Dallas and I love to grill out for dinner and have people over for barbecues but our old grill has been on the fritz for quite a while. Last year we only grilled one time. We invited a bunch of people over and went to light it up and it was not happening. So, just in time for grilling season this year, we got a new grill. And, lucky for us, Chris works at Weber and was able to get us quite a discount. Last weekend we spent about 4 hungover hours assembling this beast and dismantling our old one. Can’t wait to light it up!
Also, it’s hard to see in this photo, but we got a new stain on our deck. It looks really nice!
For our last dinner in Hawaii we met up with Cory, Chris, Danny and Caroline for dinner at Sansei. This is one of our favorite Waikiki restaurants. We even had gone to dinner there earlier in the trip. We were hoping that the Big Island restaurant would be as good as the Waikiki one, and it was. We gorged on all of our usual favorites as well as trying some new things. Dallas enjoyed a Japanese beer called Koshihikari Echigo. Us ladies were drinking lychee martinis. They were so delicious. I was on my third one when this happened:
Photo by Cory
I took a few sips and was going to eat my lychee when i noticed something in it. I thought it was part of a pit and was going to pick it out, when I noticed it was a bee!!!! After Cory took a few photos, our waitress was quick to apologize and brought out a complimentary replacement for the drink. So crazy!
Great dinner, though. I was sad that it was the last dinner of our trip, but we went out in style. I was so stuffed, and kind of drunk, by the end of that night!
Cory, Chris, Caroline and I hung out by the pool for a while and I introduced Chris to his first lava flow. I feel like I’m the lava flow ambassador!
Chris trying to look up shuffleboard rules on his phone at the pool
The Kona Coast Resort is a perfectly nice place. The condos are clean and nicely decorated in a tropical theme. There are plenty of activities and a nice pool.. and .. the only thing.. is that it kind of reminded me of some kind of Florida retirement community. There were a lot of older people. When your pool has a railing all around it, you might be clued in to the fact that you’re staying at a retirement community!
Another clue? Shuffleboard! Actually, the shuffleboard area was right outside the patio doors of the condo they were all staying in. So, we decided we had to play. I never played before, so I was excited. Too bad excitement doesn’t convert to skill. I was not very good! But we all had a fun time! Caroline thinks that this will be our life someday. We’ll all get condos at a tropical retirement villa and have shuffleboard tourneys. Not a bad life!
After shuffleboard Danny made us dinner using the fish we did not catch that morning. He made grilled blue marlin; kimchi somen cakes; crab, cream cheese and citrus wontons; and a kimchi consomme.
That night Dallas and I ended up staying overnight at the condo. There was a pull-out couch, so there was plenty of space. Our hotel was about an hour north of Kona and the next day we were headed south, so it just made sense to cut out that driving time.
After our half day deep-sea fishing trip, we went to L&L for lunch. Caroline was really excited to try a loco moco for the first time. I think the rest of us all got plate lunches. I got a kalua pig and lau lau plate lunch. Actually, Cory got saimin, I think. We were all laughing at Caroline and Danny who ordered like half the menu. Hahha. Caroline also got Spam musubi to try for the first time. And some kind of fried shrimp that was really tasty.
At 5:30 a.m. we got up and headed down to the Honokohau Marina near Kona. Chris chartered a boat for us to go deep sea fishing! I thought it would be really expensive, but we were able to get a private boat and captain for a half day and it came to about $50 per person and we got to keep any fish we caught!
Captain Bob took us out on his boat, the Thrill Seeker. When asked what kind of fish we wanted to catch, I said “Delicious ones!” Danny planned to cook up the fish we caught for dinner that night, since they were staying in a condo with a full kitchen and grill. Captain Bob said he’d try to get us some ono, ahi or mahi. I think he also goes for marlin (black, blue, or striped).
At the marina, before heading out, we each took Dramamine. No one wanted to be stuck out on a boat for 4 hours puking their guts out because they were seasick.
Unknown side effect of Dramamine: Drowsiness. Not even just a little tired… but like crash-out sleep!
The good news is that no one got seasick. The bad news is that we all slept for most of the boat ride! The good news? No one missed anything. The bad news? We didn’t miss anything because we caught ZERO fish!
We did get to see some schools of spinner dolphins and a bunch of whales, not humpbacks, but a smaller kind of whale.
Sign in the bathroom: “Please do not put anything in the “head” unless you have eaten it first. “Head” is boat-speak for “toilet.”
At the end I was kind of disappointed, but it’s not like Captain Bob can guarantee that you’re going to catch fish. He did tell us that about 35% of his customers are repeats because they’re happy, so I’m sure he catches fish often… just not with us! As Chris said, “this is why they call it fishing, not catching.” So, we paid for a chartered boat to take us on a beautiful sunrise trip, basically. It looked like this. For four hours:
Since we still wanted to Danny to cook us dinner, after we were done fishing (or not fishing) we went to the Bite Me Fish Market at the marina and to Costco in Kona to buy fish and things for dinner!
