Spirit of Aloha | Articles | Adventures in Dining | July/August 2005

Adventures in Dining
By: Sophia V. Schweitzer

Flip-Flop Fare

The Big Island does not need to pretend. While it has its share of upscale champagne-and-lobster establishments with romantic ocean views, its favorite hangouts reflect its taste for the casually classic, the real thing right on the beach. Take the no-fuzz, old-fashioned, walk-up, heavily Hawaiiana-decorated haunt called the Kalanikai Bar & Grill, on the sands of Kahalu‘u Beach, three miles south of Kailua-Kona. Kahalu‘u Beach once was the spot where royal chiefs gathered to surf. A fishing village thrived. Today, the remnants of an ancient breakwater contribute to making Kahalu‘u one of the finest snorkeling bays on the Big Island. Removed from the elite resorts farther north, Kahalu‘u Beach has become the place where commoners play. On a typical weekday afternoon, more than a dozen beachgoers patiently stand in front of a small, open kitchen to place their orders. It’s a happy crowd.

“Fish and chips for me,” says the man standing behind me, his eyes on the handwritten menu board. He is a mathematics professor from Boston, wearing swimming trunks. I’m a local writer, in a bikini top. My partner hops over to the bar in his flip-flops to buy us a beer—it is brewed right up the road, in Kailua-Kona, and is refreshingly cold.

At the recently renovated Kalanikai Bar & Grill, operated by the adjacent Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort, all menu items run under $10. “It is Keauhou’s best-kept secret,” says food-and-beverage director Mark Burson. “You can eat in the pavilion, get a takeout for the beach or sit on our lawn and watch the green sea turtles graze.”

My partner is tempted by the crispy fried chicken with two scoops of rice, plate-lunch-style. The turkey sandwich, with sun-dried tomato pesto mayonnaise and avocado on multigrain bread, sounds contemporary and subtly rich. But he settles for the Kahalu‘u Beach burger, with locally raised beef from Kulana Farms and caramelized onions. The burger is cooked to perfection. The onions are sweet and greasy, rousing illicit cravings.

I settle for the vegetable wrap, green spinach tortillas stuffed with sunflower sprouts and organic salad greens, spiked with cilantro and a creamy, garlicky hummus, with strong hints of sesame seeds. I will travel far for a good hummus and this, I can taste, is it.

A week later, a friend and I find ourselves at the northern-most end of the resort strip, Kauna‘oa Beach, one of the prettiest sandy crescents on the island, about a quarter-mile long, with clear, calm swimming waters and superb Kohala Coast views. Here, in 1965, long before the rest of the coast was developed, Laurance S. Rockefeller opened the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, a $15 million project and the island’s first destination resort. The hotel stimulated the budding tourist industry and provided jobs for Kohala’s plantation workers during those scary years when sugar in the Islands was being phased out. For well-to-do kama‘aina, Mauna Kea became the place to see and be seen.

The Hau Tree Terrace, an open-air, green-umbrella affair, has come a long way since the 1960s, when it was merely a hot dog court, with soft drinks on the side. Only the unbeatable location, so close to the water, remains. Shaded by a web of hau tree branches, the Hau Tree offers a sly menu that caters to all tastes—including peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, BLTs, grilled vegetables. No french fries here. Instead, large helpings of salty, tangy Maui chips. Forget mai tais. At the Hau Tree, you order a Fredrico, a mellow blend of Jack Daniels, layers of rum and tropical juice, with the color of roses and the flavors of sin.

We sip ourselves into dizziness until our food arrives: The $18 special balances the concentrated flavors of marinated shrimps and artichokes in smoky chipotle aioli, with the refreshing lightness of diced red tomatoes—all stuffed unceremoniously inside whole-wheat pita pockets. The $11.50 summer salad of romaine lettuce, olives and an herb vinaigrette, surrounding a generous scoop of white tuna salad, seems, at first, a welcome tradition for the tongue.

You linger over these beach lunches. The day is young. The waves murmur. The wind blows in your face. No need to pretend that Big Island life should be any different.

For details, call The Kalanikai Bar & Grill at 322-3441, The Hau Tree Terrace at 882-7222.              

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