Restaurants

You won't go hungry on Oahu. The full range of choices here includes chef-owned glamour restaurants, neighborhood eateries, fast-food joints, ethnic spots, and restaurants and food courts in shopping malls.

The recommendations below are organized by location, beginning with Waikiki, proceeding to neighborhoods west and east of Waikiki, and ending with the Windward Coast and the North Shore.

The culinary scene seems to change each year, and the current trends in Hawaii center around emphasizing organic and locally grown produce (with some restaurants actually naming the farms that grew the lettuce), small plates, sample tastings and even bite-size desserts, interesting and unusual specialty sandwiches on a variety of breads (from spelt to wraps), and exotic salt (in a range of colors and flavors). Hawaii regional cuisine and Pacific regional cuisine still reign supreme in Hawaii, as well as Pan-Asian and Mediterranean.

Whatever you have a hankering for, you'll find it on Oahu. My advice is to be adventuresome, try new and different cuisine, and sample foods you've never heard of. It's moments like these that create great memories.

Room Service from 50 Different Restaurants

You are not limited to the room service menu in your hotel room; Room Service in Paradise (tel. 808/941-DINE; www.941-dine.com) delivers almost a dozen different cuisines (from American/Pacific Rim to Italian to sandwiches and burgers) from oodles of restaurants to your hotel room. All you do is select a restaurant and order what you want (check out the online menus or pick up one of the magazines in various Waikiki locations). You are charged for the food, a $6.50 delivery charge in Waikiki (more in outlying areas), and a tip for the driver. Both lunch and dinner are available; call in advance, and your food will be delivered whenever you want. Best of all, you can pay with your credit card.

Dining in Waikiki 24-7

If your flight to Honolulu arrives late and you're starving, your knight in shining armor in Waikiki is the newly opened MAC 24-7 (which stands for Modern American Cooking, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week), at the Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio Hotel, 2500 Kuhio Ave. (at Liliuokalani Ave.; tel. 808/921-5564). All day, every day, the kitchen offers everything from breakfast, lunch, and dinner to snacks and desserts, and the bar pours drinks all day, except between 4 and 6am. It's not just for late-night dining (although it comes in handy, as Waikiki eateries shut down by 10-11pm), it's also a great place to get picnic lunches during the day.

The cuisine is coffee shop/diner "comfort" food, reasonably priced for Waikiki ($4-$28, with most entrees in the $11-$16 range), and plenty of it. Portions can feed two and, in some cases, three people. My pick for best meal of the day is breakfast, where the six-pack of buttery cinnamon rolls ($6) will feed three and the yummy wild blueberry pancakes ($11) are supersized (three pancakes, each one 14 in. in diameter), plenty for two hungry people. Another must-try from the menu: the delicious meatloaf with garlic mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy ($16). The view from the floor-to-ceiling windows is of the landscaped gardens in the lobby. The decor is sophisticated but sparse with splashes of bright color, and the waitstaff is friendly and helpful.

Tasty Tours for the Hungry Traveler

See Honolulu -- one restaurant at a time. Former Honolulu newspaper food critic and chef Mathew Gray has put together "Hawaii Food Tours" to show you a side of Hawaii that you would not discover on your own. He offers three different types of tours, all with transportation from your Waikiki hotel in an air-conditioned van and all with running commentary on Hawaii's history, culture, and architecture. Our favorite was the "Hole-in-the-Wall Tour," a lunch tour from 10am to 2pm for $99 per person, where you visit at least four different ethnic restaurants (Vietnamese, Indian, local food, and dessert). Mathew has already pre-ordered the best dishes from their menus. He also offers the "Hawaiian Feast in Paradise," a three-course feast in contemporary Hawaiian foods for $149, and a "Gourmet Trilogy Tour" of three different restaurants with everything from champagne to a decadent dessert for $199 per person. For information and booking, call tel. 800/715-2468 or 808/926-FOOD, or go to www.hawaiifoodtours.com.

Attention Condo Dwellers: Fix, Freeze & Feed Dinners

If you are staying in a condo or other accommodations with kitchen facilities, there is an alternative to eating out every night or slaving over a stove during your vacation, and its name is Dream Dinners. Dream Dinners, Niu Valley Shopping Center, 549 Halemaumau St. (tel. 808/373-1221; www.dreamdinners.com), is a "meal assembly kitchen," where you gather all the ingredients for your own heat-and-serve meals, using the recipes and prepared ingredients they provide. After signing up online and booking an appointment, you go through an assembly line choosing various fixings for your entrees. You can freeze or just refrigerate the meals and serve a gourmet dinner for a fraction of the cost of eating out. As we went to press, entrees (which included chicken with honey, garlic, and orange; lemon fish fillets; arroz con pollo; lasagna; steakhouse sirloin; and risotto primavera) ranged in price from $3.50 to $7 per serving. The downsides of this great money-saver are that it's only best for groups or families (you choose 3-6 servings per dinner), it's located in Niu Valley (away from most visitor accommodations), and you need at least 2 hours to do your "shopping."

Where's All the Bottom Fish on the Menu?

What happened to the signature Hawaii bottom fish on the menus in Honolulu restaurants? The state and federal government have instituted closures for fishing of Hawaii's popular bottom fish (opakapaka, hapuupuu, onaga, lehi, ehu, kalekale, and gindai) during several months (May to September 2007, as we went to press, but the ban may be extended or renewed in '08) to try and revive the depleted stocks of these very yummy fish, which are the signature items of numerous restaurants around the state. If you see one of these types of fish on the menu, it may not be fresh or it may have been caught in waters elsewhere in the Pacific, but not Hawaii.

Downtown

Downtowners love the informal walk-in cafes lining one side of attractive Bishop Square, at 1001 Bishop St. (at King St.), in the middle of the business district, where free entertainment is offered every Friday during lunch hour. The popular Che Pasta is a stalwart here, chic enough for business meetings but not too formal (or expensive) for a spontaneous rendezvous over pasta and minestrone. Some places in Bishop Square open for breakfast and lunch, others just for lunch, but most close when business offices empty.

Note: Keep in mind that Restaurant Row (Ala Moana Blvd., between Punchbowl and South St.), which features several hot new establishments, offers free validated parking in the evening.

The Shrimp Trucks

Maybe it's a Hawaii thing, but the best, sweetest, most juicy shrimp you are ever going to eat will be from a shrimp truck on Oahu's North Shore. Several trucks line up around the entry to Haleiwa, just off the Kamehameha Highway, but our two favorites are: Giovanni's Original White Shrimp Truck and Holy Smokes: Hawaiian Meats and Seafood.

Giovanni's (which usually parks across the street from Halewai Senior Housing, tel. 808/293-1839) claims to be the first shrimp truck to serve the delicious aquaculture shrimp farmed in the surrounding area. The menu is simple, and most are priced at $12: spicy, garlic, or lemon-and-butter shrimp. Skip the lemon-and-butter shrimp (boring), and go to the garlic (my fave) or the spicy, if you dare. (They're not kidding -- it's very, very, very spicy.) The battered white truck has picnic tables under the awning outside, so you can munch away right there.

The other truck parked in the same area, Holy Smokes, has a bit more extensive menu: In addition to the famous shrimp, they also have pork spare ribs ($8.95), smoked chicken ($7.95), and a steak plate ($11).

The trucks are usually in place before noon and stay until about sunset. Depending on how much shrimp you can down, expect to spend no more than $12 per person.

LUAU!

The sun is setting, the tiki torches are lit, the pig is taken from the imu (an oven in the earth), the drums begin pounding -- it's luau time.

On the North Shore, Turtle Bay Resort presents "Legends of the North Shore Luau," on the lawn overlooking the ocean with a "Taste of the Islands" luau buffet and a Polynesian revue featuring the songs and dances of the Tuamotu Islands, Samoa, Tahiti, Fiji, and Hawaii. Tickets for the dinner and show are $75 adults and $45 children ages 4 to 11 (show-only tickets $50 for adults, $30 for children ages 4-11). To book, call tel. 808/293-6000.

On the windward side, by Makapuu Point, Sea Life Park features the "Sea Life Park Luau," every night except Tuesday and Saturday, which offers a dolphin show, Hawaiian food, and a Polynesian revue. Prices are $80 for adults and $48 for kids ages 4 to 12 years old. For information, call tel. 808/259-7933.

The largest luau (600-800 guests a night) is held on the west side of Oahu (about a 45-min. drive from Waikiki, on the leeward coast; bus pickups and drop-offs in Waikiki are part of the deal). Germaine's (tel. 808/941-3338; www.germainesluau.com) charges $65 per adult, $55 for 14- to 20-year-olds, and $45 for 6- to 13-year-olds (children under 6 are free). Paradise Cove Luau (tel. 808/842-5911; www.paradisecovehawaii.com) features a small thatched village that feels more like a Hawaiian theme park, with Hawaiian games, hukilau net-throwing and gathering, craft demonstrations, and a beautiful shoreline overlooking what is usually a storybook sunset ($73 for adults, $63 ages 13-18, $53 ages 4-12, free for those 3 and under). Shows are nightly from 5 to 8:30pm.