America, パート４

Wednesday, November 21
I ate madeleines for breakfast and rode to school (University of Hawaii) with Scott. UH is a commuter campus, and if you don't arrive early, you won’t find parking in the complex. In my college days, I arrived before 7:00 am and studied/talktalktalked with Jamie over Starbucks coffees. Scott, however, has adopted a much mellower morning routine. That morning, as usual, he pulled out a pillow from the backseat and played PSP. I followed suit and watched podcasts and studied a little Japanese.

I walked Scott to class then bought a Jamba Juice from the on-campus store. なつかしい！The UH branch helped me survive my senior year, during which I had no lunch period. From UH, I walked down University Avenue to Iolani, where I sat in on two of Mom’s seventh-grade math classes. She is an amazing teacher, and her patience with the irritating boys and girls—patience that I do not have—demonstrated to me exactly why I would make a horrible teacher.

At 12:30 pm, I met Alli and Tracie for lunch at The Pineapple Room, one of my favorite restaurants in Hawaii. The food is as delicious as I remember it being, but I didn’t notice any new items on the menu. We ordered our usual plantation iced teas (sweetened with pineapple juice) and snacked on fluffy foccacia with chili aioli. Alli ate a salad, but Trace and I ate medallions of meatloaf over mashed potatoes and served with fresh carrot, asparagus, and corn. The Pineapple Room is the younger sister to Alan Wong’s, a spectacular restaurant featuring creative Asian-Pacific Rim dishes at around $80 for dinner for two. The Pineapple Room, uses top quality local produce as well, but the fare is simpler and more budget-friendly. I recommend the Pineapple Room burger, which includes not pineapple, but fat onion rings and creamy avocado relish.

After lunch we walked through the mall, shopping, catching up, and finding old friends. The wonderful thing about friends in retail—besides receiving discount coupons—is that it’s easy to drop in on them at work. Later in the afternoon, Tracie began her evening shift, and Alli and I drove to Kahala Mall, where I surprised Michele and my former co-workers at Banana Republic. We then visited Kau’i at Godiva, where we sampled the pumpkin spice truffle. If chocolate and pumpkin pie had a baby, that truffle would be it. Yum.

In the evening, I had dinner with the family at another of my favorite spots, Big City Diner. The menu hasn’t changed there either, and they still serve enormous portions. I ate only half of my brown rice and grilled ahi (tuna) over wilted spinach. At Big City, I recommend the fried rice (available in kim chee version) and any of the breakfast items. The pancakes and the desserts are broke da mout'.

[My pictures from Wednesday are on my dad's camera.]