to get our sample, all the while blocking out curious locals looking to possibly grab a free sample of their own.

The first tray being filled with “Half Moons”, or steamed dumplings filled diced vegetables and meat in a gelatinous wrapper and served with a sweet dipping sauce, while Jen was served a deep fried banana coated in a sticky caramel sauce.

Next up, a Hawaiian specialty – a small bucket of Ahi Poke (pronounced pokey), tender chunks of raw tuna served in seasonings, along with Spam Matsuba, or spam sushi, another island favorite meat. We also were treated to two varieties of Hawaiian Gold pineapple, one sprinkled with a salty sweet li hing powder, and the second, plain, which was just as great on its own.

The last tray, a serving of apple bananas, a variety of bananas that are ripe only when the skin looks bruised, beaten, and way past its prime. Deceptive, no? The flesh of the banana was actually perfectly ripe, and not in the slightest bit mushy, with a distinct taste that I could only describe as a cleaner tasting banana. Along with those were a plate of Coconut Tarts from the Rainbow Tea Stop in Chinatown. The tarts were good, but surprisingly, I enjoyed the bananas a good deal more.

To wrap things up before moving out and visiting other shops, we had a Keira cocktail – a cold lychee-pineapple-vodka smoothie, with just a hint of li ning powder. BAM! I passed on the vodka, knowing that I would have landed flat on my face just a few steps away if I had indulged.

Our last stop was off to Leonard’s Bakery for a box full of malasadas. These infamous deep fried treats are akin to donuts in their appearance, but with a light, fluffy texture when they’re fresh, and sprinkled with a(n) (un)healthy dose of sugar. The bakery also offers an cinnamon sugar variant, along with custard filled ones as well. The custard fillings change throughout the year, and flavors include macadamia, pineapple, banana, mango, guava, and lilikoi, a flavor that’s not unwholly like passionfruit.

There were several other places we visited on our food tour, entirely too many for me to mention and not make this into a full out novella. The experience was without a doubt unique and enjoyable, not only for the food, but for the energetic and pleasing nature of our guides, Matthew and Keira. If you’re visiting in Oahu, I definitely recommend taking a trip around Honolulu with them.

Visit the Hawaii Food Tours website here.

Recommended For:

• Gastronoms
• Honeymooners
• Beachlovin’ Brünos
• Adventurous Palettes

Not Recommended For:

• Salty Sheilas
• Hangry Harriets
• Zone Dieters
• Steak’n'Potato Joes

http://blog.hostelbookers.com/travel/best-breakfast/

Enjoy!

Thoughts? Comments?

That’s not such a bad thing, as it turns out that being eco conscious can make for a decent business model, like it has for Magnolia Bistro. The restaurant engages in a plethora of green practices, including composting or recycling almost all of the waste created, using strictly non-GMO soy and grains in all the dishes, sourcing local farms for fresh ingredients, and using recycled materials throughout the restaurant.

Inside, exposed brick walls and floors alongside wood floors and tables lend a certain warmth to the interior, with plenty of local artwork adorning every free space throughout the restaurant.

The menu aims to satisfy the diets of almost all types of visitors: vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, local, and even some love for my fellow paleoheads.

There are a number of interesting dishes to have you salivating before it even hits your table, like the Banana Bread French Toast, which can be ordered as a full plate, or as a side dish, as pictured above. The french toast is made from organic grains and fair trade organic bananas which are baked in house, dipped in soy milk, rice milk, cinnamon, and vanilla, fried to a slight crisp and finally topped with a dash of powdered sugar.

There’s also the Crispy Steel Cut Oatmeal cakes, served here with vanilla cream sauce for dipping. The top and bottom are slightly crispy, as the name would suggest, with a soft, nutty interior, giving this dish a nice textural change from the traditional bowl of porridge like oatmeal, and a fantastic dish to share. Although if you’re eating with me, you might want to make it a double.

Omelets made here still use the highest quality of ingredients with locally sourced eggs and bacon, but I found the order to be a bit lacking in substance and presentation. In fact, I even put in for a double order of bacon on the side just to get in a bit more from our brunch. In retrospect, knowing full well that I’d stray from my paleo ways for this meal, I’d probably opt for a sammich or three as my main course. It’s hard to turn away from choices such as the Open-FaceSteak Sammich (local marinated steak topped with mushrooms, onions, and cheddar cheese) or the Smokey Mountain BBQ Pork (local slow cooked pork made in a house barbecue sauce).

The service here is good, and there are always a number of dishes written up on the chalkboard near the bar that list the daily specials, in the off chance that nothing sparks your interest on the 100% recycled paper menu. Prices seemed to be pretty reasonable to me, but I could see how some might think of it as being a bit on the high end for a college town. Just keep in mind that high quality ingredients don’t come by cheap, and high quality sourced goods is what this restaurant is all about.

All in all, Magnolia Bistro is an excellent place to stop in for an early meal before exploring Burlington, and a great addition to this small college town. It is better suited for the vegans and vegetarians, as evidenced by the other offerings on the menu, but it doesn’t discriminate to meat eaters, which is just fine by me.

And yes, they have pancakes, too.

See Magnolia Bistro on a map here. (Note: It’s tucked away in a multi use commercial building on the basement floor, so it’s a little hard to find. You’ll have to enter through the building doors first and go downstairs!)

Recommended For:

• Vegans
• Vegetarians
• Localvores
• Patchouli Princesses
• Canadian Campers

Not Recommended For:

• Rhinestone Cowboys
• Kenny Powers Powerlunches

* Burlington is the home of Burton Snowboards HQ.

** Burlington is also the home of Lake Champlain Chocolates HQ.

One of these places stood out in particular when I was searching for a place to take Jen. The striking thing about the menu was that it was decidedly vegetarian. In fact, wholly vegetarian. As a meat eater, even as a paleohead, it’s easy to forget that being a vegetarian can be pretty restrictive when you’re out on the prowl looking for noms. You’re usually given an option of a garden salad fit for a hare, or possibly a smattering of pasta dishes that’ll put you into food coma-esque glycemic overload. I thought it’d be nice to take her to place where she didn’t have to do a double take at every dish on the menu to make sure there wasn’t some sort of meat slipped in.

And so, with no reservations made, we were off to visit Yuan Fu Vegetarian.

The restaurant is nondescript enough to easily pass on the road. Situated in a small strip of storefronts with a tired asphalt lot, I had a split second to wonder if the half filled parking lot really was for this tiny Chinese restaurant. Inside, the tables are buzzing with conversation and ravenous patrons. Little has been paid in the way of decoration or furniture beyond the basics. I tried not to get distracted by the lack of air conditioning, or the thought of how hot the employees must be racing around delivering dishes to each table.

We order a couple of appetizers to start, beginning with the Crispy Taro Root Balls. Taro is a starchy root vegetable with a hearty taste that’s common in Chinese cooking.  Think of something as versatile as the potato. Here, they take taro, puree it down, packed around a vegetarian filling, and then drop it in the deep fryer to give it that beautiful, golden brown color. A must try if you’ve never had them before, and practically a staple even if you have.

We also put in an order for the Pan Fried Dumplings. No pork option for me here, unfortunately, but I decided I’d make do with vegetable ones here. Yuan Fu employs thick dumpling wrappers that carry a nice crisp texture when fried, but still remain as chewy and delicious on top. I’m pretty sure I could write a salacious romance novel about dumplings without too much problem. I can almost picture it now, although the thought of Fabio embracing a giant dumpling with lipstick is just a little too kinky for me.

The lack of meat didn’t end up bothering me too much. I liked the dumplings here, and wouldn’t hesitate to order these again.

For my entree, I opted for the Crispy Sesame Beef. Battered and fried chunks of vegetarian beef (textured vegetable protein) in a sweet sauce served with walnuts, broccoli florets and…a maraschino cherry? I wasn’t quite sure what the hell a cherry was doing on my dish either. I’ll take it as the Chinese equivalent of placing parsley on top of a steak. The beef isn’t going to fool anyone into thinking it’s really beef, but the preparation and taste are both still there, making this a reasonable substitute for vegetarian and vegan diners alike.

Jen ordered the Kung Pao Chickum, filled with chunks of sauteed chickum, red and green peppers, and plenty of peanuts to add a decent crunch to the dish. A decent dish all in all, but with Jen’s dislike of any sort of pepper that doesn’t absolutely burn the shit out of your mouth or have a scoville rating of anything less than 5,000,000, it ended up being a lackluster order for her meal.

It’s refreshing to see a restaurant cater wholly to the vegetarian community, and from the crowds packed into Yuan Fu on a weekend night, it shows that these people appreciate it. The dishes don’t deviate too far from tried and true Americanized recipes that’ll please the vast majority of vegetarians looking for a good meal. The appetizers were good, but the main dishes rely heavily on the sauce to carry them through, with nuts thoughtfully added in or there’d be a fairly obvious lack of crunch or anything to chew. I don’t think we’d end up going back, with so many other places to try, but I can easily see this place being an oasis for herbivores out on the hunt.

See Yuan Fu Vegetarian on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Fortune Cookie Franchescas
• Vegetarians
• Vegans
• Dumpling Divas

Not Recommended For:

• Paleoheads
• First Dates
• Gluten Free Gorging