I can't say too much about Christmas, but I sure have something to say about Christmas Eve! In Waikiki, there is a hotel called Halekulani. It is probably the most expensive hotel in Oahu, charging around 400 dollars for the cheapest Garden View room. In the hotel, there are several dining options, and one of them is called Orchids, which is famous for its brunch, but we'll talk about that at a later date.
What we did is go to Orchids for dinner. Although they did offer a Chef's Christmas Dinner course ($70), it didn't sound very appetizing, so Tricia an I decided to order other items from the menu. By the way, all the items on their menu are low fat/fat free, or so it says on the menu.
For appetizer, we ordered a thing called Variation of Island fish. It is two pieces of lightly grilled kobachi with a coat of cajun spices, a cute little lump of poke style maguro, and three slices of maguro sashimi. Unfortunately, I cannot provide you with a picture because Tricia and I were both too busy enjoying the fish. I imagine that we will be ordering it every time we go there, because it was that good.
For the meal, Tricia ordered a Fillet Mignon with a Truffle Glaze, with Fresh Roasted Vegetables and Gratin Potatoes with Brie Cheese.
The meat was lean and tender, and was grilled perfectly. The Truffle Glaze was a little too reminescent of A1 sauce for me, but Tricia liked it, so all's well, eh? The Garden Vegetables were really good, I especially liked the way they cooked it. It looks like they just chopped the vegetables, put them in the stone pot with some butter, and then just closed the lid and put the entire thing in the oven. It was good!! I would like to try it one day if I can get similar looking stone pots. As for the Potatoes with Brie Cheese...not that great, to be honest.
For my dish I ordered the house Signature Dish: Steamed Onaga(Ruby Snapper, or Tai), Oriental Style, Sizzled with Sesame Oil and garnished with Shiitake Mushrooms, Green Onions, Ginger, Chinese Parsley and Soy Sauce.
I have one word for you: GOOOOOOOOOOD! The fish was cooked to just the right tenderness, and the soup was just exquisite! That's one dish I'll be having again for sure. Here's the website of Orchids just in case you want to know more.
http://www.halekulani.com/dining/orchids/
After dinner, we came home and opened a bottle of Champagne to celebrate.
...what a bad idea. I've had some bad champagne/sparkling wine before but this really took the cake. It cost $23.50, but we just couldn't bear to take another sip and ended up just pouring it down the drain. It was really that bad. Seriously, I really love my alchohol. Give me a Kill Me Now and I'd drink it just so the alchohol wouldn't go to waste, but this champagne...ugh. Here's the label again, so remember it and DO NOT buy/drink it when you see it.
So instead of the champagne we had something I'd been cooling in the fridge for quite a while, like one month. It was a Moscato D' Asti, from I Vignaioli Di S. Stefano. (Italian, as you can obviously tell from the name.)
Now THAT is a drink you can celebrate with. It still had that slightly sickly sweet aftertaste that you can expect from any moscato/muscat, but it was relatively light, and the flavor was just wonderfully crisp. The fact that it was bubbly (Hence Asti) just made it even better, like icing on the cake. Here's the lable again, so if you see this one on the shelf, I promise you won't be disappointed!
Watch out for more random upadates! Have a Happy New Year!
