A Vegeterian Guide to Eating-Out in Hawaii

I turned vegeterian 2 years ago, and since then barring a few bad experiences I've had mostly smooth sailing. I eat out a LOT, and anyone who's lived in US for any length of time would know that veggie options apart from the ubiquitous garden salad are hard to come by in most restaurants. However, with a little adjustment, a little lowering of expectatations and a little creative ordering, eating out can still be a lot of fun. Indian restaurants ofcourse don't need any of these but since we eat Indian food at home, when eating out we like to try something different.

Getting to the title of the post, we recently vacationed in Hawaii and like most first-times to Hawaii went to two islands - Oahu and Maui. The vacation was amazing and I was bowled over by both the islands except for one glitch - Hawaii happends to be not so vegeterian friendly. The local cuisine is almost exclusively barbecued meat and seafood. Surprisingly, finding veggie food was a much bigger problem in Oahu although it is much more populous than Maui and has a downtown which is as close to any city in mainland USA as it gets. For blogging purposes I have identified 2 main reasons for this -
a) We were unprepared. The first couple of days we kept trying to find a fancy restaurant with local falvor etc. which would give us something to eat. Not a very good idea. Recommendation 1 - If you're a vegetarian, stick to known turf in Oahu for food- Italian, Indian (there is only one in all of Hawaii as far as we could find), P F Chang's version of Chinese. Go to fancy places but stick to drinks and chips(/appetizers) as we did on one ocassion.
b) We were unprepared for the north shore. Which btw is stunning (as seen through a car window). We spent most of our day at the polynesian center which is very fancy and popular and everything but has zero, and I mean it, absolutely nothing for vegetarians when it comes to food. Given that you're expected to spend half a day or more there, this was a killer. Recommendation 2 - Pack food for the north shore or stop at the small village which falls on the way and eat at one of the many pizzerias we saw.

Now we come to Maui. We struck lucky on our very first night when we found this AMAZING stir fried tofu with rice, and flatbread on our resort's room service menu. I really wanted to eat that tofu again but we never ordered room service after that and they don't serve it in any of their restaurants - weird! Breakfasts were great on all days - resort buffet on 3 days and longhi's (I'll come back to it) on one. Our second night was our worst food experience in Maui. We went to the resort's restaurant called the Mala Lounge but once we took a look at the menu, we figured we won't find anything to eat there. We politely apologized to our waitress and were about to leave when this artsy looking old man on the table next to us got up and started telling us how good that restaurant is for veggies. He mentioned that his wife is vegan/vegetarian and likes this restaurant by far the best. Our waitress chimes in and says she could customize a bunch of stuff for us blah blah. To cut it short, we order and its awful. We eat nothing and when the waitress comes to pick up the check (by this time the artsy gentleman has left), she looks at our untouched plates and says - 'You should really try Longhi's. I was vegetarian for many years and they're really great. The man who convinced you to stay owns this restaurant, so.. (shrug)'.

So we did try Longhi's and its a great place for veggies. They actually have a lot of vegetable entrees on the menu and not just pasta. Infact the one we tried was sooooo good that my mouth waters thinking of it. Recommendation 3 - Eat at Longhi's. I think that chain exists in Oahu as well. When eating there, try their cauliflower fried a little in olive oil and served with chillies and olives - wonderful.

Another Maui gem. You find absolutely nothing to eat (except fruit stalls and guavas falling off trees everywhere) on the road to Hana. However, Paia where the road to Hana starts is a good place to grab something. We had lunch at this small cafe called the Moana surfrider and they served us a wonderful pasta. I remember seeing other veggie stuff on the menu as well and thai stuff for dinner. Wanted to go again but didn't get round to it. Recommendation 4 - Eat at this cafe or possibly check out other places in Paia as well. We didn't have time as we had started late.

All in all we found great food in Maui except that one time. One last thing, which I have to mention when talking about eating out in Hawaii. Food is expensive there! So be prepared for that if you're going there anytime.