The Foods and Walks of Travels

I have already mentioned here before that I don’t try to be on a diet while I travel. I feel like a lot of the travel fun is in the food, not only because I personally find food part of the overall fun, but also because some places are defined by their food. How can you go to New Orleans and not get a beignet? Or a shrimp po’ boy? But healthy, they are not!

I constantly think of what enters my mouth every day of my life, and how it will affect me, but when I travel, I leave that at home.

We just got back from Oahu, Hawaii. It was really a trip of a lifetime because there are so many unique features of these islands that you will not get to know anywhere else on the Continental US or Europe. We loved many things about it, and food was just one of them.

Hawaii, however, is one of those places, like California, too, that offers a lot of healthy choices, right along the decadent ones.

Yes, you will have to at least taste a pulled pork sandwich. And you won’t regret it. Not sure if it’s in the smoke they use, or the marinade, or even what the pigs eat in these parts, but it was delicious. And not greasy at all, nor drowned unnecessarily in some goopy sauce! No mayo in the slaw – just raw red cabbage as a garnish and a slice of fresh pineapple on the side. Just pure goodness. 

Pork sandwich on Waikiki Beach - the bright red is pickled onion. Very yummy!

And speaking of pineapple: it’s one of the very few fruits I love no matter how you serve it to me, but the Hawaiian one is definitely the sweetest and juiciest there is. Sweet in a fresh kind of way, not in a it-hurts-my-teeth-fake-sugar kind of a way.

A lot of the restaurants allowed you to grill your own food, on an open grill – they called it ‘island style’. You ordered your ingredients and they would bring them to your fresh, then you’d grill them to your liking. You could control your spices, your salt, your sauces, as well as your done-ness. 

One of the self-cooked meals on the grill, at Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ Restaurant: steamed rice, with grilled chicken and grilled enoki mushrooms.

You find fresh fruit salads just about anywhere. We got some at a flea market and ate it as street food, while browsing the crafts and souvenirs tents. I ordered a fresh fruit salad for breakfast one morning, and I think that is a very first for me. I am not a fan of fruit, for sure, much to the demise of me, considering I should live on these to stay alive. But I had to “do as Romans do” in Oahu, and enjoy what this lush island had to offer. 

Our flea market snack.

 My fresh "bowl of fruit" breakfast. This was enormous -
there was no way I could finish this! 

Since you’re surrounded by water in this archipelago, sea food is, of course, everywhere, and plenty. One night, we went to Morimoto Waikiki, owned by the famed Iron Chef, and offering unique eats from the sea and turf alike. I had, for the first time, chirashi sushi: a bowl of steamed sesame rice, with a wide selection of all sorts of fish, roe and pickled veggies on top. Apart from the mercury poisoning I might have committed to myself, the raw fish was out of this world delicious and very light. The portion was huge, I thought, and although I was so stuffed that I could not finish it, I never felt guilty eating it, even a little bit.  

Miso soup, with chirashi sushi dinner

Another reason why this trip was a “feel good trip” was all the walking we did. We did rent a car, but we walked mostly everywhere. In the last couple of days, we drove to the mountains, and there, we hiked the rainforest towards Manoa Falls. The vegetation was unusual than anything else I have ever seen, fresh, incredibly overgrown with amazing blooms, and so green!

The trail was easy, but long enough to actually feel like we moved some muscles and burned some of that pork. Despite the high humidity in the air, I really enjoyed hiking at sea level again! My chest never clogged up, my throat never felt tense, and I was never out of breath. 

The mountains we live in surely are pretty and the hikes are challenging, but the altitude surely takes a toll on a cardiac patient like me. In contrast, there is something to be said for comfort, even when you push your body to exercise. Call me a wimp, if you want, but I personally feel much better when I can breathe freely and my veins are not screaming for oxygen. 

  

 Hiking in the rainforest, the Manoa Falls Trail