06 February 2009

Now THIS is a fish sandwich (Maui)

It’s the last day of the conference that brought me to Maui. And contrary to what I wrote in my first post, we did not have a group lunch planned for today, so I got one more chance to try a restaurant.

In my post from Feb. 5, I wrote about a fish sandwich that I had at a beach café. It was ok, but I was frustrated that it wasn’t cooked the way I wanted it (medium rare). Well, I didn’t intend to have another fish sandwich for lunch today. I picked ‘OnO Bar & Grill in my hotel because the menu said they served ‘poke.’ I’d read about this traditional, Hawaiian raw-fish dish and I wanted to try it. I thought it would kind of ironic since the first time I ever ate sushi or sashimi was on the first trip I ever took to Hawaii more than 30 years ago.

After I was seated, I discovered that poke isn’t on the menu for lunch. I thought about leaving, but I saw the fish sandwich on the menu and decided to give it a try. Boy, am I glad I did and what a difference from the fish sandwich I had at the beginning of my trip.

Take a look at the picture. See how perfectly seared the tuna is? Cooked an eighth inch on the surface, deep ruby red rare center. The fish was coated with furikake. The focaccia it was served on was excellent, and it was garnished with tomatoes and daikon relish. As you can see in the photo, the sandwich was served with locally made potato chips (good, but I didn’t need to eat them). There also was a nice dill pickle spear on the plate as well as the ubiquitous (in Maui) slice of pineapple.

I had a can of Bikini Blonde Lager with the sandwich, another local brew. I generally prefer tap beer, but this was pretty good.

In terms of value, this lunch was more expensive than the other that I wrote about. The sandwich was $18 (compared to $12.50 at Hula’s), and the beer was $7.50 compared to $5.75. But I didn’t expect any bargain meals in Hawaii, and I’d much rather pay more for a really great sandwich.

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