Good Food Karma; Or, The Keys To The Honolulu Food Kingdom At The Ala Moana Food Court

4/18/2022

Books by Patti Liszkay
Available on Amazon
"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888

GOOD FOOD KARMA; OR, THE KEYS TO THE HONOLULU FOOD KINGDOM AT THE ALA MOANA FOOD COURT

...Continued From Yesterday:
My greatest worry over our Hawaii trip - besides the worry that it might not happen at all if the latest COVID variant should go nuclear in the spring – was what we would do about dinner.
Breakfast, I knew, would be no problem as we could - and in fact did - meet mornings,

...at the Koko at Kalia, one of the Hale Koa eateries and plenty spacious enough to seat our party of eleven,

...and where we would dig into the awesome breakfast buffet.

The Omelet Station

So breakfast was always a breeze to manage and hands down the best meal of the day.

Nor, I assumed, would lunch be an issue, as our group would, I figured, break up during the course of the day and if people got hungry they could fend for themselves at one of the on-post eating spots such as Happy's,

...or the pool snack bar,

...or venture off-post to one of the many eateries in Waikiki within walking distance of the Hale Koa.
But it was dinner time that I feared would be a hassle of major proportions.
Last time we came as a group to the Hale Koa in 2019 the Koko served not only a great breakfast buffet but a great dinner buffet as well, and at the end of the day we could all once again just pile into the restaurant and go for the buffet.

However, alas, the Hale Koa has not yet fully recovered from the COVID downturn, and guest numbers still have not picked up enough to warrant re-opening the Koko dinner buffet.
(The Warrior's Lounge, a bar where one used to able to grab bar-type food, has likewise not re-opened since COVID).

So I wondered what we would do about dinner. I imagined trying every night to find a reasonably-priced restaurant in tourist-crowded Waikiki that could accommodate a party of eleven,

...with several vegetarians among us. I envisioned us waiting an hour and a half every night to get seated and then another hour and a half to be served.
I frankly thought we'd likely end up eating dinner at Happy's, chowing down every night on combo meals with fries,

...or personal pizzas,

...or deli wraps and salads.

But it turned out that on this trip we were gifted with some exceptionally good food Karma.
Our first night there – that is to say, our second night there but the first night that we would need dinner – the group expressed a general craving for pizza. We knew from our previous trip of a pizzeria called Round Table Pizza located in the mall of the Hilton Hawaiian Village, which was the resort next door to the Hale Koa.
So around 6 pm we walked next door,

…to the Hilton Hawaiian Village mall,

…and to the Round Table Pizza, where we asked for a table for eleven. Much to our surprise, we were seated immediately.

However soon after we were seated the place began to fill up and by the time we left there was a line of folks at the door waiting for seats.
But for us the service was fast and we shared some yummy pizzas.

After dinner we walked around the mall for a bit,

…then some of us walked down to the beach then back to the Hale Koa,

…where we stopped at Happy’s for ice cream,

…before calling it a night.

The following evening, Monday evening, we were kind of at loose ends so I suggested we try to get a dinner reservation at the Bibas Courtyard Grill, which is a restaurant conveniently located off the courtyard of the Hale Koa that we’d never tried, it being a weence on the upscale-ish side. However we needed to eat and I figured it was either this, another round of Round Table Pizza or Happy’s.
I called the Bibas at 5 pm and asked if we could possibly have a table for eleven people at 5:45.
“Yes, you can,” the friendly hostess assured me.
And so forty-five minutes later we met up at the Bibas.

…where we were given a table with a lovely view.

We all agreed that the food was not only terrific but really nicely color-coordinated..

I ordered a burger that arrived just the way I like a burger: as rare as is legally permitted. Not only was my burger perfect and my fries exceptional,

...but the bun was fun.

After dinner we lingered in the courtyard and pow-wowed over what to do next,

..before deciding to head over to Happy’s for ice cream.

Afterwards we walked down to the beach,

...and joined the other strollers along the Waikiki strand.

The strand along the beach was lined with enterprising merchants selling little rubber-band-propelled light-up rockets .

And so the beach was bright with whimsical shooting blue lights.

The next day, Tuesday was our grand daughter’s birthday. She requested dinner at Olive Garden. By good fortune there was an Olive Garden about a mile away at a shopping mall called The Ala Moana Center. I called the restaurant to find out if I could make a reservation but was told the best I could do was to call half an hour before our arrival to check if a table might be available for us. So I called at 5:45 pm and asked if we might have a table at 6:15. The answer was a positive.
As soon as we arrived we were seated at a nice table in an almost empty back room,

…with a lovely harbor view.

It was on Wednesday that our food-finding karma, which had been holding steady so far, took a great fortuitous turn thanks to a tip from a friend of our son-in-law.
This friend, who used to live in Honolulu, shared with our son-in-law that the place where the locals eat is the food court at the Ala Moana Center. Once we discovered it, the Ala Moana food court became our nightly go-to-dinner place.
The mile from the Hale Koa to the Ala Moana Center made for a nice before-dinner walk each evening.