Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer

Travel

12
Mar 2013
Travel

Vacation Cooking: Hanalei, Hawaii

haena sunrise | dailywaffle Vacation is usually a chance to get away from it all and let someone else do the cooking. But on Kaua’i, the Garden Isle, that’s only half true for me. If I've only got a week, I want to soak up the sunshine, slurp down some saimin and savor the sweetness of pineapple, papaya and mango. None of that requires a kitchen, but once you’ve been to one of the farmers markets on the island, you’ll want one.  For our last two escapes to sunshine, we’ve stayed in a little vacation cottage steps away from the beach with a little deck and a hammock slung between two palms.  And a kitchen.
10
Oct 2012
Travel

California, Here I Come: San Francisco Ferry Building

Two days after being back from SF, I’m finally hungry again. When you’re trying to pack food experiences into a compressed amount of time,  you’re never hungry for 3 meals, let alone afternoon snacks.  But I persevered.  California delivered a gorgeous week of sunshine, practically a heatwave for early October. Ahhh, vitamin D.   And not only that, this past weekend happened to coincide with Fleet Week, the America’s Cup,  a post-season Giants game, and a Niners game.  But let's start with an appetizer, shall we? The Ferry Building ended up being a home away from home of sorts, since it was so close to the hotel.
29
Aug 2012
Restaurants Travel

What I Did on Summer Vacation, Part 1: Tofino, BC Edition

Summer vacation is a bit of misnomer if you live in the Pacific Northwest. Summer is when it’s finally sunny and beautiful here, so you want to stay home and soak it up, rather than leave it behind. The last couple of years we've kept our vacations close to home, exploring other parts of the Pacific Northwest, but we’ve taken them either too early or too late to get a strong dose of sunshine, but this year, we hit it just right. We’re just back from a glorious week in Tofino, British Columbia, a little beach town on the edge of Vancouver Island near Pacific Rim National Park.
25
Jul 2012
Travel

Scenes from Seattle’s Bon Odori Festival

On Saturday, I texted my mom: “We’re at Obon in Seattle!” It’s kind of crazy that we’ve lived in Seattle for almost 5 years and never been to the Obon festival here. Or as Seattle calls it, Bon Odori. It’s a Buddhist festival of remembrance, but for me, it's always been more of a cultural event than a religious one. As a kid, Obon was synonymous with summer and it was about teri burgers and wontons and Okinawa dango and corn on the cob and snow cones and winning goldfish at carnival games and watching the bon dancing. And pretty much it still is. Even in a different city. You just don’t realize until you’re an adult how much those simple things connect you to so many other people.
22
Jun 2012
Restaurants Travel

Victoria, BC: Fantastic Brekkie at Blue Fox Cafe

Every city has at least one, right? The breakfast/brunch spot that people line up and wait for without complaint. When we lived in LA, it was Maxwell’s (or Blueberry, or Lulu’s), in San Francisco it was Rose’s and (RIP) Ti Couz; in Portland, there's TastynSons. In Victoria, BC, it might be the Blue Fox Café. By Sunday morning, our birthday crew was going in separate directions. Some to the spa, some headed home, so it was my morning to get around and see the city. I scoured Yelp for potential breakfast spots and hit on the Blue Fox Café. Four and a half stars on 129 reviews, with many warning about the wait. It was already almost 8:30 am, so I get movin’.
19
Jun 2012
Restaurants Travel

Victoria, BC: Lure & the Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort

The last time I was in Victoria, BC, it was a pass through point on the way to and from Tofino. We darted around downtown trying to find some quick lunch before the ferry to Port Angeles. This past weekend, I headed up to Victoria with the city as the end destination for a girls weekend celebrating my friend Linda's birthday. We stayed at a great little place on the Inner Harbour - the Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort.
04
Apr 2012
Restaurants Travel

Ba Bar – Vietnamese Street Food in Capitol Hill

From the outside, Ba Bar (yes, Ba. Bar. Not the elephant.) looks like a coffee place. Its big windows face the street, and even as you step inside, the espresso bar with a few baked items is on your right. The floors are acid washed concrete. Walk into the main dining space and off to one side, there's an enormous, typical Pacific Northwest-looking wood bar. You might take it for a gastropub. But sit down and the menu in front of you is...Vietnamese street food.
11
Mar 2012
Main Course Travel

Eat Local: Hamura Saimin in Lihue

There's almost nothing more comforting than a bowl of noodles. No matter what country it comes from -- China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Korea, Italy, heck, even America -- noodles fill your belly and soothe the soul. So it should be no surprise that after a 6-hour flight from Seattle to Kauai, our first stop was Hamura Saimin in Lihue.
07
Mar 2012
Restaurants Travel

Food Truck Alert: Pat’s Taqueria in Hanalei, HI

I'm usually a rigorous researcher before a vacation, so at least I have ideas for things to do and places to eat in between chilling out and reading books under swaying palm fronds. But for this trip to Kauai, I was pretty much useless. Although Pat's Taqueria was in the guidebook, I didn't know that until later, so we got lucky. But if there's one guiding light, one truism that I know is actually true it's, "Where there are surfers, good Mexican chow follows." See also: Tacofino.
logo
Food Advertisements by