The Royal Hawaian

I am visiting Oahu and Maui this week. First food stop brunch at The Royal Hawaiian.  If you have never visited The Royal Hawaiian, I highly recommend. Just to at least to walk the grounds and have a cocktail.  It takes you back in time.  Just sit at the bar have a Mai Tai or an old fashioned and  pretend for awhile it is 1960 and you are Don Draper taking a break from the NYC advertising world.

However, if it is before 11am do brunch. Well worth it. A mimosa, ocean view and Diamond Head hanging out in the background is not a bad way to enjoy your brunch.

We were first presented with a brunch amuse bouche, a shot glass of blueberry and banana smoothie. Nice, fresh, and tasty.

I had the kalau pork hash, poached eggs with champagne mustard hollandaise sauce, and my boyfriend had blueberry pancakes.

 Blueberry pancakes maybe a simple breakfast item, but the presentation of them made up for the simplicity. Pancakes stacked on a banana leaf, with a shot glass of fresh blueberries, and his own personal size bottle of real maple syrup.

The pork hash, seems to be the Hawaiian version of eggs benedict.   The pork was tender and a great smoky flavor, and the eggs were perfectly done.   In my experience, the hollandaise is either bad or really good.  8 times out of 10 it is not very good.  We'll this was on the 2 that was done perfectly. It had a nice flavor, and was not heavy and just overwhelmed and covered up the dish.  It was a very yummy breakfast, and would have this dish again when I go back.

We had another stop over in Honolulu, and decided to go back for dinner. Since our reservations were not until 8:45 we opted for a stop over at the Mai Tai bar (next to the restaurant) for appetizer and drinks with the parents.

We started with a Mai Tai and Seafood Platter.  Now note, the seafood platter is a tad expensive ($75..CHA-CHING), but it is designed to server 4 people as an appetizer or 2 people as a meal.  So take a someone who owes you dinner or your parents.  :)

We then moved into the restaurant for dinner, about 20 minutes after our scheduled reservations.  But after a couple of cocktails who is counting.  It is Hawaiian time...right?  Plus you get a good view outside and listen to the waves.

Because we have not had enough seafood on the trip so far we started with Ocean Cappucino which off of their tasting menu.  This is a Dungeness Crab and Blag Tiger Shrimp Bouillabaisse soup.  Chunks of crab and shrimp, with a nice flavorful broth.  We then had    for a seafood salad that was shrimp, crab, lobster, scallops, tobiko caviar and calamari.  It was kind of like the seafood platter with lettuce, taro root, and less expensive. Then we moved onto more shrimp, Hibachi Garlic Prawns with sea asparagus, tomato, fresh mozzarella, and local corn salad.  This was my favorite dish.  The shrimp was almost the size of lobsters. the corn salad and mozzarella, just made for a nice combination and really good flavors.  The platter comes with 3 shrimp, but since we were sharing, the waiter asked it we wanted to add another so we both had 2.  I appreciated that!