Top almost 9 Maui Restaurants

Polenta Stack at Lahain Grill

This post has little relevance to most of my readers but can't resist - we've had amazing food on this trip and these restaurants are just fabulous!  Excellent menus, service, ambiance!

1.  The Lahaina Grill - Polenta Stack was outstanding - flavors just melting in my mouth.  This night I had lobster ravioli to begin!.......the management decided our party of 6 needed a variety of desserts, creme brulee, berry pie, warm chocolate cake with ice cream

2.  The Pineapple Grill - Short Ribs Ravioli appetizer with Surfin' Goat Dairy Cheese - rich enough for a meal - saving room for dessert, oh my - one night was warm chocolate cake and another their famous pineapple upside down cake with fresh pineapple topped with Roselani's macadamia ice cream and coconut phyllo shreds on top - oh and surrounded by an amazing caramel sauce!  Rombauer bottle completed this delish dinner

3.  I'O - amazingly imaginative fresh fish dishes - beautiful ocean breezes

4.  Roy's Kahana, now Roy's Kaanapali - they've moved - but still the best butterfish ever!!! Just order the appetizer size

5.  HONO - 2 lunches and 2 dinners with take-home boxes as well.  Steve does takeout non-dairy chocolate mousse cake here!  The turtle watching as well as the manta rays surfing were enchanting evening time entertainment

6.  MALA - room for toasted brussels sprouts - it'll change your definition of bs forever!

7.  Leoda's Kitchen and Pie Shop - lunchtime, I've never had a BLT to write home about but this place deserves the accolade, thick bacon, avocado, sweet maui onion, sweet mountain grown fresh lettuce,  the piecrusts - soft and flaky, the secret - lard, of course - definitely on Steve's non-dairy dessert list.  He chose dairy free, I chose coconut creme pie and chocolate macadamia, carmel sauce

8.  Kai Sushi - well, it will ruin your idea of sushi for anyplace else!  So fresh!

9.  Star Noodle*




*review pending - we haven't been able to actually get in to Star Noodle YET - their beautiful, rather small restaurant is always hoppin' and we keep trying to catch them on an "un-hoppin'" night:)

Small Town - "BACON & EGGS"

Small town, Walla Walla, WA - 30.0 pop. - greater communities together 50.0.  I used to live in the New York City/CT area so yes, this is small town America.  I found out again today just how small a town it is......

Several weeks ago now, I misplaced a pair of new leather gloves.  I say misplaced because I knew I hadn't lost two at the same time —slipping out of a pocket onto the ground, etc. — a pair wouldn't have gone that way.  I had a picture in my mind of placing them somewhere and with that picture I've looked everywhere, in the same places.....many times!  Pockets, purses, jackets, drawers, cars - front seats, back seats, in the cushions, at church - you get the picture.  Yesterday I decided the gloves were gone.  Heading to Minnesota next week, I determined that I'd better head to Main Street today after yoga for a pair of gloves - hopefully on sale!

Then forgetting the glove issue for the moment,  I entered the yoga studio and my teacher said she had a message for me from her friend Raquel, and from Raquel's friend, Michelle............before she could finish, I said — the gloves??!!!

You see while my husband and I were trying out a TERRIFIC NEW CAFE here in town several weeks ago — it's called "BACON and EGGS" — I was so busy congratulating said Michelle and her partner, Michelle, on the opening of their amazing new place that I left the gloves on the bench where I'd been seated.  With a tummy full of delectable breakfast and a delish take-home scone to be eaten later that day, I was much too comfortable to remember the glove thing.  Fortunately for me and my gloves, one of the Michelles noticed and snagged them for her Lost and Found drawer.   She and I've only visited during yoga classes we used to be in together, and in the fall having spent a weekend at a women's retreat in Leavenworth, WA, we still don't know each other's last names, addresses, and certainly not email contact information.........

.......and yet, not REALLY knowing each other, I heard about her cafe and couldn't wait to try the food; she knew I was thrilled with what I'd tasted and that I'd surely be back for more but in the meantime, she put a message out into the universe thinking that I might receive it some way and voila - I did.  Picking up my gloves today and snagging a fresh scone at the same time, well, that's the sort of thing that happens in a small town and it's very nice.

BTW, if you live in or near this great little town of Walla Walla, my spouse and I highly recommend a visit to "BACON and EGGS" - as I said above, delicious, imaginative, fresh food, good coffee, delicious baked every a.m. scones and other breakfast breads.  Give it a whirl - it's on Main Street close to Whitman's new sports complex.  Enjoy, enjoy and tell them "Dianna sent you:)"!