Farewell, My Cream Puff

4/26/2026

...Continued from previous post:

Books by Patti Liszkay available on Amazon:
"Equal And Opposite Reactions"   http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
   "Hail Mary"    https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
"Tropical Depression"       https://www.amzn.com/B0BTPN7NYY

Farewell, My Cream Puff

I expect that, in general, folks who come on vacation to Waikiki love sitting on the beach and swimming in the ocean.

Me, I prefer walking along the beach and looking at the ocean.

But what I love doing in Waikiki is walking up and down Kalakaua Avenue.

Kalakaua Avenue is the main thoroughfare, the beating heart of downtown Waikiki, crowded day and night with tourists,

...strolling amidst the high-end stores,

...and the less high-end,

...bordered by the beach on one side,

...and mountains in the distance on the other.

I like to describe Kalakaua Avenue as Fifth Avenue with Palm Trees and ABC's (see previous post, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/in-search-of-a-suitcase-part-2).

From the Hale Koa at Fort DeRussy where we stay (see post from 4/17/2026, www.ailantha.com/blog/arriving-at-the-hale-koa), one can reach Kalakaua Avenue on foot either by way of the beach,

...or by way of the park.

During our two week visit to Honolulu, my mate Tom and I went walking most days on Kalakaua Avenue. Sometimes we'd walk a few blocks, other times a few miles, taking in the sights along the way, including the Bank of Hawaii building, the world's most beautiful bank,

...the historic Honolulu hotels, the Moana Surf Rider,

...and the Royal Hawaiian,

...the Royal Hawaiian Grove,

...the beaches of Waikiki,

...as well as the flora and fauna along the way.

Now, over the years, during our perambulations up and down Kalakaua Avenue, we had become accustomed to stopping at least once every day at the Royal Hawaiian Center,

...where we'd head up to the food court,

...for our daily cream puff fix from the Kulu Kulu Honolulu bakery.

These cream puffs, they were extraordinary, especially the sweet, velvety, feather-light filling, which I expect explains our Kulu Kulu Honolulu cream puff addiction.
Now, besides the most sublime cream puffs on the planet, Kulu Kulu Honolulu also sold a gorgeous assortment of pastries that could be called edible art.

But Tom and I were hooked on our cream puffs.
And so on this trip we were looking forward to our first visit to the Royal Hawaiian food court to savor our first cream puff of the season.
But when we arrived at the Pa'ina Lanai, where the Kulu Kulu Honolulu used to be we saw this:

We immediately knew that our cream puff days were over. We grieved for a brief moment before I recalled that my nephew, who recently returned from a trip to Honolulu, had told us about the most wonderful confection he'd eaten while on the island. It was called a malasada, and he described it as a sort of sugar-coated yeast donut that's cooked up upon order so that it's warm and fresh and soft and so delicious that one had to taste it to believe it.
By good fortune there was a malasada stand at the Pa'ina Lanai.

The stand had always been there, though we'd never paid much attention to it, being strict devotees of Kulu Kulu Honolulu.
But now that Kulu Kulu was, unfortunately, no longer with us, we decided not to dwell on the past, but to seek out what might be a new and auspicious gustatory adventure.
I thought we'd try one malasada each from Penny's, but, alas, a minimum purchase of three was required.

So I ordered three coconut crème malasadas and waited while the malasada cook made them for me. Our malasadas were huge, so I wasn't sure Tom and I could finish two between us, let alone three.