Wow-wee Maui, that was delicious!

No vacation is complete without delicious food, and I love to eat so this was definitely a huge part of the planning for Maui.  Unfortunately Man vs Food has not visited Maui yet so I had to use different resources to find great food on the island.  Luckily my roommate's brother has been to Maui several times and had a few recommendations for great eats.  The rest was left up to Google and Froders.
When on Oahu, we discovered Shrimp Buses - and man they were delicious - so I was hoping that there would be plenty on Maui to indulge in.  No such luck, apparently Maui does not have the fresh shrimp supply that Oahu has off the island so no Shrimp Buses.  While I was searching I did find some great places to eat that did not let us down.  I will do a highlight of some of our favorite restaurants (and a quick what not to eat) for all of you to drool over.

Coconuts Fish Cafe

Our first suggested restaurant was Coconuts Fish Cafe, known for their fish tacos.  Our first day on the island we decided to explore the southern shore of Maui.  We had to pick up our packets for the marathon about 2 miles from Coconuts so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it out.  After a few wrong turns we finally found our way to a strip mall center where Coconuts was tucked away between a tax center and diner.  The decor was simple, a few wooden bench tables carved to look like surf boards and a few pictures on the wall.  Apparently there were no bathrooms in the restaurant so when people asked they were given a huge kitchen mixing spoon with a key on the end and sent outside and around the corner (I decided I didn't need to go that bad!).

The menu had a mix of options including the famous fish tacos or fish sandwiches, fish and chips, and some chicken and steak dishes.  We ordered the fish tacos and an order of fries for the table.
When the tacos came, all I could say was wow.  Each taco consisted of 2 corn tortillas (the bottom was toasted and the inner was slightly warmed).  The tortillas were piled high with grilled fish, a horseradish cole slaw, mango-avocado-tomato salsa, and various other toppings (17 in all they claim).  They were as delicious as they sounded and I would highly recommend them to anyone.  This was my favorite meal on the island.

Aloha Mixed Plate
Our second day on the island, we decided to try out a restaurant I read about both online and in Froders. Aloha Mixed Plate offered a mix of traditional Hawaiian food like Kalua Pig, Lau Lau, lomi lomi salmon salad, and poi as well as some other local island food like Ono fish, stir fry, marinated beef and chicken and other tasty sounding dishes.
The restaurant was located oceanside in Lahaina with an upper tier of seating and a lower tier right next to the ocean.  We chose to wait a few minutes to get the ocean seating, and it was well worth it.  We started out by ordering the Pupu platter (pupu is what the island calls appetizers) that had onion rings, teriyaki beef and drummettes.  The onion rings were hand breaded, the beef lightly fried and was so tender and moist, and the crisp skin and moist meat in the chicken drummettes was amazing.  The commercials we heard didn't lie, it was an amazing way to start a meal!  We ordered a variety of main dishes so we could sample several things.  Heath got the Hawaiian Plate with Kalua Pig and cabbage and Lau Lau (pork wrapped in taro leaves and steamed); Sandy got the Aloha Mixed Plate with Ono, marinated beef, and marinated chicken; and I got Lau Lau.  All the plates had 2 scoops of white rice and macaroni salad (island staples), and two of the plates had lomi lomi salmon (tomato and salmon salad), poi, and coconut pudding called Haupia.   Everything was amazing and gave us an extra taste of the great authentic food of Hawaii.

Kimos
Kimos was another recommended restaurant, not for it's food but for the dessert - the Hula Pie.  So after a grueling morning of walking up and down the coast of west Maui for the Maui Oceanfront Marathon, we treated ourselves to a nice lunch at Kimos - also complemented by ocean views.  We tried some coconut shrimp for appetizers and ordered some huge burgers and fries for lunch to refuel from the race. We were careful to leave plenty of room for dessert, but we had no idea what we were getting into.  Now I know you must be thinking, what the heck is hula pie. I wondered the same thing myself so I looked it up the night before we went to Kimos.  This is what I found:

Perhaps no one wants you to know just how simple a concoction Hula Pie is. There's no baking, and you can find most of the ingredients ready made: chocolate cookie pie crust, macadamia nut ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream, chopped mac nuts. 
Once you pile all this stuff dizzily high, however, the Hula Pie turns into a mountain of pure dessert indulgence that impresses the heartiest of eaters. 

Um, okay that sounds fantastic, and decadent, and sinful, and just amazing.  Gotta have some of that.  So we ordered it - and it was that good.  And we were sick afterwards - but it was well worth it!

Bubba Gump Shrimp Co 
"My name is Forrest, Forrest Gump" - yep we all know that movie - and in case you didn't know, there is also a theme restaurant that has been created from the movie, Bubba Gump.  We first discovered this restaurant in Miami during our trip to the 2000 National Championship game (OU plug) and have visited several times in different cities since then.  Since there was one on Maui in Lahaina there was no reason why we shouldn't continue this tradition.

Bubba Gump is like any other themed restaurant.  The walls are covered in props from the movie, quotes, licenses plates from different states in the movie, movie pictures - you name it.  This particular location was open air with windows that overlook the ocean. (I love the ocean view at dinner!)  The menu offers mainly seafood choices including several types of shrimp (Anyway, like I was sayin', shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it.) some fish options, crab, lobster, you name it.  
We started out by ordering hush puppies - not your standard hush puppies these were full of corn, crab, and shrimp pieces.  Yum!  I got my favorite dish which is shrimp in a bucket of broth with a scoop of jasmine rice and a piece of bread.  Put the rice in the broth, make shrimp soup and soak it up with the bread.  Doesn't get much better then that!  Sandy got a seafood broil that had crab, shrimp, clams, and other various items - it was also tasty (I had a few bites); and Heath got the fried seafood platter which had more hush puppies, fried shrimp, and fish.  We stopped there thinking that the hula pie from earlier in the day was more then enough dessert.
And just to cover our bases - we went back to Bubba Gump our last day on the island - to try out some more shrimp options - just as great the second time!


I'm going to break this into 2 different blogs now because I still have 3 more restaurants to talk about and a homemade meal!  So don't short circuit your computer drooling over all of these - there will be more to come!