la vie en rose

The birth of 2 foodies:

J's dad works as a butcher at the Hilton Hawaiian Village (an absolutely massive compound) and they have a fancy schmancy restaurants there called Bali by the Sea. J's dad is friends with the chef and he asked the chef to prepare J and me a special dinner. We knew it was special when we gave our name for the reservation and they were like, "Oh, yes, the chef will be right out." We even had 2 waitresses! The chef came out twice to talk to us (unfortunately he had paired wines with each of the courses, so the sommalier was disappointed, and I felt bad that he had taken the time to do that without knowing that we don't drink). One of the waitresses brought out 6 more forks and knives than what we had on the table already, and J was like, "Holy crap!"

Here were the courses:

1. shrimp in a sweet potato tempura, with a purple sweet potato puree and some fancy sprouts

2. island poke (poke-ee), which is raw fish marinated in a specialy soy sauce, a little spicy, with avocado, Maui onions, and crunchy seaweed (which I loved - the textures of this dish were awesome)

3. abalone served in the shell, in a beurre blanc sauce with tomato and onion (it was so rich and good)

4. foie gras and some good sauce - basically a dressed up liver and onions (I don't even like liver, pate, etc. and this was so flipping awesome)

5. orange miso glazed kompachi (a local fish) and asparagus dressed up with some basil - we were getting pretty full by this point, but we were still cleaning the plates

6. lamb, vegetable ragout, and Okinawa sweet potatoes (I wanted to chew the meat right off the bones, this was so good)

7. dessert was a chocolate ball with almond and raspberry paste and fudge inside, with fresh raspberries and chocolate sauce on top. They also gave me some chocolate truffles on a chocolate Diamond Head crater as a gift.

I out-ate J by the last course, but he had eaten some leftover fried rice earlier in the day, so I was hungrier. Plus, I couldn't help myself - this was the best food either of us have ever eaten. We felt like we were on Iron Chef! This experience may have turned us into food snobs - how can I subject my stomach to some crappy Pasta-Roni now that it knows different? We told J's dad that they must really like him there, or else they wouldn't have treated us so well.