Like a chump, I was determined to try a Hawaiian pizza while I was on the island. Before I went to Hawaii, I thought it was just the pineapple that made it typical. Then I found out that the whole joint was basically Pork City. They take their pigmeats seriously over there. The Luau pizza at Coffee Shack, a tiny cafe on a cliff over Kealakekua Bay, was totally different from the pizza I like.

The crust was thick and way breadier than any I’ve ever had. But it was still great! I just took it as its own thing; it was a de facto separate species of pizza. The ham, which really carried the whole pizza, was much better than the flaccid Canadian bacon that we typically eat this with on the mainland.

A lot of Midwestern Vietnamese kids are accustomed to their parents jonesing after “banh mi Ba Le,” and my cousins and I weren’t surprised when our parents took us to the Ba Le in Kailua Kona TWICE. It was pretty dingy-looking, but in a comforting way. We grabbed a bunch of banh mi to go, and I got the lemongrass chicken. Pretty great, and cheap too.

The second time around, the owner, an older Vietnamese woman, came out and chatted with us the whole time we were there. I was coming down with laryngitis, so I had a huge bowl of pho ga. Soooo good.

When we went to Hilo for a day, I scoured the internet for a cool, off-the-beaten-path lunch spot; the Hilo Lunch Stop came up a lot. Situated in an industrial center near the Queen Liliuokalani Gardens, the cafeteria-style restaurant seemed to be a favorite among the area’s working class.

I really loved it! There were so many offerings that I had never seen before, like a cornucopia of musubis, salads, ceviche-like fish preparations, and all things be-Spammed. I shamefully admit that I got overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of choice. I settled on their nori chicken, the typical macaroni-and-potato salad, and a tofu and mystery fish patty. Though they didn’t look like much, they were all so tasty!

When my family went to the Big Island of Hawai’i this month, we did our best to eat at interesting local places. (For some reason, my mom really wanted to go to the Macaroni Grill by our condo, but we managed to steer her away. This happened several times during our trip. She’s usually so classy, too.)

As the resident control freak, I was elected to be the food guide. I spent a ton of time poring over Yelp and our copy of the Fodor’s Guide to plan out where we were going to eat every day. Some guesses were better than others, but here are the results!

My mother, sister, and I got stranded in Captain Cook, HI after an adventurous bus ride that didn’t turn out to be as “round-trip” as expected. Parched, exasperated, and annoyed with each other, we stopped at L&L Barbecue, which was serving up breakfast. My sister ordered a banana lumpia, which was basically a piece of banana wrapped and fried just like an egg roll. The banana got nice and melty inside, which we really liked. Some kind of sauce would have helped, though.

Malasadas are a Portuguese export; they amount to sugared doughnuts. There were a bunch of flavors available at the Punalu’u Bake Shop, where we stopped en route to see a black sand beach, but we settled on taro due to its distinctiveness. I loved it! It was yeasty and not terribly sweet.

When my cousins’ family flew in to meet us, we went out to Waimea for dinner. I thought it’d be cool to go to Fujimama’s, but the restaurant wasn’t there! In its place was the Red River Cafe. Since everyone was going insane from hunger, we tried it out. And it was great! The decor was a little chintzy, but the staff was a genuine bunch. I tried the shrimp and housemade noodles with oyster sauce and truffle oil. It was a surprising flavor match-up, but it made its own kind of sense. I loved it, especially when I ate the cold leftovers for breakfast the next morning.

E is really into this McRib.

I guess everyone’s all aflutter because the McRib is back at McDonald’s. But after trying a bite of it, I kind of wish it would go away again. It was sort of like a slightly more flavorful burger? I don’t know, the second I put it in my mouth all I could think of was that I didn’t want it to be in there.

My fellow volunteers at the Trylon Microcinema really wanted to get McDonald’s during our shift, and insisted that I order something too. I asked, “Uhh is there anything vegetarian on the menu?” and they laughed (rightfully so). I actually had to look up the menu on the internet because I have no idea what they have. That felt pretty absurd.

For my birthday this year, my wonderful friends Ali and John took me out to a restaurant that I had been admiring from afar for pretty much its entire existence: Piccolo! I first encountered Chef Doug Flicker’s food at February’s Gastro Non Grata event, wherein he sent out an amazing pork meatball that totally threw everyone into a feeding frenzy.

But I had actually heard of him a lot earlier, from Jon Radle, a chef with whom I was interning in the winter of 2010. He said that Flicker was one of the best chefs out there, and that everyone could learn a lot from him. So I was just hysterical with anticipation when I finally sat down at Piccolo yesterday.

For my first course, I ordered the “smoked” razor clams with artichoke and pumpkin giardiniera, cilantro sprouts, and lemon puree. See the cute baby cilantro plants? They really held in a great cilantro flavor and looked amazing on the plate. But yeah, razor clams. I will order those whenever and wherever I see them, because they are a flavor and texture beast.

The mortadella agnolotti was served with pistachios, Dijon, and lardons. I can’t resist mortadella, either; it’s a rustic Italian bologna with pistachios embedded in it. Kind of like an olive loaf, I suppose? The agnolotti were really beautiful — they looked a lot better than in the shitty camera phone photo! — and just snapped open in my mouth. On the whole, the dish was a stimulatingly salty small plate.

My “entree” course was the magret duck served with a crunchy artichoke and celery ragout, sausage, and ground cherries. Apparently, they weren’t able to prepare it their usual way, so it was pan-seared instead. But it was still amazing! I love duck! The consistency was perfect, and it certainly looked like the most traditional dish on the menu. But I’ve never had the pleasure of eating ground cherries, so that was a real treat.

I kind of coerced John into getting, in my words, the “vegetarian surprise.” So I’m sorry for being a bully, haha. But it was worth it, right? The chef prepared a special vegetarian entree for him, which featured a similar ragout to the one on the duck dish. It included a perfect rectangle of toasted brioche topped with a bit of (I think) fontina cheese. He said it was “the best piece of toast I’ve ever had.”

The dessert at the top of this post was the quince tarte tatin, which I got for my dessert. John and Ali both got chocolate and apple cider cakes for theirs. Their cakes were topped with teeny-tiny malted milk balls, which I loved. My tarte’s crust was nice and buttery, and the quince just tasted so autumny.

That’s kind of what I love about my birthday, too: it’s the autumnal equinox. The transition from summer to fall is one of my favorite moments of every year. I’m so glad that I got to share it with friends, amazing fall dishes, and maybe some new friends in the making.

After dinner, we went to Liquor Lyle’s and got SLOSHED.

I’m putting the old mare to rest, and moving on up.

It’s been real.

This time, the ladies at Fabulous Catering supplied us with a huge, 6-room space and tons of food, including grass-fed beef chili, a satay bar, chips & salsa, desserts, and hors d’oeuvres. The salsas came in three varieties: tomatillo, “red,” and mango (definitely the best of the three). There was also an amazing chipotle gouda queso fundido made with PBR. Unnngh. On the aesthetic front, Joe really decked out with space with sheets and thangs that were really reminiscent of my mom’s bedroom/highschool prom. Not necessarily a bad thing, really.

The showstopper, though, was the polar patio, which was carved out by the Fab caterers’ relatives. Though the idea seemed kind of counter-intuitive to me (sit on ice… outside??), it wasn’t as crazy and I thought. Once the bonfire got going, it started to make a lot more sense.

There were about 300 or so people there, or at least it seemed like it. I spent about half the time sitting at the merch table; the other half, grabbing what bits of food I could. To be honest, the the bands didn’t figure into the event as significantly as usual, so I can’t remember much of what they were about. I do remember that Dark Dark Dark are all super-skinny and freaked me out.

I had to bounce early because I was actually falling asleep at the table, but I wish I could have stayed longer. The good vibes at the event were contagious, and there was nary a complaint aired. One thing, though, is that I wish the palm reader had stayed longer! I wanted to find out when I’d die