Tasting Kauai: Culinary Tour With The Locals

When we signed up to spend 3 weeks in Kauai with our friends Meg and Tony from LandingStanding, we knew there was one thing we would be doing a lot of……..eating.

You already read last month about my personal Hawaiian food tour through my childhood memories from when I was 6 years old. It was filled with a lot of not-so-nutritious and sugary…yet delicious must-try foods. This time we were on Kauai and were looking to experience a real food tour from some locals with Tasting Kauai. We didn’t know what to expect when arriving at the Kilohana Plantation, but knew there would be sweet fruit, Hawaiian style rum, and plenty of locally grown ingredients!

After meeting Marta and Dan from Tasting Kauai, we boarded the Kilohana Plantation’s train and were taken through a sea of fresh fruit, rambutan, pineapple, tangerines, and bananas. All which we got to pick ourselves and taste, and all were unbelievably sweet and delicious!

After a refreshing breakfast we all caravanned over to the Kauai Marriott to experience the famous chef, Guy Higa, who is not only an excellent cook, but a stand up guy. We loved listening to Guy explain the simplicity of the food and all of the local ingredients that go into it. Guy even invited us to tour his home garden where the majority of the herbs came from. The meal was fascinating because we got to see it come to life right in front of us. I’ll stop talking and let the photos speak for themselves!

Across the street from the Kauai Marriott is the local and highly recommended pub, The Feral Pig. We were greeted by Jeanne from The Koloa Rum Company for an interactive make your own drink tasting. Dave Power, the owner and bartender extraordinaire showed us how to combine the sweet and sour and liquors to make a tasty drink. We had three mixers to combine with Koloa rum to make our own sours: ginger honey & lemon, lemon lemongrass & fennel frond, and a syrup made from Koloa dark rum.

I added 1 oz of the lemon grass and kept it basic. Josh got fancy and mixed in 1/2 oz of the dark rum and 1/2 oz of the ginger and added some bitters. Both I would order again and were simple enough for me to make at home.

After we had our fun at pretending to bartend, Dave took us to the bar and showed us how it was really done. Within 10 seconds of talking to each person individually and asking us one or two questions he designed a drink that he thoguht we would like. Each of us received a completely different drink, an original mai tai for Care and a whiskey sour for Josh, and all of them were outstanding!

Stuffed, we finally surrendered to our bellies and rolled ourselves home. If we had any room left we would have ordered the famous Feral Burger with home cut french fries. No worries, we went back the next week to do our own tasting!

Thanks to Tasting Kauai for inviting us on their Farm to Fork Culinary Tour.