Paia Fish Market

Three years ago today we were in Maui, enjoying one of the few warm and sunny days we had on that trip. For lunch, we ventured over to Paia Fish Market for the first time, a place we had heard a lot about but didn't get to try on our last trip.


The restaurant isn't that large, but the menu has a lot of variety. We knew we would be ordering something with fish. After all, it's called the Paia Fish Market!


A got the mahi fish and chips, which came with slaw, tartar sauce, and fries. A thought that the fish and chips plate was good and one of the best he had had. The mahi pieces were very fresh and tasty, but since it was fried, it lost a little bit of its greatness. This place is known for its slaw, which was really good. It's been awhile so we can't remember if the fries were seasoned or not.


I got the ono burger. The burger consists of a piece of charbroiled fish on a sesame seed bun with coleslaw, tartar sauce, tomato, and shredded cheese. I also got a side of cajun rice. We both liked this plate better than the fish and chips.


The ono burger was delicious. A big juicy piece of fresh grilled fish topped with tasty slaw, fresh tomato and light fluffy cheese. The slaw was the same that came with the fish and chips. I don't remember exactly what's in it, but I remember that it was really good. This was the best fish sandwich I had ever eaten, and I think it might still be the best ever.

The cajun rice is also really good and I prefer that to the fries. It's seasoned rice with carrots and onions mixed in and a nice hearty accompaniment to the fresh burger.

We highly recommend a visit to the Paia Fish Market. We loved it so much that we returned on the way to the airport on our last day in Maui on that trip for another lunch where we got ono and opakapaka burgers (with cajun rice). On our wedding trip, we went there two more times. That should tell you how much we love this place. If you're in Maui, go get the fish burgers! Reasonably priced and so tasty.

Lahaina Grill Memories

Following in M's train of thought, I thought I would write about our food memories from 2 years ago today. Today, back in 2009, M and I were in Maui preparing for our wedding. And by preparing, we both meant going around and eating at all of our favorite restaurants. It's fairly amusing when we think about it. Most people starve themselves in an effort to avoid gaining weight before their wedding. We went the opposite direction. From our trips to Maui to plan our wedding, we found some favorite restaurants that we knew we had to enjoy during our time there.

One favorite is Lahaina Grill. The food and the service are simply amazing, and they are well deserving of all of the accolades and awards they have received throughout the years. Our first visit to the restaurant back in 2008 we showed up in VERY casual clothes. I was wearing a sleeveless Under Armour shirt with board shorts, and M was wearing gym shorts and a tanktop on top of her bikini. We felt and looked so under-dressed, but the wait staff were perfectly nice, and they didn't make any mention of our attire.

This time around we were dressed much more appropriately. Every meal starts off with their fresh baked rolls and garlic herb butter. We normally don't eat butter, and M usually makes a point to avoid it as much as possible, but the Lahaina Grill garlic herb butter is so good that it is worth the exception.

Bread and Garlic Herb Butter
The warm, fresh rolls melted the butter perfectly. It was infused with so much garlic that you can barely taste regular butter flavor.

After a few rolls each (we always eat too many) we moved on to our appetizers which were a pair of salads. I had the beet salad, and M had their signature toy box tomato salad.

Toy Box Tomato Salad and Beet Salad
Because Maui grows almost all of their fruits and vegetables on the island, there's an amazing freshness to pretty much everything they cook. The Toy Box Tomato Salad was so simple, but it was so unbelievably tasty. Baby tomatoes and Maui onions tossed in extra virgin olive oil and dressed with an organic basil honey vinaigrette served in a martini glass. Simple in its preparation, complex on its flavor. The sweetness and juiciness of the tomatoes were far beyond anything we had ever gotten from the grocery stores in the continental US states, and the light coating of dressing added just enough acidity to complete the dish. The beet salad tasted just as fresh even though the beets were pickled. It was a special of the day so we don't have the exact ingredient list, but we know it contained beets, watercress, a lettuce blend, and goat cheese covered crostinis. Again, these beets tasted so much fresher and better than any beets we'd ever eaten. Pair them with the saltiness of the goat cheese crostinis, and it's another simple yet flavorful dish.

Next we moved on to our main courses. We were in Maui, we got fish. It was not a hard decision. M got the sauteed wild pacific salmon served with local spinach, local tomatoes, local asparagus, and thyme scented wild rice. I got the sauteed mahi mahi with local spinach, herb mashed potatoes, gorgonzola, pancetta, and chardonnay beurre blanc.

M's Salmon and my Mahi Mahi
M's dish was the better of the two, but that's because I didn't follow the golden rule of eating fresh vegetables and seafood. Keep it simple. M's salmon dish did just that. Grilled vegetables, sauteed salmon, and rice. There was no additional sauce, just the oil and liquid released from the vegetables and aromatics. Simple flavors and simple preparation turned into full and rich flavor. My mahi mahi was heavier because of the beurre blanc, but it was still surprisingly light. The mashed potatoes and gorgonzola were very heavy, though. Still, the flavors were big and bold, and it was a very enjoyable dish.

Finally we got to dessert. One of my most favorite desserts in the whole world is key lime pie. Lahaina Grill doesn't offer a key lime pie, though. Instead, they have the Iao Valley Lime Tart.

Iao Valley Lime Tart
We discovered this dessert on our first trip ever to Lahaina Grill. Iao Valley is a fertile valley in the northern, central area of Maui. They apparently grow limes that taste basically the exact same as key limes but just more concentrated in flavor. The crust is also not a traditional graham cracker crust. It's a macadamia nut graham cracker crust. The mac nuts make it even richer in flavor, and the filling is just like an amazing key lime pie but so much fresher and lighter somehow. It's so good that I'm almost 100% certain that it would make my top 10 dishes of all time list if I were to make one.

Lahaina Grill is a fantastic restaurant. The only drawback is that it's not a cheap restaurant. If you're looking for an amazing meal full of fresh, clean flavors then we definitely recommend Lahaina Grill. The food and service will blow you away.

Pineapple Lunch

The Pineapple Grill in Kapalua, Maui will always hold a special place in our hearts. After our wedding ceremony, we held our cocktail hour and wedding dinner at the Pineapple Grill, and it was absolutely wonderful. The food was wonderful, the service was impeccable and the whole dinner just felt really special. We were so happy with how it turned out and I have a feeling that we will return on every future trip to Maui.

We visited the Pineapple Grill on every one of our trips to Maui. Two years ago today, we went there to go over some last minute details for the dinner. We decided to combine it with lunch to make sure we could make it to all of our meetings and tried the lunch menu for the first time (we usually went at dinner). It was great and we would highly recommend it.


We started out with an appetizer - a basket of crispy onion rings with sriracha ketchup. I love onion rings and these were perfectly crispy. The sriracha ketchup was a nice change from regular ketchup.


A got panko crusted island fish & chips. A loves fish & chips and these were good and not too heavily battered. This came with pineapple cole slaw, which was refreshing and light.


I got the fresh island catch sandwich, which was blackened mahi mahi, on a Maui onion roll. The sandwich came with one side and I chose the garden salad instead of fries in an attempt to eat healthy before the wedding (that didn't last as I ate nachos at lunch on the wedding day). I liked the side salad because it wasn't the typical iceberg lettuce salad that you get, but it was full of tasty field greens.


The sandwich was excellent. I love getting fish sandwiches in Maui because the fish is so fresh and you can taste the difference. It was cooked perfectly. The only problem with recapping our meals from Maui is that I wish I could get one of these tomorrow and it would be impossible here. Nowhere here has a fish sandwich this fresh and tasty.


We decided to get some dessert and got the sorbet sampler - pineapple, guava and passion fruit. Flavors that remind me of Hawaii. Fresh fruit from the island can only made sorbet better. And I love sorbet.


We also got the banana bread pudding, which we had tried before and which is rich and delicious. It came with fresh bananas, vanilla ice cream (from Roselani, a Maui company), vanilla anglaise and caramel. Such an indulgence.


It's so hard to remember exactly what we thought of everything since it's been so long, but the one thing I do remember is that it was really, really good. If you find yourself in Maui, we recommend the Pineapple Grill without hesitation and have never had anything there that we didn't like. We can't wait to go back!

Patatoes and Coconut

In Honokowai in West Maui, there is a farmers market which puts out free samples a few times per week. We stayed down the block from it on our first trip to Maui yet somehow never made it there. That was something we were definitely going to fix on our next visit. Once we went sampling, we had no idea how we missed going the first time when we could have walked there!

The market has fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as dips, salads, jams and the like. They also have an indoor farmers market store which is open all the time, but during the sampling, they set everything up outside in the parking lot and draw a crowd.


A loves fresh coconut juice
We tried a lot of salads and dips. There was macadamia nut pesto, onion jams, olive garlic spread, papaya seed dressing, coconut tapioca, fresh guacamole made that day, sundried tomato spread, tahini hummus, red bell pepper hummus, Chinese sesame seed dressing, mock chicken salad, bean dip, Maui onion dressing, various salsas including pineapple salsa and Maui style "patato" salad. We may have tried them all. How else do you know which one you want to buy?



We tried to keep our purchases simple since we didn't have a lot of space in the hotel and were exploring Maui's restaurants for most of our meals (part of our wedding research). We ended up getting pineapple and patato salad, in addition to the coconut which we drank from and then had them split open.


We headed across the street for a picnic. Isn't the view incredible? So relaxing. It was so nice to just sit in the sun staring out at the open water with no worries (other than figuring out the wedding...)


The pineapples were probably the best pineapples we have ever eaten. They were so sweet and juicy. So good. And the potato salad (sorry, patato salad) was really good. I happen to love potato salad, and this was one of the better ones.


We ended up at the farmers market twice during our trip and then brought a whole contingent of people with us during the wedding weekend. We love the farmers market!

Cascades

Two years ago today, we arrived at one of our favorite places in the world - Maui - for the second time and the last planning trip before our paradise wedding. The weather wasn't ideal. It was nothing like what you think of when you think of Hawaii. It was cloudy, there was rain, I needed to wear a cardigan. But all that wasn't going to stop us from our plans, our appointments, trying to soak up some sun and enjoying Maui's delicious food - both old favorites and new places.

For our dinner that first night, we were tired from traveling and decided to stay in at our hotel - the awesome Hyatt Regency in Kaanapali - and went to Cascades, the hotel's sushi bar and a new place for us. From some internet research, it appears Cascades no longer exists and has been replaced by a place called Japengo (which sounds pretty good). Even though it's no longer around, I really do love doing these flashback posts and will share our experience there anyway. Since it's two years later, some of the food memories are no longer as vivid, but luckily I took notes in web album captions on this meal.


The first thing to arrive was a basket of soft rolls with butter. I usually will eat bread without butter (healthier) - unless the butter is flavored or something special. In this case, it was caramelized Maui onion butter. How can I say no to caramelized Maui onion butter? First, it's onions and I love onions. Second, it's caramelized onions and I love caramelized onions even more. Third, it's Maui caramelized onions and (a) we're in Maui and (b) Maui onions are good. I probably don't have to tell you that the butter was good.

I don't think I got any drinks but A tried one from the Maui Brewing Company:


We don't remember much about it right now though since it's been so long, and much beer has been had since then.

For appetizer, we got the pupu platter:


The pupu platter consisted of coconut crusted black tiger prawns (usually served with orange-horseradish marmalade), crab cake with taro chips (usually served with banana-chili sauce), sweet Maui onion rings (usually served with grilled tomato aioli), lobster-mango summer roll with thai basil (usually served with Thai peanut sauce) and bbq baby back ribs with guava glaze and asian slaw. I don't remember which sauces they gave us with the pupu platter, but it definitely wasn't all of them.

The pupu platter was OK. If we were to go back (and we can't since it's closed), we wouldn't choose this again because it was very filling and a little heavy (and we ordered sushi in addition to the pupu platter). I think it's made to be shared by more than 2 people. It was also predominantly fried food, unlike the nice, clean flavors we love about Maui. I think it says something when the thing we remember most about it two years later was its heaviness.

We got 3 sushi rolls (which, after the pupu platter, was way too much). The rolls were (Asian style, from right to left in the photo) the SWAT roll, the blackened ahi roll and the bambucha roll.


The S.W.A.T. roll had spicy tuna, avocado and cucumber inside, and was topped with fresh salmon, sesame seed and green onions. The blackened ahi roll had crab, avocado and cucumber inside, and on the outside, was topped with blackened ahi, sweet Maui onion and wasabi flavored tobiko, finished with garlic ponzu and a spicy dynamite sauce. The third roll, the bambucha roll, had shrimp tempura, avocado, cucumber and cream cheese inside, and was topped with eel, avocado, macadamia nuts and unagi sauce.

Generally the rolls were good. But my least favorite was the bambucha roll. It was on the heavy side between the cream cheese and mac nuts and we were so full. I suppose this would be good if you like cream cheese rolls and/or love mac nuts, but I could have done without it.

We liked our meal at Cascades, but I'm sure some of that was due to being on vacation and finally being able to let go and destress. Some of the sushi was good, parts of the pupu platter were good, the bread and butter were great, but other parts of the meal were just really heavy and not what we're looking for when going to Maui. We also have our favorite sushi place - Sansei - which we have gone to twice on each Maui trip, so it would take a lot to displace that in our rotation. But it was a nice first meal of the trip and a nice welcome back to Maui.