In honor of Betsy’s birthday, we decided to spend another day just messing around and enjoying Honolulu. And since we returned the rental car on Saturday, we’ve stayed mostly within walking distance around Waikiki.

Today’s focus, instead of adventurous excursions, was more on culinary exploration.

Taking advantage of birthday freebies, we started with a caffeine boost at Starbucks a block from our hotel. (On a side note, what do you travelers do for your caffeine fix when traveling, particularly out of the country? It’s frustrating for me when I cannot get my iced tea fix!)

We headed to Waikiki beach and Duke’s, named for the legendary Duke Kahanamoku who grew up swimming, surfing, canoeing and bodysurfing in the area. Our lunch focus was on appetizers (and some yummy beverages) at Dukes and upstairs at Hula Grill. The reality is that we didn’t want to spend too much time on the lunch so we could get to the Hula Pie for dessert!

So, I mentioned the pie, but we also had an interesting macadamia nut hummus, seafood dumplings, and chicken wings with honey-wasabi sauce. All good, but did I mention the pie?

After walking around town a bit and relaxing in our condo with the a/c cranked down (mid to upper 80s is still hot, especially in a city that focuses on open air establishments!), we headed back to the beach for sunset.

We were able to get great seats at A House Without A Key for their sunset music and hula dancing. The performer today was the former Miss Hawaii of 2018 Chelsey Clemens. Beautiful music, dancing, and setting. Oh, and some more yummy drinks!

We capped off our culinary adventures with a birthday dinner at MW restaurant. This was a couple miles from our condo, so a short Uber ride brought us to the restaurant. Located in the performing arts area, and on the third floor of a building that also sells Ferraris, Maseratis, and Land Rovers (on multiple floors?), this was a nice break from the tourist focused places in Waikiki. The food was excellent, and Betsy declared this her all time favorite seafood paella dish (with apologies to Spain); I mean it did have lobster, scallops, and clams in addition to the traditional shrimp, chicken, and sausage! The appetizer pork dumplings were also delish. The amberjack ceviche was very good, but tended to be on the spicy side.

One last note on this culinary focused post . . . So, I may have had a few mai tais over the last 20 days in Hawaii. They have all been good, flavorful, and refreshing. But I wondered why this Caribbean rum based drink, which was invented in California (at Trader Vic’s in the Bay Area), has become associated with Hawaii. I also liked these mai tais more than I remember after having my first one at Trader Vic’s years ago (there is one of these bars in Atlanta). Come to find out, these drinks are actually considered a Royal Hawaiian Mai Tai, and uses fruit juice (usually pineapple and orange) along with rums and orgeat. Vic brought the mai tai to Honolulu years ago, but this derivation was made to be more appealing to the tourists in Hawaii. The original mai tai is more liquor forward and tart.