A "Day Off"

It was supposed to be a relaxing day before the half marathon. We started with a walk up Front St. along the ocean, intending to head up to a restaurant we had heard good things about. It was about 1.5 miles, so we figured it was a good way to keep loose.

Someone had other ideas..

The walk up to Star Noodle took us past the boat launch we used the other day for our great boating trip, past the Cannery Mall, which rather obviously used to be a pineapple cannery and is now a mall, and through a new industrial park at the base of Puu Kukui, the local volcano. It is said to still be active, in that it should erupt every 250 years or so. The last eruption was 1790, so I wouldn't want to live in the nice new condos here in about thirty years. Past the Maui Trapeze Acrobat School (seriously) and a dry dock that holds the Baywatch Hawaii boats

Never saw the show...

is Star Noodle. The two of us, being television ignorant, didn't know until today that Star Noodle is a restaurant by one of the Food Network's Top Chefs, Sheldon Simeon. This meant nothing to us, other that it would probably be crowded.

Luckily we got in right before the lunch rush are were able to get some seats at the bar (no tables left by 11:30). The food was very well made, though not all of it was to my taste. We ordered...a lot of food, figuring we'd probably never be here again and probably never eat Top Chef food again, so why not?

Singapore Noodles. My favorite. Curry, vermicelli, bean sprouts, peppers, onions, chicken and shrimp, though I got mine without shrimp.

Garlic Noodles. Excellent if you like dashi(fish broth). I don't, and it was too overpowering for me to enjoy. The garlic, scallions and hoison sauce were tasty, though.

Pork Buns. Awesome if you use the horseradish sauce that comes with it. A bit strong, though, as the pork is actually pork belly and, thus, 90% fat

Yakitori. This is very close to what you get in Japan. Sauce was good teriyaki, not too sweet with sesame.

Hot and Sour. Not your typical hot and sour soup. More like bacon soup with a few shrimp in it. Lots of pork, bacon, scallions and what looked like spaghetti noodles. It was actually pretty good, if you like bacon.

Dessert! Malasadas! A Hawaiian donut made fresh when ordered. They were awesome! The sauces are chocolate and butterscotch caramel.

All in all, I'd give it a 4 out of 5, mostly due to personal tastes. The staff was friendly and quick, the food was really pretty good (we ate almost everything). I tend to not care for fatty meat (pork belly, dark chicken meat, bacon) which was the standard fare, but the sauces and fresh vegetables were great.

Sumi got the bright idea that we should really go snorkeling this afternoon, despite having to run 13.1 miles tomorrow at 6:30AM. Once I saw arguing would be pointless, I resigned myself to a slow half marathon and we went to Boss Frog's Dive, Surf and Bike shop

to rent some snorkeling gear and an underwater camera (which we found out about when we got there. I wish we would have had one the other day!). The staff was very good, showing us good places to snorkel and setting us up well for a trip. They also have a great mascot:

So, we headed down to Olawalu, about 6 miles away to the beach and just walked out into the reef. It was amazing how within ten seconds of being in the water, we were seeing fish and coral. It's also amazing how much underwater photography takes getting used to. Sadly, over an hour in the water and we have nothing to show, but trust me, it was cool!

So, we slogged back to the hotel, tired and somewhat dreading the 5AM alarm and the run that will follow.