Maui, Hawaii

For our 1st year anniversary trip, BAE and I had 3 options: Italy, NY or Hawaii, we were very inclined to the first 2 because we’ve been there and LOVE Italy and NY (who doesn’t), but we finally decided to do Hawaii because we wanted to go to someplace new, neither of us knew Hawaii and it was a great opportunity to discover a new place, and oh my god BEST DECISION EVER!

As Bae calls me, Dani-trips organized the whole thing, after a very VERY extensive online research we decided to visit 3 of the 6 main islands, Maui, Big Island and Honolulu. I think we covered all of what Hawaii has to offer, since we had relax time in the beaches, adventure, shopping, and most important of all EATING.

The fresh seafood and ingredients you can find in these islands are ridiculously amazing, since they are in the middle of the pacific, they do not have access to a lot of ingredients, or they are expensive to import, so many chefs use the ingredients they have at hand, making amazing meals.

MAUI

We arrived at Maui and stayed at the Grand Wailea in Wailea Beach, which is one of the best resort areas in Maui, the hotel was great, beach front, amazing pools, tons of good restaurants and an amazing place to sit and enjoy the beach.

Now my favorite part, here are some of the amazing eats we had at Maui:

HUMUHUMU

This is a restaurant in the Grand Wailea, which is one of the most popular in Maui, since it is alongside the ocean, the views are amazing, the service great and the food heaven. To celebrate Bae’s birthday we had dinner here, and they had a Restaurant Week menu which we ordered and happy to report that it was amazing! The 3 course menu had 2 options, so we ordered one of each and got to try a lot lot of amazing food: Hamachi Carpaccio, Marinated tomatoes with buratta, Crispy Mahi, Ranchers Valley Filet, Humu chocolate Garden and a Tropical Fruit Vacherin.

Matteo’s Osteria

This little italian place was exactly what we were looking for, a lot of local people eating there (which is always a good sign), amazing pizza and lasagna, and a Mahi Mahi which was so fresh that it almost moved. The pizza was a wood-fire oven Quattro Stagioni: Artichoke, black olives, mushrooms, and aged prosciutto di Parma. For the entrees we order a House made pasta Lasagna which was oh so good, coming out of the oven burning hot is the key, and a Mahi mahi (which was the fresh catch of the day) with a risotto cake mushrooms, heirloom tomatoes, artichoke-thyme puree and sundried tomato oil, it sounds like the combination is to much but when you had the bite of all the ingredients with the fish, it was literally magic, everything blended perfectly.

Monkeypod

This was one of my fav restaurants because it uses only fresh local ingredients, so everything is amazingly fresh, the menu has a little bit of everything and they have great local brews, the Bikini Blonde from Maui Brewing Co was delicious. We ordered the Coco corn chowder which was a super yummy twist on the traditional recipe, the fresh mahi mahi sandwich with thai chili aioli, slaw, tomatoes and pickle and a HEAVENLY Kale and wild manakua mushroom gnocchi with fresh ricotta, tomatoes and island herbs.

Outrigger Pizza

One day we had dinner reservations for a very famous restaurant in Maui (which I reserved 2 weeks in advance), that day we rented a jeep and drove around the whole island that by dinner time we were so exhausted that we could not make our dinner reservations, we just wanted something to-go and eat in bed. We were craving pizza and found a food truck in Kihei (a little town alongside Wailea) and decided to get some pizzas to go, it was a yellow food truck with a wood fire pizza oven, to me that was so fun and could not resist, so we ordered 2 pizzas a Supreme (Red sauce, sausage, pepperoni, bacon, onions, pepper, mushrooms and 3 cheeses) and a Lilikoi Pork (Garlic aioli, kailua pork, sweet bell pepper, sweet onions and 3 cheeses), they come out pipping hot and we took them back to the hotel and regretted not ordering a 3rd pizza because it was that good! The winner definitely was the Lilikoi Pork, even Bae (who does not love pork) could not stop eating.

Star Noodles

In the beautiful town of Lahaina, I was craving noodles and we found this amazing ramen restaurant, the menu had some very interesting choices so we were very eager to try. We ordered the steamed pork buns (the bao bun was heavenly, as if freshly made), taro dumplings with sesame tofu puree (full of flavor, a great twist), ramen in rich pork broth and roast pork and hot n sour ramen with chili lime dashi, smoked proscuitto, shrimp, cilantro and thai basil.

Leoda’s Kitchen and Pie Shop

The day we rented a jeep and decided to drive along the island, alongside the road there is a little pie shop where you are most definitely wanting to stop. They have so many options to try and everything looks amazing. We were so full from eating ramen before so we decided to try the banana cream pie, and OMG so good bae and I fought over who got the last bite. This is the perfect place for a pit stop when driving the amazing road to Lahaina.