Friday, August 22, 2008

Veg Hawaii: Part I of III: Tofufreak eats the Big Island

Because my family went to three islands, I will do 3 separate posts on our travels/eats. Hope you guys enjoy!

Here is a picture depicting the pre-trip excitement that my brother and I both shared! haha. This was taken on the airplane on the way to Honolulu.



Au Bon Pain Mediterranean wrap, (I believe) no feta, please! Oh, and a bag of potato chips too. Nummy. There was some kind of hummus and sundried tomato spread or maybe it was a roasted red pepper spread or something. I don't know. At any rate, it was pretty good! (Dallas/FW Airport)
Lookie what I found at the airport store! ABC Company's Vegan cookies! I was super excited and wanted to buy one of each flavor, but I restrained myself and limited my selection down to this lemon poppyseed cookie. It was really really good! Too bad I can't seem to find them anywhere else other than the Health Food Store.


Pickup dinner that I ate around 10 PM upon arrival in Hawaii. Cold noodles and veggies with sauce. Good portions, good price, can't recall the place.



This is my first lunch on the Big Island. Pretty boring. Inari sushi with a seaweed salad. We bought this from a Foodland or something like that.
For our official dinner on the Big Island, we went to Huggo's. I can't remember what this was called, but it was just ok. It consisted of grilled onions, portobello mushroon, asparagus, a black bean and corn salsa stuffed tomato, and a wild rice pilaf with a balsamic reduction. Meh-ish. The view was really lovely though.


Since we lived in a condo, we were able to store things in the fridge and cook! We took advantage of that on several occasions for breakfast. Here are examples of what I had for brekky:

This was basically my breakfast most mornings on the Big Island. Plain, but good. Plus, it was lower in calories so that I could indulge later in the day!


Apparently my uncle rarely cooks, so this noodle soup was an extra special soup! My relatives brought Ramen-type noodles from Taiwan. They are completely vegan, not fried, contain no MSG, and are perfectly delicious! We added tofu blocks and bean sprouts. Mmmm!


One thing that I loved about Hawaii was the fresh fruit. It was all so good! This is (very) fresh papaya. SO DELISH(with lemon squeezed on top)!



After going hiking (I think) we stopped by Hilo to find lunch. I can't believe we came across this place by chance! This is probably the best place on the Big Island. I loved and will love Abundant Life Natural Foods for the rest of my life.


This cookie that you see here is undeniably one of the best cookies in the world! I kid you not! I literally would go back to the Big Island just to get this cookie! It was soft, moist, nutty, oaty, chewy, wheat-free, dairy-free, egg-free, sugar free, and YUMMY! yea. sigh... Oh yeah, the shake in the back is a carob shake. (I though of VeggieGirl when ordering) :)


This is the grilled tofu salad of some sort. I believe my uncle got it? I don't know. At any rate, it was good.


My parents ordered this East Meets West Sandwich, which consisted of tofu, sprouts, vegenaise, and some other stuff. My mom liked the tofu lots. :)



I ordered the ginger tempeh burger. This, to date, is probably THE best burger I have ever had. Really good.


On our last night, we went to Sansei Sushi. They have some veggie options, as well as karaoke, if you're interested in such things. Here's what I had:

Blah. Miso soup. Pretty Average.



HAHAHA! This cracked me up so much! My relatives are Buddhist vegetarian, so they don't eat onions/garlic/green onions. Apparently that's all this dish had on top, so they brought out a block of pure, unadulterated, naked tofu!


I finally had a chance to try natto! I thought of Kamutflake girl when I was ordering this natto maki. :) I forget what the other roll was. In the back is some veggie tempura.


This is the grilled veggie roll with grilled squash, carrots, zucchini, and shiitake mushrooms.



These were the cups that they used for tea. The same advice was printed on the back in Kanji Japanese/Chinese. Clever, no?
And here I shall leave you with these words of wisdom. Tune in next time for eats on Oahu!

12 comments:

Allison said...

Hola Stephanie!!!

Your blog makes me hungry...and now I know that the treats that you brought to me last week were made by YOU!!!! (And yeah, they were wonderful...) Looking forward to reading and seeing more of your blog as you tell about the next adventure!!

~Miss Stolar

ChocolateCoveredVegan said...

Wait, DFW airport?! Does that mean you live in Dallas? I live in Dallas!!!

Anyways... I am so jealous of your trip. Hawaii is so much fun, but I haven't been in years. And from the looks of your pictures, it seems like quite a vegan-friendly place.

Vegan_Noodle said...

Looks like you got some good eats on the big island!! I love that mug!!

Anonymous said...

Wow! Sounds like a great trip so far! Hawaii just won me over with that ginger tempeh burger. :)

Peggy said...

Oh wow, that all looks fantastic! Makes me want to go to Hawaii again.. right NOW!

Theresa said...

Welcome back, and looks like you had a great time! I love that mug, and all the food looks pretty good.

alaina said...

yum! that food looks amazing!
by the way, at the smoothie king where i work we sell those ABC vegan cookies, so if you have one near you they might carry them.

ChocolateCoveredVegan said...

Darn, I was hoping you lived in Dallas, because I'm always excited to meet other vegans (especially ones who seem as cool as you!).

Simple and Divine said...

FABBBULOUS! And I LOVED this post because I lived on the Big Island, in the mountains just above Kailua, for two months last summer!!! It was amazing and I miss it more than anything... This post made my day!!

Pete said...

Hi, interesting and nice blog!

Sharon Reece said...

What an interesting blog! The pictures you included are fabulous. I'm going to have to figure out how to do that on my blog! My absolutely favorite meal on the Big Island was a salad I had in Waimea one day. It makes my mouth water just to think about it. I think the reason the food tastes so good is because if you're getting something fresh, it's usually really fresh - produced right on the island.

Incidentally we were on the Big Island looking for our son who was hiking in Hawaii (http://www.tnchristianpublishers.com/products

Ruby Red said...

I fly through the DFW airport a lot -- so I need to know what store you found the ABC vegan cookie in! I have never seen them in the airport before -- lucky girl you!

I love how you ate your cereal with chocolate milk. Sounds like a good idea to me!

That carob shake looks amazing! And so does your ginger tempeh burger -- that sounds like something I would definitely want to try! That store was an excellent find, for sure!

And the naked tofu is so funny. I actually think unpressed plain tofu is really fun to munch on -- I can't help myself sometimes, when I am first slicing up a new package of tofu... I have to eat a few squares of it! So yummy!

Yay for your awesome time in Hawaii!