Fish for Ellie

One day we toured Oahu and had lunch at a famous golf course. The lunch was fabulous, but even more fun were the koi who are apparently so accustomed to being fed by people, they swim right up to the edges and open their mouths! As we finished our overly generous meals, our server brought us each a little plastic container of fish food, and we all stepped outside and fed the koi. I was glad I'd had the meatloaf instead of fish, for as large as the koi were, I would have suspected that they were being raised on a koi farm rather like catfish are raised.

All the meals we had in Hawaii were overly generous in terms of amount served, except for the one at Roy's, probably our most expensive meal. Yet it was by no means our most enjoyable. At one of our stops, I had macadamia-nut encrusted mahi mahi, which was the most delicious fish I've ever ever eaten. Roy's is a high-end restaurant on Waikiki Beach, and though it was classy and full of ambience, I could not help feeling as if we were paying for the atmosphere and not for the food, which (though tasty) was meager and left me feeling hungry afterwards. It was beautifully "presented," which is gourmet-chef talk for a tiny little blob of food in the middle of the plate with ribbons of tasteless sauce dripped around to make the plate look colorful.

It was interesting that breakfasts at our hotel, the Waikiki Parc, were buffet-style and offered both Western breakfasts and Asian breakfasts. I saw many Asian families eating there, and often the older members would have the rice/soup breakfast, whereas the younger ones would be eating eggs and bacon.

I'm sorry to say, we ate at Denny's twice, simply for breakfast variety and to cut costs a little. We also had a couple of Starbuck's breakfasts, simply to get the coffee. Our hotel had great coffee in the restaurant, but it was hard to get strong coffee elsewhere. The Hawaiian Kona coffee is popular, but expensive. (I brought back a pound that cost me $16.) It brews somewhat like tea, in that the color of the brewed coffee does not necessarily indicate the strength of the coffee. There is a hint of another flavor present, as if the coffee beans were impregnated with something else. I was reminded of chicory, but the taste was not chicory, like something like it.

As much as Ellie loves her fish, I often wish we lived somewhere where we could have koi. I also enjoy watching them and feeding them. I could easily grow accustomed to having my morning cup of coffee while feeding the fish and watching the sun rise over the ocean.