Jan 2, 2017

Headed to Waimea Canyon, and ate lunch at the Kalaheo Cafe & Coffee Company on the way

Went hiking with a monkey

Made it to the waterfall

Returned to Palate Wine Bar for another phenomenal dinner and then headed to the Kilauea lighthouse lookout for some night photos

 

Edit Jan 4: This is our only photo from Palate Wine Bar. The entire place seats about 20, all at high top tables, with an additional 6 or so seats at the bar and an open-concept kitchen (you can see a bit of the kitchen in the left corner).

We ordered:
1. Meat & cheese sampler plate, with "lamp chopper" sheep's milk cheese, coppa - a prosciutto-like cured meat with a pepper crust and a deliciously floral aroma, mild chorizo and spicy chorizo (not actually that spicy).
2. Hawaiian steak - which was steak-like pieces of cured meat with a balsamic drizzle over
3. Beef stew - turns out ordering beef stew from a wine restaurant is an excellent move - makes you wonder if all the leftover wine ends up in the stew. It was so flavorful!

We also ordered a glass of wine to share (Lust Zinfandel, vintage unknown) but the waitress poured us extra to finish off the bottle - we ended up with closer to two glasses!  She also gave us additional tips for Hawaii sightseeing and restaurants ("Jean-Marie at JO2"), and travelling in general (she biked through Vietnam and Laos!). The restaurant closed at 10pm but we left closer to 10:45.