**Wowie Maui** FOOD

I know I said this post was about food. But let's be realistic...it's mostly about the fruit. Fresh tree-ripened tropical fruit. Grown right there on the island. Mmmmmmmm Mmmmmmmm Mmmmmmmm...Heavenly!

As you've probably figured out by now, we're all about little adventures and exploring and seeing what we can see. Back in the day on our honeymoon, we had gone for a drive on some rugged country roads and eventually came across a little roadside stand that sold coconuts you could drink. Prior to our trip, Max had talked incessantly about wanting to drink from a coconut. Our first afternoon there, we hit the road looking for and hoping that same little stand would still be there.

This is the 2-lane road we were driving on...

If you happened to meet a car, you just squeezed your eyes shut, hung on extra tight and prayed that one of you wouldn't go over the edge when you passed. Totally KIDDING! Actually there were little pullouts along the route. Sometimes you had to backup if you met a car, or they had to...depending who was closest to a pullout. It was really quite adventureous. Especially when chickens ran across the road in front of you. Or you met a school bus.

We eventually got to that little coconut stand we remembered. But alas, it was no longer in business. Sadness. We don't give up easily. We kept on driving and came across this little rig. It seemed like a good place to stop and take a break. Max and I shared a Pineapple Mango Smoothie. Fantastic!

Continuing our journey again, we eventually came across a little fruit stand...pineapples, fresh coconut and bananas.

Max was finally able to get his fresh coconut to drink.  I always like watching them open up the coconuts. They use a big machete knife and start hacking away at it. I was especially impressed with this lady's skill, because she was chopping and husking with beautiful, long, red acrylic nails. Didn't ruin her manicure one little bit!

And the final verdict? He DIDN'T like it! LOL! Not one bit. He said it was sour.  (We knew that it wasn't the best tasting stuff. Why d'ya think we didn't buy one for ourselves?!) The lady at the fruit stand, offered him a sample of fresh coconut instead.  This he LOVED. Completely hooked. So he traded in his coconut milk for a bag of fresh coconut instead. Other then Keith and I getting a little taste from him, he ate that whole bag himself.

After driving some more, we came across a few more little self-serve pineapple stands beside the road. We just couldn't resist. Left our money in the white teapot and bought ourselves two sweet pineapples. The rest of the drive back to our hotel, our car smelled spectacular. Like we were in pineapple heaven. It was driving us crazy!

We didn't have a knife to cut the pineapple up. Keith went down to the poolside bar area to see about getting us one. The bartender told him to bring the pineapple down and he would cut it up for us. How nice was that?! The first time, he cut it up into long spears. The next time, he hollowed it out, cut the pineapple up in chunks and then filled up the hollow pineapple. We were impressed. Especially Max.

Here he was pretending he was a magician and doing magic tricks...

So speaking of pineapple. IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!! And available to eat on just about everything. Here are Max and Keith fighting over the grilled pineapple slice on Keith's burger at the Hard Rock Cafe. The waitress told us that they sprinkle brown sugar and cajun seasoning on the pineapple and then grill it before adding it to the burger. Yum! I had nacho's and they included shredded grilled pineapple along with the other toppings. DIVINE!

In the front lobby of our hotel was a little table. We quickly became well acquainted with this spot. Icy cold pineapple water. Mmmmmmmmmm. They would add thick slices of pineapple to the ice water. The water held just a hint of pineapple when you drank it. Lemon water? Forget about it. Pineapple water is where it's at baby!

And leaving fruit...Hawaiian potato chips.

Just as good as we remembered.

We actually came across an espresso hut. We were not expecting that. We found 2 of them on the island. I enjoyed a 12 oz non-fat Aloha Latte. YUMMO!

Maui Taco. Another YUMMO! We basically ate out once a day. Usually dinner in the evening. We chose very casual places. And sometimes even more casual then that. Like Maui Taco. Hit the spot! :-)

The Aloha Mixed Plate. It has a very special place in our hearts. We discovered this little joint at the tail end of our honeymoon. Ten years ago it was basically a little shack. You went up to the window to place your order. They would call it out when it was ready and they had about 4 plastic patio tables that you could eat at, on the adjoining patio. Right on the ocean. That was it. Nothing fancy. But their stirfry's were outta this world. And (did you catch that?) it was RIGHT ON THE OCEAN. We never knew the name of that place. But whenever we would reminisce about Maui, that little hole-in-the-wall joint would always be part of the conversation.

This time around we reallllllly wanted to go back and see if it was still going. And if so, was it as good as we remembered. We had no clue where it was located or the name. Nothing. Keith went and talked to the concierge at the hotel. Described a bit of what it was like. The concierge hadn't lived on Maui 10 years ago so wasn't sure of the place we were talking about. But he said that according to what we'd described then it could possibly be the Aloha Mixed Plate.

He gave us directions and off we went. As we were driving up the street Keith looked at me and said, "I remember this area. I'm sure this is it." And I very randomly said "I think the building was turquoise." And three seconds later, we pulled up to the Aloha Mixed Plate. It was on the ocean. The buildings were turquoise. It had grown. They had added another building/bar area. But everyone still ate outside on plastic patio tables.

We went back a few times during our vacation. Max discovered he really likes Mahi-Mahi. I enjoyed the stirfry's. Keith tried a whole bunch of different mixed plate meals before figuring out on our last night how much he liked their stirfry's. Also, the pina colada smoothies were amazing. Max and I would usually share one.

On our last night there (just before we flew out), we snagged a primo dining spot. Right beside the ocean.  We couldn't believe our luck! This was our view while we ate...

Stunning, eh?

If our vacation had to end, then this was the perfect way to do it.