Little Village Noodle House has been one of my favorite restaurants. This week, I’ve eaten lunch there twice.

It’s hard to resist this place because the food is excellent and the restaurant is within walking distance from our office.

The menu is divided into 12 sections: Appetizers, Soups, Salads, “Beef, Lamb & Pork,” Poultry, Seafood, Vegetarian, Rice, Noodles, Taste of Hong Kong, Desserts and Beverages. Everything is meant to be shared “family style.”

My list of must-haves includes the Honey Walnut Shrimp, Dried String Beans, Peking Duck, Pan Fried Beef, Eggplant with Garlic Sauce, Pecan Spinach Salad, Orange Chicken and Sweet and Sour Pork. I could go on and on, because everything I’ve eaten here has become one of my favorite dishes. 

But if I had to choose just one dish, it would have to be the jumbo-size Honey Walnut Shrimps (pictured left). According to their menu, the shrimps are tossed in a garlic-and-green-onion cream sauce and topped with honey walnuts. It’s almost like a seafood candy treat.

Little Village Noodle House is open for lunch and dinner. I strongly recommend making reservations before you go, because the popular restaurant has a tendency to get crowded. There’s even take out if you’re in a hurry.

 

A walk into the maw of the Thurston Lava Tube at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is always exciting. No matter how many times one does it.

Having grown up on the Big Island, I’ve been through it a couple dozen times.

Several hundred years ago a large eruption near the summit of Kilauea created this 500-foot long lava tube. It’s a cave-like tunnel that once carried fast-moving molten lava; now you can walk through it.

Lava tubes are created when a fast-moving channel of lava ducks under an above-ground flow. These channels are often huge near an eruption site, separating into smaller lava tubes that can feed a moving flow miles away.

Lava from the current Kilauea eruption is being carried to the ocean primarily through tube systems.

When an eruption ends (or magma diverts elsewhere), the lava channels drain, leaving behind hollowed-out tubes. Thurston Lava Tube is located near the source of the flow that coursed through it centuries ago. It was a big flow, so the section of it that’s open to visitors has enough height and width for most to move through comfortably.

A brief walk through a thick fern forest leads to a lush, near-invisible pit crater and the lava tube’s entrance. The trill of forest birds quickly gives way to the echo of your own shuffling footsteps and dripping water from the ohia tree roots that enter the tube’s ceiling from the forest above. There’s just enough electric lighting to see the varying textures and compositions of the lava walls.

I recommend a visit in the late afternoon when there are fewer visitors. It’s a little more eerie to walk through without much company—you may even find yourself a bit frightened if Kilauea’s chilly, forest-kissed winds are whistling through.

The walk through Thurston is brief. But you can stay as long as you like, before exiting back into the forest through a collapse in the tube’s roof.

The tube is named after controversial Hawaii newspaper publisher Lorrin Thurston, who had a hand in the area becoming a national park and the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy. The lava tube also has a Hawaiian name, Na Huku, which refers to the protuberances on the tube walls.

Click here for directions to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and Thurston Lava Tube.

  

Waipio Valley has long been one of my favorite spots to return to when I’m on the Big Island of Hawaii.

When I was growing up in Hilo, we often made the 100-mile drive to Kailua-Kona on the other side of the island.  We still do.

As a kid,  I was always a bit saddened when mom blasted our Honda Civic past the turnoff to the plantation village of Honokaa on the drive up the Hamakua Coast. Honokaa, you see, has the only access road to Waipio Valley.

Six miles deep with a mile-long black sand and boulder-strewn beach connecting its north and south walls, Waipio Valley is the largest of several valleys marking the Kohala Mountains drop into the sea. It has been called the “Valley of the Kings” because of its former residents. Many are still buried there.

You can view Waipio from a scenic overlook almost 2,000 feet up from the valley floor, or guide a four-wheel drive vehicle along the steep single-lane road descending into it. If you’ve got the right vehicle—and have a full day to explore—try to do both.

Start with a picnic lunch on the beach, do some beachcombing, then drive into the valley. I like taking the dirt road hugging the Waipio River, the valley’s lush foliage and scattered taro farms to a view of towering Hiilawe — one of the tallest waterfalls in Hawaii.  (It’s also the inspiration for Gabby Pahinui’s most famous song, “Hiilawe.”)

Explore Waipio on a sunny day during the rainy winter and spring seasons and you’ll find dozens of other waterfalls cascading down the green valley walls.

Our friend Alex Salkever has an entertaining description of the somewhat gnarly unmarked hike to Hiilawe on his Hawaiirama site.