We were heading to The Lei Stand which is a small tiki bar with appetizers for dinner.
I'm going to have to remember this place, I love a good Tiki Bar!
For our first appetizer, we did the happy hour version of chicken karaage. This reminded me of Cane’s Chicken fingers honestly. While it was tasty, I’m not sure I would get it a second time.
Well I will remember that! I'm not the biggest fan of Cane's!
Now this was the real star of the place. The cheezy bread. That honey truffle drizzle should have been named the crack sauce as I wanted to lick the plate when we were done.
Noted!
What were we doing? Shark Cage Diving!
You are braver than me. This is not an activity that I will be putting on the list!
After about 45 minutes, we loaded back onto the boat to head back to shore. I was very glad I remembered to bring along a towel from the room as we needed it! Both of us were cold; however, once the boat started moving again, my husband left the seat to just hang out by the side of the boat. He got hit hard with seasickness. I felt really bad for him.
I'm sorry your husband felt bad, it sounded like he didn't get much better all day.
I did go downstairs to see if I could get signed up for the Mimosas & Macaron workshop that they have for DVC members.
I will have to remember this for when we do a full on Hawaii trip! If they still offer it!
I did sign up for the Sake & Sushi seminar that was the next day.
Did you show pictures of that? Did I miss it?
Eventually we got back up and headed to the car to drive the 30 minutes over to Ko Hana Distillery. It was still raining some. We checked in and I decided to upgrade to the Aged Rum Flight while my husband decided to pick the Cocktail Flight instead of the classic flight that we would enjoy at the end of our tour.
This is definitely something I would enjoy!
Luckily for me, the large party had 1 person decide not to attend and thus, I had a seat!
Yay!
She continued with the demonstration to show us how to pipe the cookies.
There's no way I'd be doing this without someone providing me a bag like they must have for you. I seem to be afraid of piping, or at least preparing the bag.
During this part, we also ended up with two more macarons and another mimosa.
I would work with that!
Overall, we got 3 mimosas and 5 macarons of various flavors included in the seminar along with the vegan chocolate mousse. I felt this was a nice value for the event and was very thankful to be able to get in!
How much was it?
To start, I went for the beef tartare again and oh it was divine. The parmesan cheese really paired nicely with the truffle sauce and beef.
That beef tartare looks super good!
Overall, I really enjoyed this meal despite the atmosphere not being what I know it should have been. We headed back to Aulani to go to bed.
I'm sorry the weather messed up the ambience of the restaurant.
It was a lot of fun. It is only offered on Thursdays currently. The Poke one is Fridays & Mixology is Saturdays. You can't book until you are on site and you must be a DVC member.
Well this next trip, the only one we have a hope of doing is Mixology. We don't arrive until Friday afternoon.
This morning we woke up to more rain. We had planned on going to the beach/pool early but that got delayed by the weather.
Ugh, so much rain!
I went to the ‘Olelo Room for breakfast getting a POG mimosa and 3 malasadas. My husband left to run in the gym since he didn’t the day before with the seasickness.
Those look delicious! and POG Mimosa doesn't sound bad either!
My first course was the tuna. I figured I had enough beef tartare that I needed to make sure I got some fresh tuna in. This was very good. There was just enough lemon to cut through the richness of the sauce used.
Tuna is an equally delicious alternative to the beef.
For my main, I went with the monchong. Monchong is a local Hawaiian fish that gets caught during tuna fishing. I really enjoyed this. It wasn’t too heavy either after having enjoyed two prior courses.
I will have to remember that fish.
For dessert, I ordered an espresso martini and my husband and I shared the sundae. This was a nice ending to the meal. I really liked that brown butter ice cream.
I love a good espresso martini for dessert!
Back at the hotel, I began the not so fun part of vacation – packing as we would be leaving the next day.
Ugh, it seems like you all just got there, but I know it was a week long trip.
My husband went with the Chicken Caesar
Shocked, I tell you! I'm shocked!
We witnessed multiple people flip out that the chicken option for the meal ran out and instead had to have the tofu pasta. The tofu was one large cold piece – it was easy enough to remove if you didn’t want it. It wasn’t the best airplane food but it did its job of filling us up enough to not be hangry.
It's amazing how people flip out like that. Granted the airlines never seems to make enough chicken, and they are now erring on the whole vegan plant based side, but it's not like you can't get good once you get off the plane. It's not like it's your last meal.
We close on the house now tomorrow and then I can figure out the rest of our 2024/2025 adventures once the dust settles from all that.
Yay for closing on the house. I saw that somewhere online a few days ago. I'm sure you're busy getting moved in and everything how you want it. Enjoy!
