Updates on Allison: Hawaii 2015: Day 2

This morning my Dad and Christopher took off early to do a morning scuba dive over in the North Shore area. While they did their scuba diving adventure, Nick, my Mom and I hunted for a place to eat before meeting up with the rest of the family. Nick found a great hole-in-the-wall called Ray's Cafe. It's a really local place with only six tables and a screen door. My Mom noted that their "We're Open" sign said "If the door is open, we're open. If it is closed, we're closed." She got a good kick out of that one. Let me tell you, this place had some GOOD fried chicken. I'm not big on fried chicken, but the way they fried the skin made it taste like cracklins' and the meat was really moist. The area of the restaurant was a little sketchy and run down, but it was well worth the risk, plus it was broad daylight.

Nick got the Ray's Special, which was a tender burger patty slathered in gravy and crispy fried chicken. It was really, really tasty and now I wish that I had order that.

I got french toast because the menu said "French toast sand with ham or bacon." I think the "sand" was a typo that was supposed to be an "and". I thought it was an abbreviation for "sandwich". Oh well. The french toast was really good. That is a giant slab of butter on top.

My Mom got corned beef has and eggs, which I finished off for her because it was too much food. The corned beef has was nice and fried on the outside and soft on the inside.

After breakfast, we headed up to North Shore to pick up my Dad and Christopher as they got out of the water. The plan was to get them, eat at Giovanni's shrimp truck and then get shave ice at Matsumoto's. The plan was well executed. It didn't take us long to find Christopher and Dad. Once they were all cleaned up we headed out to the shrimp truck, which was about 10 minutes away. The line for the truck was long, but well worth the wait. My Mom didn't eat any because she was still pretty full from our brunch, but Christopher, Dad, Nick and I mowed down on some shrimp. I wish that I had weighed myself before the trip. According to my grandma, I'm not supposed to be eating shellfish because it will give the babies eczema, but when in Rome, you do as the Romans do. When in Hawaii, you eat what the tourists eat. I'm pretty sure there aren't a lot of local Hawaiians getting in that line, but you never know!

Mom and I waiting for Christopher.

Shark Cove at North Shore where Christopher and Dad dove.

This is when I say, "My Dad is cooler than your dad" and mean it.

During brunch we noted that when we go back Mom, Nick, and I will be very fat, but Christopher and Baba will be skinny from all of their activities.

Three orders of shrimp scampi and one order of lemon and butter shrimp. The last time Nick and I were here we ordered one of the hot and spicy and garlic shrimp scampi. The hot and spicy tasted a lot like vinegar and made it hard to eat in mass. The shrimp scampi was much better and we could have eaten a whole bucket.

I also got a strawberry, mango, peach, and pineapple dairy-free smoothie that was delightful, but sadly forgot to take a picture of because we were walking. What was I thinking?! I'm so out of the blogging mode. I'm going to go home and try to recreate the smoothie to change up my daily smoothie experience.

Industrial shave ice machines. Snow in Hawaii!

Nick was a little bit disappointed that Matsumoto's remodeled. Gone was their iconic grocery store front. The entrance is currently on the side of the building and completely new inside. The grocery store is under construction. The new location, though only a few steps away, is much nicer. It looks like they're remodeling the whole of North Shore tourist scene. The buildings have all been refaced and the public bathrooms well kept. (I really appreciated the clean bathrooms.) Matsumoto's was completely different inside and had almost a Chipotle feel where you tell someone what you want and they have an assembly line putting together your shave ice. It was definitely not a bad experience, but it was different from what we had seen before.

Full of food and sweets, we headed back to Waikiki. I tried going out to sun bathe for a while, but by the time I got down to the pool the sun was setting behind the other buildings. So much for that idea! When I got back upstairs we were getting hungry again. Surprise, surprise. On our last trip, Nick and I went to Iyasume Musubi Cafe and really enjoyed their variety of musubi. Little did we know that there are several locations. We thought that there was just one. Knowing that this time around, we searched for the closest one to our hotel and found that it was only 0.1 miles away. It was pretty much around the corner from us. We decided to eat in so that we didn't have to do more walking or driving. My feet and ankles haven't been fairing so well in the heat and humidity.

Everyone does the pic of themselves by the pool, right? But do they do it at 17 weeks while looking 26 weeks? Probably not, but Nick tells me to "rock it" and so I shall.