"Broke Da Mouth" Kind of Day - Maui Day 5

What is Broke Da Mouth?
I'll explain later...HA!!

The advantage of being flexible

As I had mentioned earlier, we really had no itinerary. If there was something I wanted to make sure we did during this vacation, we had already crossed it off our list, that was driving the Road to Hana. Everything else was all about the beach (body boarding, skim boarding, snorkeling, and plain ol' swimming and relaxing beach front). I think we've done a pretty good job in that arena. From a local flavor stand point, I'm pretty happy with the different food crawls I've done over the past few days, and now that we've approached our halfway point of our vacation, the challenge is to ensure we hit more local, off the beaten path types of establishment.

Foodie stop
Since we planned on heading to the beach, of course I had to find something good to eat. I was advised to try 808 Deli which was just down the street from the condo. I asked for recommendations, and I followed the tip - get the Chicken Salad Sandwich with dried cranberries, walnuts, lettuce, tomato. I just wanted something light, nothing fried. This sandwich would be perfect to eat at the beach.

Maluaka Beach
Nestled between Wailea and Makena is Maluaka Beach. I was looking for a beach not far away that will give us the opportunity to snorkel, body board, and skim board. Maluaka fit the bill. It was only 15 minutes away from the condo. We got there right before 11am, and stayed till 1pm. I had fun playing with the kids, both in the sand and in the water. Mommy played photographer, and at times, entertained a few phone calls from friends. During our little break in between, Nancy and I shared the Chicken Salad sandwich from 808 Deli......yummm!!! I can make this back home, and I'll kick it up a notch by adding alfalfa sprouts and apples. I like texture on a sandwich like this one.

Speaking of phone calls
Since I'm on vacation, I decided not to check my work email. However, early this morning, I received a phone call from an unknown number, the caller did not leave a message. It wasn't until noon local time when I reluctantly opened up my work email. Sure enough there was an issue that needed to be handled. Long story short, I made 3 phone calls to make sure the issue got resolved. As much as I didn't want to check my email during vacation, in this instance, I'm glad that I did. The trouble now is keeping myself away from checking my work email for the rest of my vacation. I shall try... I really will.

This foodie will do almost anything 
It was around 12:55pm when I turned to Nancy and told her that we should try and go to Sam Sato's in Wailuku. We did have a Costco errand to begin with, so in my mind, we might as well hit 2 birds with one stone. The problem - Sam Sato's closes at 2pm. So we gathered all our beach belongings, walked to the nearest shower, and headed to the parking lot. We left Maluaka Beach close to 1:10pm. The GPS said it'll take us close to

Dry Noodle Double

1/2 hour to get to Sam Sato's. So I drove towards Wailuku and made it to our destination around 1:42pm.  One of the local Auntie's found a spot for our party of 6. She didn't rush us but she suggested we order soon (before 2pm) and we'd be guaranteed to get our food. She looked at our party and gave her recommendation - Dry Noodles Double, 4 Beef BBQ Sticks, and Chicken Yakitori. She said that was plenty enough for us to share. I asked myself, "really???" You don't argue with a local Auntie. I was expecting that we'd be ordering Saimin, my mind was fixed on Saimin (I was thinking of Hamura Saimin - my favorite saimin joint on the island of Kauai). But I had to trust Auntie. Within a few minutes, she came out with one large, as in large bowl of noodles with char siu pork, bean sprouts, and green onion. It came with a small side of broth. In my mind again, "how in the world are

Beef BBQ Sticks

we going to share this soup bowl?" Well, we were told we dip the dry noodle in the broth and go about our business. It was that simple. What I wasn't expecting....the dry noodle was not really dry, it was cooked, and oh-so-al-dente! Auntie gave us 3 little bowls (for me, Ethan, and Nancy). We took some of the noodles, and dipped, and ate. I decided to season my noodle and broth with soy sauce and Tabasco. Wow, that was really good.

Manju - Lima Bean and Azuki

This dry noodle broke da mouth!!!  It's an expression that means, something so tasty,  you want to eat it all once. Auntie also talked to us for a bit, and learned that we'd be exploring Lahaina sometime this weekend. She gave us a few more tips...how cool was she? Way cool!!! When we got ready to pay at the register, we also ordered Manju - Lima Bean and Azuki. It reminds me very much of a Filipino hopia. Aaaahhhh....foodie cravings were definitely satisfied! I'm hoping before we leave the island that we'd get to try Sam Sato's at least 1 more time.

The kids didn't want to go out and swim
After running our Costco errand, we headed back home. The kids were restless, Nancy was on a mission to do laundry, I, on the other hand, had the bug to jump in the water. It was very hot. At first I didn't want to go on my own, but I realized, it's not everyday that I have a choice to swim in Maui? So there....I went by myself,  jumped in the Pacific Ocean. Although I was alone, I made sure to swim close to the crowd. After 20 minutes of being in the water, I headed back to the condo.

Maui sunset photoshoot


It wasn't really an official photoshoot, but we wanted to take pics with the sunset in the background. This has been a favorite tradition whenever we vacation in Hawaii. Pictures of the growing kids and the majestic Hawaiian sunset is an unwritten item that's engraved in the list of things to do.We got to the beach around 6:20pm, and we had about a 1/2 hour to play (or as I would call it...take pictures). As you could imagine, we took hundreds of pictures of the kids and the sunset. Nancy and I took turns as their

photographer, and there were a couple of times when strangers approached us to  take our family picture.....mahalo to them. Before, during and after we took pictures, my kids who didn't want to swim with Daddy earlier, decided to jump in and play in the water. Go figure! Of course, I had to pretend that Daddy was hurt, they knew that I was just joking. After leaving the beach, it was already dark, and the kids still didn't get enough of water playtime and so we stopped at the pool and swam some more. Why not....they're on vacation after all.

That's Day 5 - somewhat laid back. It was still a fun-filled day. For a change, Nancy cooked tonight, a comfort food....chicken sopas (aka chicken noodle soup). That was a perfect end to our Day.....goodnight and mahalo for following us.