Hawaiian Food Safari: Island Culinary Adventure – I love food tours. So far I have joined a Baja food tour, a Beijing food tour, and a Shanghai food tour. But what will a Hawaii food tour include? Loco moco, lunch plate, pineapple, spam? I found Tasting Kauai on Twitter while researching our last minute trip to Kauai and was intrigued. When I learned that the “Taste of Kilohana” tour included riding the train, touring the Kilohana Farm, snacking on exotic fruit, drinking a Mai Tai, and eating a three-course island lunch, I was sold. I sent Roma to play golf at Kauai Lagoons (he is allergic to pineapple after all) and joined the Tasting Kauai food tour.
Tasting Kauai’s Taste of Kilohana tour began at the Kilohana Plantation train depot. We boarded the train with our guide Kai, the agricultural expert at Kilohana Farm, for an narrated train tour of the 105-acre agricultural section of Kilohana Farm in train cars made of rich Philippine mahogany. During the train ride we learned about a number of exotic trees found on the property including papaya, acerola and Samoan coconut.
Hawaiian Food Safari: Island Culinary Adventure
The first stop on the train journey we visited the farm goats and wild boars where we got off to feed them with pieces of bread. And since it’s Kauai, a few chickens joined the feeding frenzy. You can hand-feed goats, but don’t try to do the same with wild boar as they will bite. These buggers are nice but mean! The little pigs were running around trying to catch the bread crumbs, but the adult pigs were pushing them out of the way. We’ve all found ourselves trying to better our goal of getting bread to children, cheering when they grab a piece of bread and screaming loudly when an adult steals them. Don’t worry, these pigs get plenty of food roaming the farm, and it’s only for tourists, so they won’t end up on your dinner plate at your luau.
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We returned to the train until we stopped at a pineapple field. Did you know that it takes two years for a pineapple to fully ripen on the stem? We learned more about pineapples, how to plant them, how to grow them, how to choose a good one, and then proceeded to the display area where Kai showed us all the fresh fruits he had picked for us that morning and allowed us to taste them all.
We first tried Ohia Aye, which originally comes from Tahiti and looks like small apples. It tastes like pear, has a slight rosewater fragrance, and is often used in pies. We tried some mandarin oranges and Kona and then tried the cashew fruit. Cashews are poisonous if eaten raw, as cashews are related to poison ivy, but the juice of the fruit to which the nut is related can be tasted. The juice was light and sweet tasting, but left an unusual dryness in our mouths because the juice contains 40% tannins.
Kay then passed around a bowl of jabuticapas and acerola cherries. The cherries were bright red with some yellow and very good, but I liked the Jabuticapas (also sometimes called Chupacas, Jaba the Huts, and more by our group). Jabuticapas are dark purple in color and look very similar to grapes but are firmer.
Next, Kai demonstrated how to eat lilikoi, or passion fruit, as the fruit is completely filled with seeds. He cut a hole in the top and showed us how to squeeze the juice directly into our mouths. We also tried three types of lychee: pink lychee, imperial lychee, and diamond lychee. The diamond lychee was my favorite so far. The easiest way to eat lychee is to bite off the skin and scoop out the milky white fruit inside. We all got to partake in a fruit salad made with fresh pineapple, banana, apple, and papaya before walking across the property back to the Kilohana Plantation mansion.
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The mansion houses Gaylord’s Restaurant and Mahiko Lounge, a bar that opened two years ago in what was originally the mansion’s living room. We each got a Mai Tai made with rum from Koloa Rum, a local rum distillery on Kauai, and learned the secrets of Gaylord’s Mai Tai recipe.
Our food tour at Tasting Kauai ended in Gaylord’s private dining room with a three-course meal prepared for us by Chef Todd Barrett. Today’s menu begins with Makawaili’s marinated shoyu-grilled sirloin, served in a lumpia-wrapped bowl with Asian slaw, and finished with a sweet and spicy sesame aioli. The beef produced by Makaweli Meat Company on Kauai is all-natural, sustainable, grass-fed beef, and was some of the most tender and flavorful beef I have ever tasted.
Next up was fresh seared ahi, caught just two days earlier, with coconut infused ulu and maui onions, fresh hoyo, squash, zucchini, red onion and an amazing wasabi mirin beurre blanc and kabayaki drizzle. Olu is a breadfruit and this was my first experience with it. In this dish it was very similar to cubed potatoes. But the common way to eat breadfruit is to cook it over hot coals until the skin turns black, then serve it with butter and salt.
Our meal was completed with a selection of three desserts. One was Kauai Honey Goat Cheesecake with lemon cream sauce, fresh whipped cream, and candied macadamia nuts. Another was a strawberry and chocolate tart with chocolate ganache in a graham cracker crust and topped with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. The third was Gaylord’s famous classic banana and coconut cream pie topped with Cola Rum whipped cream, toasted coconut, butterscotch sauce and candied pecans.
About Damn Delicious
The Tasting Kauai Taste of Kilohana food tour was a great opportunity to visit one of Kauai’s famous landmarks, taste some unusual tropical fruits, many of which I can’t find at my local grocery store, see what a good Mai Tai tastes like, eat a great island meal, and learn about On some merry travellers. Everyone left completely and had a great time. In addition to the Taste of Kilohana tour, Tasting Kauai also offers weekly farmers market tours and the A Culinary Romp Through Paradise tour. A portion of the proceeds from the tours as well as the book are donated to the Kauai branch of the Hawaii Food Bank.
Thank you to Tasting Kauai for hosting my Hawaiian food tour and making this post possible. As always, all opinions are my own. Tasting Kauai is owned by Marta Lin, Kauai’s only full-time food writer. For Kauai restaurant recommendations you can purchase a copy of her book Taste Kauai: Restaurants.
Catherine Bellarmino and Romeo Bellarmino are the authors of Travel the World, a travel blog for everyday workers. They work full-time in non-travel jobs, but they take every opportunity they can to travel the world during their limited time off. We classify our trips based on a range of activity levels from recreational (1) to avid (5) with plenty of options in between.
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The Big Island has all the elements needed for a great family adventure vacation. Swaying palm trees, rugged volcanoes and whimsical rainforests. In addition to crystal waters, colorful coral reefs and sleeping turtles. Experience it all as you paddle the Pacific Ocean, hike around volcanic craters and bike along the coast. Add aloha, sunshine, island cuisine and luxury hotels. Find your item in Hawaii.
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Visit Puuhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park, an ancient refuge • Dip your toes in the warm waters at a black-sand beach • Adults explore the islands’ southern coast on two wheels, showcasing Hawaii’s greenest, most dramatic landscapes • Kids head to a beach with Black sand scavenger hunt with Kids Adventure Leader • Hike through dense jungle at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, taking in the beauty of Kilauea, one of the most active volcanoes on Earth •Experience a dramatic landscape carved by centuries of volcanic eruptions from Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire • Explore the lush, tropical side of the island, where rugged cliffs, brilliantly colored flowers and fragrant guava trees abound •Watch colorful birds like the ewi, with its bright red body and salmon-colored beak •Drive along some of the Big Island’s most scenic roads. • Check out the newly formed caldera with a local guide.
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Hike along the flanks of the world’s largest active volcano, the famous Mauna Loa • Kayak through rocky cliffs and secluded sea caves in crystal-clear waters
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