On our first night at Disney Aulani, we went to the Ka Wa’a Luau on property. The Preferred Seating was $204 per adult, and the General Seating was $175 per adult. The difference between the seatings is that the preferred seating is assigned and right by the front of the stage. You also can enter 10 minutes earlier, which means you can check out the side festivities earlier too. Don’t worry though.

For our last day in the Waikiki/Honolulu area before we head over to the western part of Oahu for Aulani, we decided to splurge on something a little nicer to eat. Of all the choices we had, we decided on this Bar Māze place that the internet had raved about. The dining room is quite small, and when we entered, we were seated at the counter. We noticed that many of the cooks were quite young, but they were also very professional with a lot of attention on making sure the food is cooked right.

Haleiwa Joe’s at Haiku Gardens in Kaneohe is known for its lush, beautiful views overlooking its own tropical garden and koi pond with a backdrop of a breathtaking Ko’olau mountain range. The restaurant opens for dinner nightly at 4 PM, and when we arrived at 3:30, there was already a line forming because they do not take reservations. Fortunately once they open, there are plenty of tables, but it feels that people are trying to get the best view overlooking the gardens.

We had just visited the Dole Plantation, and our next planned stop was to checkout this “word of mouth” BBQ chicken mobile that is similar along the same veins of the shrimp trucks. Be aware that there are 3 locations that this van goes to. This one that we went to is located in a gas station and is open on Tuesdays and Fridays. As a reference point if you are a tourist like me, this is located south of the Dole Plantation.

Gashoken is located in this below ground Asian food mall called “Stix Asia”. There are several decent sized restaurants with different Asian cuisines, such as Japanese ramen, Taiwanese beef noodle, Japanese hot pot, Korean street foods, etc. We did our lap around, and ultimately landed first on this ramen joint because the host was really marketing it like crazy to everyone walking in front. Upon first glance, the menu was small, but alas we’re here for ramen.

This shrimp truck is located on Kamehameha Highway towards the north east end of Oahu between Hauula and the Shrimp Shack. As you’re driving north on this highway, it will be on your left side. The truck seems not very mobile, and for whatever reason has very high ratings on Yelp. Because Hawaii is pretty well known for these shrimp trucks, we decided to check this out after our Kualoa excursion.

Herringbone is run by the “Tao Group Hospitality”, which operates more than 80 branded locations in 20 different markets. I didn’t really know what to expect, but per recommendations, we were able to do a walk in around 7 PM on a Monday. The restaurant is located on the top floor of the “International Market Place” where many restaurants are located, and it has a pretty laid back exterior. As you can vaguely tell from the picture, the right side is an outdoor covered patio letting in the Hawaiian breeze.

We just landed in Honolulu for our Hawaii trip, and we were pretty hungry. Honolulu is 6 hours behind New York City! Our other friends had arrived a few hours earlier than us and suggested we check out this slight hole in the wall shop for poke near their hotel. My poke impression has always been pretty indifferent, so I was curious what is it about Hawaii poke that people rave about.

Carthay Circle is located fairly close to the front of California Adventure. You do need an admission to the park in order to access this restaurant which is basically in the square at the end of the main road from the entrance. This was actually our second time visiting. I remember the first time being fairly underwhelming, so I felt it was wasteful to even spend the time to document it.

I’ve always felt Los Angeles has better Mexican food, and I was offered a choice of eating hot pot or going for Mexican food. The hot pot choice would’ve been a place that we have a chain of here in NYC, and since we don’t know when we’ll be back in LA, I thought the answer was pretty easy. We decided on the Mexican joint because this is a local favorite for my cousin.