Vagawandering.com

The sun is falling, the tradewinds are blowing, the tiki torches are lit, your toes are in the sand, the stars are coming out. You don’t even notice that the onion rings are soggy, and the alfredo sauce is a little weak. Sometimes a little mediocrity is OK. Especially when Lava Lava Beach Club is 30 steps from the hotel....

Best places to eat in Lihue (in no particular order): Smileys Plate Lunch (til 130) Hamura Saimin Fish Express (fish runs out around lunchtime) Right Slice pies Dukes at the Kauai Marriott Tip Top (until 1:45; Sushi Katsu at night after 5:30) (We didn’t get a chance to try Robs Good Time grill or Roland’s Plate lunch this time –...

Lihue needs more great plate lunch places. Until then we’ll happily keep coming back to Smileys. Our flight was delayed an hour, allowing us to have one more meal before leaving. Woo! Located behind Ace Hardware on Rice Street, Smileys also has some great specials. I tried the Ahi Katsu and it was the 2nd best piece of fish I...

Friday evenings all summer long. Come early, because the tram does not come around even close to every 15 minutes. And you don’t want to park in that lower lot.

Oreo Blizzard, three spoons. Thank you Dairy Queen!

2 ruined pairs of pants, 1 ruined backpack. Neoprene surf socks so inundated with mud that they’ve never rinsed clean. My right palm, bruised and tender for days from the weight I put on my hiking stick while ascending and descending the slippery muddy cliffs. But also the most amazing pictures and memories, of the dense tree and fern canopy,...

Salted cheese. On top of milk tea. Who would think to put cheese with iced tea and who would want to drink it again? Happy Lemon is a chain of tea and juice shops from Shanghai. This spot in Kearney Mesa is supposedly their biggest location anywhere – no surprise, shops in Asia are tiny – but both times we...

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-sierra-dead-trees-20170128-story.html As of January 2017, “more than 102 million drought-stressed and beetle-ravaged trees have died across 7.7 million acres of California forest. More than half of those died last year alone. Overall, about a fifth of the trees have died in the ponderosa pine and mixed conifer belt of the park, according to Stephenson and Das. Even after this winter’s...

Is Steamy Piggy just a cute name, or a restaurant with real staying power? We took advantage of happy hour pricing to try their appetizers. Salt and pepper chicken, crispy and salty: 3 cup chicken – super tender stewed chicken in a shoyu/sesame oil sauce. Tastes just like Japanese shoyu chicken to me, a true home cooking dish! Not that...

French restaurants and cafes aren’t really a thing in LA. So I was excited to try Balthazar for weekend brunch. We booked a 1030 reservation which gave us time to get there from Times Square. It was quite busy on Saturday morning and we could see just how close together the tables are set. We’re we going to be squeezed...

I’m not a big fan of museums. I can’t think of anything more boring than wandering thru an endless maze of rooms looking at stuff that has absolutely no meaning to me. It took me way too long to figure out that you can just go see the pieces you want to see. The Rick Steves museum tours are perfect...

One of the hole in the wall restaurants that Tony Bourdain made famous, Xi’an Famous Foods is just south of Central Park. The menu is mostly hand torn noodle dishes with lamb, beef, pork, and a few dumpling dishes. This is very humble eating place with no tables or waiters, only stools and 2 long counters. Similar to what you’d...

As far as I’m concerned, the perfect dinner. A top notch Old Fashioned – nice and sweet and citrusy – and a Joel Gott cabernet. Altho I think I’m going to have to stop mixing my liquors. The bread basket had a nice gingerbread in it as well as some fine whole grain breads. The butter was very rich –...

One of the few places open past 10pm. Liked this place even better the second time. We were so hungry we didn’t get pix of the spicy pork ramen, or the other yakitori skewers of chicken with salt, or chicken with wasabi. This could become our regular after theater stop! Classic cheap Asian eatery style, cans with glasses of ice....

Case in point, the smallest lavatory sink I have ever seen in my life

At 950 we had to wait 30 minutes for a table in Del Mar on the 4th of July. Free coffee while you wait, and texting service to tell you when to come back for your table. This gave us a chance to pick out some books for our East Coast nephews we’ll be seeing next weekend. Snooze Spuds Deluxe...

Friday night and our feet are itchy! What else can you do in the burbs but go on a donut run! This Vegas style Winchells is open 24-7. Although their Donuts were fresh, I think Sesame Donuts (near the evil KK) has much better variety including multiple kinds of donut holes. This place only had a few crullers, chocolate raised...

Campfire is a highly acclaimed new American restaurant in Carlsbad. It has tons of outdoor seating. To start, Mr A ordered an L.E.S. (gin and mint), and I ordered their version of an Old Fashioned, the Speyside Tiger. It basically tasted exactly like an OF. I love the orange zest flavor. The steak tartare was very tasty, but not sure...