The Tasty Island

While there seem to be no Kauai-centric food blogs out there. I stumbled across a real beaut of a Honolulu-centric food blog by Pomai, hosted by Wordpress.

I invite you, my devoted reader to feast your eyes on The Tasty Island only on the condition that you promise to return to the Hawaiian Food Word of the Week!

I found The Tasty Island while researching Roy Yamaguchi. The entry of Pomai's birthday dinner at Roys (on Waikiki) is an example of the quality of original photography and indepth writing that Pomai puts into his blog.

Hence forth I shall strive to improve the quality of my content and despite my location (Madison, Wisconsin, currently in the UW-Madison Music Hall recording Donezetti's "Don Pasquale") I shall try to focus on food from the Garden Island of Kauai.

Feb#3: Apple Banana (Manzano Banana)

Having mentioned these in Roy's post, I wanted a quick followup.

These 4" fruits are sweet yet have a slight tartness. The taste has also been compared to a cross between an apple and a very sweet banana. (Manzano is the Spanish name for "Apple".) The plant can reach 12'-14'.

Molly and I had a mind-bendingly delicious fruit smoothie that consisted entirely of frozen manzano bananas run through a juicer. If you're driving north on THE highway on Kauai there is a little fruit stand - STOP THERE! This place makes one style of fruit smoothie per day. They seem to each be composed of one ingredient.

Feb#2: Roy Yamaguchi

Hey - let's get a proper noun out there. Soon after the original Roy's of Hawaii opened in Honolulu (on Oahu), Food & Wine Magazine dubbed it the "crown jewel of Honolulu's East-West eateries," and it was named one of Conde Nast Traveler's "Top 50." He was honored with the prestigious James Beard award for "Best Pacific Northwest Chef". Gourmet acknowledged Yamaguchi as "the father of modern East-West cooking" while the New York Times described him as "the Wolfgang Puck of the Pacific." Yamaguchi has hosted six seasons of the PBS-TV show, Hawaii Cooks with Roy Yamaguchi. His cookbook Hawaii Cooks is a companion to the sixth season.

You can look at pictures of his entrees all day on his official website. But you can try his Mahimahi recipe at home. (Good luck coming up with the apple bananas and passion fruit syrup let alone good fresh mahimahi.) Here's a recipe of his for a Macadamia Nut Pie. Low in calories I'm sure...

My wife Molly and I had a wonderful time dining at his place on Kauai on the south end of the island. They were serving a fixed menu as the south end island had just suffered a power outage. I had no idea a caeser dressing so loaded with large fresh black peppercorns could taste so good... I embarrassed Molly by asking for another ramekin of the stuff and spreading it on the bread.

A little known Roy fact: If you feed his name into You Tube you get a massive return of ads for his kitchen gadgets.

Enough of my blabbing about the man - I'll let him speak for himself in this interview.