Hawaii Restaurants Best
where is the best island in Hawaii that suits what i’m looking for?
i would like a place which has good restaurants, exceptional hotels (four seasons etc.), good surfing that would be suitable for a novice. any other information like where to stay and what facilities there are would be great.
thanks
Oahu is going to have the most restaurants (all levels) by far to choose from, as it has Hawaii’s only major city (Honolulu). Waikiki is justly famous for learning how to surf, this was originally the private beach for the Hawaiian royal family. Today, Waikiki is a bustling urban beach setting that ranks with Rio de Janeiro or South Beach in Miami (I think it’s better, less residential). But the great thing about Oahu is that you can still get away from the crowds and find that lonely tropical beach to sit on if you want to.
The Halekulani is heads-and-shoulders above the competition on Oahu. Service, grounds and maintenance is impeccable. They have a famous hula dancer Kanoe Miller (former Miss Hawaii) who dances at the House Without A Key restaurant most nights. It is however, in a congested part of Waikiki with a lot of high buildings surrounding the front of it.
http://www.halekulani.com/
The only other good 5-star hotel is the Kahala Resort, a few miles from Waikiki in the wealthy neighborhood of Kahala. It is adjacent to a PGA golf course. The ambience of this resort is much more quiet than being in Waikiki, but you will need to drive to shop or eat as it is a bit secluded here. Their beachside restaurant Plumeria Cafe is my favorite place for a great buffet breakfast.
http://www.kahalaresort.com/
For food, the best chefs in Hawaii are on Oahu. Roy’s original flagship restaurant at Hawaii Kai, Alan Wong’s (the top chef) has a main eatery here and the less expensive Pineapple Room, as well as a wealth of various Asian cuisines (primarily fusion, japanese and chinese, but thai, vietnamese, etc. are common).
http://www.alanwongs.com/
If you want less of an international flair, Maui has a great many perfect 5-star resorts. There are less fine restaurants here, because no major city. The better resorts are in the Wailea/Makena Beach area (Four Seasons, Gran Wailea are the best here), but great resorts exist in the Kaanapali area as well (the Grand Hyatt is the best here). Note that these Maui resort areas (like Cancun in Mexico) were “created” planned communities, so there is less cultural ambience here. Adjacent to Kaanapali is the town of Lahaina that has great shopping and restaurants to support the resorts, but still of course not going to compare to Honolulu. Next to Wailea, the town of Kihei has good restaurants.
http://www.grandwailea.com/
http://www.fourseasons.com/maui/
For something totally different on Maui, there is a remote resort called the Hotel Hana-Maui. It used to be mentioned on that old show “lifestyles of the rich and famous”. Getting to the town of Hana on Maui is part of the fun…you drive along a sea cliff road with many one-lane bridges through the jungle, with a tropical waterfall at almost every major turn in the road in some places. It takes a couple of hours to drive to Hana from the airport, and definitely take a dramamine if you are prone to being car sick, but sooooooo beautiful, and Hana itself (it means “flower” in japanese) is in the rain forest, really lovely.
http://www.hotelhanamaui.com/
The Big Island is the most exotic, but because the island is so new (mostly solid black lava!) there are few sand beaches, and little coral lagoons to stop the surge of ocean waves so surfing is harder. There are AMAZING and famous 5-star resorts in planned communities in the Kohala area north of Kailua-Kona (Four Seasons Hualalai, Mauna Kea, Mauna Lani, Waikoloa), but they are each far apart from each other with little infrastructure except the mega-resorts themselves.
Kauai is beautiful and has great resorts in Princeville and Poipu, but very quiet with few restaurants and facilities outside the resorts themselves.
Hawaiian Grown TV – Baha – Blue Ocean Thai Restaurant Segment 2
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