Hawaii (February 2026) – Part 2

We hopped on a short flight back to Oahu and picked up our rental car. Our friend has a 2 bed-2 bath condo near Waikiki and generously offered to let us stay. Parking is a huge pain in the butt in the area but she had graciously parked her car on the street right outside her place and when we arrived we swapped spots (she has covered parking in her complex).

After dropping off our stuff, we walked over to Ala Moana Center to grab some dinner. Within Ala Moana there is the Makai Market Food Court in Foodland Farms. where you can get customizable poke bowls/plates. After grabbing some food and drinks, we walked across the street to Ala Moana Regional Park and watched some fireworks while we ate.

In the morning, KP and I found some breakfast in the building next door to where she lives at Da’ Hi Brew. It was raining a fair amount again so for the morning we decided to check out the Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA).

Lunch at Paia Fish Market, located in the International Market Place, consisted of some fresh fish. I had mine in a sandwich along with some fries, while D had hers as fish tacos. I had read about this place that had some homemade ice cream and sorbets and we went on a walking adventure after lunch to Henry’s Place.

We then just chilled back at KP’s place until dinner. We had a lovely dinner at Merriman’s Honolulu. During our honeymoon on Maui, D and I had gone to Monkeypod on the recommendation from friends and it turns out that Merriman’s and Monkeypod are part of the same restaurant group. Of course I had to have a mai tai. We shared the Bag O Biscuits and the daily special salad. KP had the pork shank, I had to the macadamia encrusted fish and D had the mushroom ravioli. We then finished off by sharing the chocolate purse.

We walked to a local breakfast spot the next day at Sunny’s Local Grind. I of course had to get the loco moco and it was delicious. Our friend suggested we drive out to the southeast end of the island to try to do some whale watching. On the way we passed by Diamond Head. Unfortunately there weren’t a ton of whales to see and the area we were in was swamped with flying insects and then it started to rain. We ended up continuing around the island to Kailua and stopped at Maui Mike’s Fire-Roasted chicken for lunch. This place actually turned out to be pretty tasty as well. Prior to lunch we had also checked out the Kailua Honey Tasting Room & Store (our friend had been looking for some lilikoi honey).

To get back to Honolulu we drove through the foresty part on the H3 and then we were planning to stay at an AirBnB in the Manoa Valley area. When I booked, they had stated some construction was going on but when we arrived it was a lot worse than that. The entire building was a construction site and the person who we found there was working on the place and had no idea about reservations. She was texting with the owners (apparently there had been a recent change in ownership and they were trying to make the place habitable again). The person there thankfully said that we should just leave and cancel.

Hawaii (February 2026) – Part 1

We hadn’t been back to Hawaii since our honeymoon many years ago. One of our good friends now lives on Oahu and we had been talking about both visiting her as well as just going back to Hawaii for a vacation. Knowing that it was the slower/rainy season, we booked a trip to go in February. I hadn’t been to the big island in even longer and D hadn’t been before so we decided to check that out first and then spend the latter half of vacation in Oahu.

We landed at the Daniel K Inouye International Airport in Honolulu around lunchtime and we had a few hours to kill before our next flight to Kona on the Big Island. After walking up and down the hallways checking out our food options, we settled on Mauka Market. I tried a Hawaiian themed hot dog and D had some poke.

After arriving in Kona and getting our rental car, we made our way to the Royal Kona Resort, where we were staying for the night and also were attending their luau. Part of the resort was under construction so we were able to get a good deal on the room. I really liked the fact that right outside our building was a salt water lagoon that you could go wade/swim in (which I did the next morning before checkout). The room came with 2 complimentary mai tais but we also had unlimited drinks at the luau so didn’t end up using our room coupons. The rooms were clean and comfortable, though a bit dated and you could tell that they were indeed ready for the upgrades that the resort was performing.

For the luau, we were seated at communal tables and started off with some drinks while they were waiting to unearth the pig and get the food ready. The food overall was pretty good. After we ate they then had the actual show, which consisted of various dances including some fire dancing.

The following morning we grabbed some breakfast at Arise coffee. They had these “bubble” waffles so we tried one of those along with a Acai type bowl. The bowl was very delicious and the waffle was also tasty.

Dinner Rolls

For our cousin’s night dinner last week, I found a random recipe online for dinner rolls. I have done parker house type rolls before and also have done other general dinner rolls (without great success). I didn’t have any milk on hand so found a recipe that didn’t need it. Overall these rolls actually turned out to be quite the hit (nice and soft) at the dinner so decided I should save it here for future reference.

Ingredients:

3-3.5 cups AP flour
1 cup warm water
2 Tablespoons white sugar (I only had turbinado sugar so used that)
1.5 teaspoons instant yeast
2 Tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 Egg

Mix water, yeast, and sugar. Let sit 5-10 minutes to bloom
Add egg, oil, salt, and 3 cups flour. Knead until smooth and slightly sticky (can add more flour) – I did this by hand, can do in a mixer
Cover the dough with damp towel and let rise for one hour or until doubled in size
Grease 9 x 13 inch baking pan
Punch dough down and place on lightly floured surface. Divide dough into 14-16 pieces and roll into ball.
Cover and let rise and double in size again
Preheat oven to 350 F
Bake for 20 minutes or until browned
Brush with softened butter or oil
Let sit 5 minutes then move to cooling rack

I made this recipe again and made some bigger buns for possible sandwich/burgers. They grew a bit more together than I anticipated.

Crumb from latest batch along with one use case as turkey burger bun

-StewsCat

NorCal (January 2026)

Ever since moving down to southern CA in 2024, we haven’t been back up to the Sacramento area. We really missed the food and decided to make a trek up to our old stomping grounds (both Sacramento as well as the Napa Valley area, another favorite place to visit when we lived up there) in early 2026. After living in the Sac region for so long, we had some “go to” places that we wanted to hit up.

After landing at SMF and collecting our rental vehicle, we made our way over to Davis to have some lunch before the drive out to Sonoma. The first restaurant to check off our list was Mikuni Sushi. While it is now a chain with 10 locations, it is still quite good and relatively affordable sushi and other Japanese fare. Knowing that our dinner that night may be somewhat heavier, we ordered accordingly and had some sashimi, rolls and nigiri

After lunch, we walked over to Pachamama to grab some caffeine for the slightly over an hour drive to Sonoma. They had some seasonal drinks and I had one that was like a “Fireside mocha,” which was quite tasty. Also the toasted marshmallow was a nice touch.

Our room at the boutique B&B in Sonoma (Inn at Sonoma) was ready early so by the time we arrived we could check in. I had stayed at one of their sister properties (funny enough the parent company is called Four Sisters) while working down in southern California. This place was just a few blocks from Sonoma Plaza.

We had a little bit of time to kill before dinner and decided to do a little bit of a hike at the Sonoma Overlook Trail (I had discovered it when I was researching a bit of the area to see where I could run – fit in a run later in the trip). The trail had a slight incline and took about 40 minutes of casual meandering to get up to the top. At the top we spotted a family of deer that were grazing and of course keeping an eye on us. Before heading out to dinner, we partook in the B&B’s free wine and cheese hour

Parker House Rolls (Chef John)

I also decided to make some Parker House rolls for Thanksgiving and tried a new recipe. This recipe makes 24 rolls. I did a half batch and they turned out good. I liked that the combining of ingredients was simple and there weren’t a lot of different steps where you added one thing at a time.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup warm milk
1/2 cup warm water
1 package active dry yeast (~7 grams, I did like 4 grams for my half batch)
2 large eggs
3 Tbsp white sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter, melted
4 1/2 cup AP flour

Combine warm milk, water, yeast (~110-120F) – let sit for 10 minutes
Add eggs, sugar, salt, 1/2 cup melted butter
Whisk together
Add AP flour and knead until comes together (hand kneaded about 5-6 minutes)
Form into ball and place in lightly buttered bowl until double (~2 hours)
Press flat, divide into 24 portions and roll into ball (I weighed the whole thing and then portioned by weight).
Roll out into a 4-5 inch long oval and brush with melted butter, then fold in half
Place on lined baking sheet
Cover with towel (I did saran wrap) and let rise until almost doubled (~1 hour, mine rose in about 40 min)
Bake at 350 F (20-25 minutes) until golden brown
Brush with melted butter while still warm.

I would make this recipe again. These rolls were delicious and were gobbled up quickly at the family Thanksgiving dinner. The dough was easy to work with and not super sticky/wet.

-StewsCat

StewsCat

Running, baking, cooking, drinking