mindless ramblings

We started off our final full day in Maui with a quick drive down past Makena to this really impressive lava flow. At first glance, it looks like huge chunks of soil, almost as if a giant farmer decided to till the ground. However, its actually all lava rock! It must have been absolutely amazing to watch as the lava flowed down the mountain and into the ocean. Definitely worth the drive down if you are in the Wailea or Makena region.

We then made our way over to the Five Palms restaurant for a nice brunch. Located in the Mana Kai hotel, the restaurant has an amazing view overlooking Keawakapu Beach. The picture says it all really. Although the sun was shining down, we got a seat in the patio section. You don’t have to be worried, there is a mesh covering above and it does a good job of shielding out the sun and keeping the humidity down.

As for the food, Esther went with the Baked Island Banana Pancake, while I went for some dish whose name I forget but I have pictures! The wait for the food was pretty damn long, but they made it up for it by giving us some crab cakes, which were very nice! The pancake was a big big portion. The pancake itself was a bit too thick and heavy for my liking. It almost had the consistency of bread, while I think I’d prefer something more fluffy. It did have a generous serving of banana inside though, and the macadamia nut honey butter was very tasty. My fish dish was pretty good too. The light fish was a good combination with the creamy sauce. The rice was a little mushy though, but no big deal.

Since we had to be in Lahaina after dinner, we decided to make another trip up to the north eastern side of the island. This time, we drove past Napili and went all the way to the Nakalele Blowhole. You might think that the drive round past Kapalua is somewhat like Hana, but it really isn’t. There are many opportunities to check out the red volcanic rock everywhere. It is quite impressive to see the layers of rock that form the entire cliff. It is a really long walk down to the blowhole, and we didn’t bother with that. However, even by looking from way up top from the parking lot, it is quite impressive to see the water fly out of the blowhole… although the water volume does depend on the season and the current tide level, so YMMV.

Returning back to Lahaina, our early brunch was making us hungry, so we took a leisurely walk along Front St (again!) to find something for dinner. We decided upon BJ’s Chicago Pizzeria for dinner. Although the website has a menu, it is nothing like the one we had in Maui, so consider yourself warned. We were getting pretty hungry, so we each got a starter (Caesar salad for Esther, and angel hair pasta salad for me), and a small BJ’s Favorite pizza to share. The caesar salad was fairly forgettable, but the angel hair pasta salad was excellent. The menu mentioned that it was “refreshing”, but I wasn’t really sure how pasta could be refreshing. It turns out it is served slightly chilled and it is truly refreshing. This is definitely something I’d want to try making on a hot hot summer day! The pizza itself was quite tasty too, nice and thick crust with plenty of toppings. The small looks deceptively tiny when you look at what other tables are having, but if you have a starter, a small pizza will be more than enough for two. If you do want to try it out, it looks like this place gets crowded very early so go there early.

Our final event of the night was something we really decided on only when we got here. We anticipated the fact that there wouldn’t be much to do at night here, and it was somewhat true. Maui Revealed did mention that the best entertainment at night in Maui was the Warren and Annabelle’s magic show. We decided to take the plunge and by some stroke of luck got tickets at short notice for our final night here. The website has pretty much all the information you need, but when we were in Maui, we didn’t really have easy access to the internet, so it was unknown to us that they validate parking in Lahaina Center for up to 4 hours. We ended up paying $10 and parking a fair distance away. I thought the show itself was really worth it. Even the way you enter the theater is really special (I won’t spoil it for you)! While we were sitting around waiting for the show to start, we got approached to ask if we wanted to help Warren with his act. This meant that we got to sit right in the front, so naturally we said yes. We got a fantastic seat right up front, but honestly, even being that close, I could not explain how the tricks were being pulled off! It is something to watch magic on TV, but to see it up close like that without any logical explanation is really mind boggling. It was a great way to end our final night in Maui, and I definitely have no regrets about watching it.

With that, our final night in Maui came to an end. We packed most of our stuff into our luggage and tried to eat as much of our remaining food as we could. We didn’t really have to wake up early the next day as we only had to check in at 1245pm… so we weren’t really rushed. Stay tuned for the truly final day and crappy food all round!