A new survey from the American Automobile Association lists Honolulu as the most expensive city in the United States for vacationers.

The average price for meals and lodging for two adults per day, at least according to AAA’s 2008 Annual Vacation Costs Survey? $673.

That’s more than second place New York City, which AAA estimates at $606 per couple, per day; and third place Miami at $370 a day.

Of that $673 per day spent in Honolulu, AAA says $546 goes to lodging and $127 on meals.

As longtime residents, we know that Honolulu (and Hawaii, in general) can be pricey. Still, AAA’s numbers seemed hard to believe. There are lots of places to stay for under $546 a night, and we could eat pretty well on $127 a day.

The numbers don’t match Hawaii’s own surveys, given to all visitors leaving Honolulu International Airport. Couples reported spending an average $368 per day on Oahu, in 2007. That number included not just lodging and food, but activities, shopping and ground transportation.

So how the heck did AAA get its figures, which were widely reported? 

The good news for everyone—except, perhaps, AAA members—is that the company’s numbers are sort of bogus.

Spokesperson Marie Montgomery told us that AAA’s Annual Vacation Costs Survey is based solely on numbers provided by hotels and restaurants requesting to be included in AAA’s diamond rating program or 50-state TourBook series. The company did not have a breakdown of how many Honolulu-based hotels and restaurants reported numbers to them, but said that it currently tracks more than 100 of each throughout Hawaii.

This methodology—which is skewed by a large number of luxury properties seeking AAA’s potentially lucrative five-diamond rating—leaves out many hotels and restaurants in Honolulu. It also doesn’t include condos, timeshare rentals and bed-and-breakfasts.

Further, AAA seems to be averaging high-end suites (of which there are only a few) in with standard hotel rooms (of which there are plenty) at each property, in order to come up with its $673 figure.

“I believe that most seasoned travelers realize, ‘Gosh, I don’t have to pay that much.’ By the same token, it would be nice to have a more realistic average,” said AAA’s Montgomery. “It’s just these are the numbers that the hotels themselves give us. They don’t give us the average rate that all of their customers paid for a room in a year. They just give us the rate that they want us to publish in the TourBook.”

State of Hawaii tourism liaison Marsha Wienert found the AAA survey hard to believe.  

“I thought, ‘How could (visitors) spend that much money?’ That makes no sense to me. Not when I know what they really spend. The (actual) numbers don’t come anywhere close to what AAA is saying.”

Of course, if you’d like to spend $673 a day here in Honolulu, that’s fine with us. We’d opt for a cheaper room and really live it up in the restaurants, however.

What do you think of AAA's numbers? Do you spend as much as $673 per day on just room and meals in Honolulu?

  

I love getting dim sum. If you like seeing food before you order it, there’s no better way to dine out.

And Mei Sum Chinese Dim Sum Restaurant is the place to have it when you’re in downtown Honolulu’s Chinatown district.

Carts of Hong-Kong-style dim sum are rolled around the restaurant right to your table. If you like what you see on the cart, just ask your server for it. Don’t like what you see? Wait for the next cart to come around. Instant gratification!

Going to a dim sum restaurant requires little prior experience or expertise in Chinese cuisine. If you’re unfamiliar with what’s on the cart, most restaurants have a menu with pictures and the names of each dish. If you’re still unsure about an entrée, you can always ask your server.

In addition to Mei Sum’s dim sum, you can also order entrées or starch dishes like noodles and fried rice. But most of the fun comes from checking out what’s on the carts.

We ordered pretty much everything we saw: from char siu bao (barbeque pork manapua), spareribs with black bean sauce, shrimp dumpling and shrimp pork hash (pictured above) to pot stickers, barbeque pork pastry and cold jellyfish (pictured to the right).

That’s right, cold jellyfish, which I was curious to taste. It was a bit chewy, and definitely an acquired taste.

A must-try though? The deep fried taro (pictured left).

The best thing about eating at Mei Sum is that it’s affordable. The price for each dim sum entrée depends on its category: small dishes will cost you $2.15, medium dishes are $2.55 and large dishes are $3.35.

Mei Sum is open for lunch, dinner or takeout. Reservations are highly recommended for large groups.

You’ll find Mei Sum at 65 N. Pauahi St. (on the corner of N. Pauahi and Smith St.). Call (808) 531-3268 for hours and more menu information.

  

Hawaii’s largest producer of macadamia and kukui nut oil products turns 20 years old this year. As part of Oils of Aloha’s birthday celebrations, HAWAII Magazine was invited to take a tour of its production facility in Whitmore Village on Oahu.

Their expeller-pressed process is a complex multi-step procedure that extracts and purifies the macadamia and kukui nut oils. It also turns the nuts into a “press cake” that can be ground into a natural exfoliant, which is used in scrubs and facial cleansers. Every part of the nut is used, including its shell.

Oils of Aloha owners Barbara and Dana Gray (pictured right) started the company in 1988 in the historic Koga Theater in Waialua on Oahu. You may be familiar with Oils of Aloha’s skin, hair and sun care products. Perhaps you were one of our “Postcards to Hawaii” or “2007 Best of Hawaii” ballot winners who received Oils of Aloha’s products. (And you can win a gift from Oils of Aloha simply by filling out our 2008 Best of Hawaii ballot.)

What most people don’t know is that Oils of Aloha also makes macadamia cooking and salad oils.

To our surprise, our entire lunch (except for the kalua pig and poi) was made with macadamia oils, including the macadamia smoked salmon, Pele’s Firehouse chicken, Kauai Herb Bruschetta and—our favorite—Haleiwa Heat Deep-Fried Turkey. Even the salads and desserts were made with the macadamia nut oil.

Here’s the recipe for the Haleiwa Heat Deep Fried Turkeys. It calls for a lot of turkeys and whole lot of macadamia nut oil.  It's  designed for parties, but we couldn’t figure out how to reduce it and still get the same effect.

Haleiwa Heat Deep Fried Turkeys

What you’ll need:

4 turkeys (10 to 12 lbs. each)
Injection Mixture (see below)
Flavor injector needle
Dry Rub (see below)
4 to 5 gallons Oils of Aloha Hawaii’s Gold Macadamia Oil for deep frying
10-gallon pot, propane tank and large strainer

Haleiwa Heat Injection Mixture

1 gal. Oils of Aloha Haleiwa Heat Macadamia Oil
12 oz. soy sauce
1 jar (1.62 oz.) paprika
3/4 cup salt
1/4 cup pepper
Combine all ingredients and stir occasionally while injecting to keep the ingredients blended.

Dry Rub

1 jar (1.62 oz.) paprika
3/4 cup salt
1/4 cup pepper
Combine all ingredients and blend well.

Directions:

Remove parts from inside the turkeys. Rinse and pat dry. Stir Injection Mixture to keep ingredients blended. Fill needle and inject four times on top of each leg from front to back. Inject half a needle into each wing joint. Inject a needle into each drumstick and thigh. Sprinkle part of the Dry Rub into cavity of each turkey, then rub remainder on outside. Heat macadamia oil to 375ºF, preferably outdoors.
Very carefully and slowly lower turkey into hot oil and cook until golden brown (allow 3-4 minutes per pound). When cooked, the turkey will float to the surface with a perfect crispy, brown skin. Carefully remove from hot oil and allow any excess oil to drain back into the pot, then place the turkey on an oven rack. Allow turkeys to rest for 20 minutes before carving. Makes 20 servings.

For more Oils of Aloha macadamia nut oil recipes, click here.


 

It’s not official just yet.

But Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, a couple of corporate sponsors and a whole lot of volunteers donating and stringing flowers crafted the world’s longest lei yesterday at May Day festivities in Waikiki.

The final length? 5,336 feet—or 56 feet over the mile-long goal the Mayor had set.

The event was documented for the folks at Guinness Book of World Records, who will, hopefully, make the world record official within the next few weeks. Overhead video from a news helicopter, photos, witness statements and the confirmation of not just one, but two notary publics will be sent to the book’s British publisher.

“When that helicopter is flying overhead, I want you to wave because that image is going to be seen around the world,” Mayor Hannemann instructed the crowd. The lei—which encircled much of Waikiki’s Kapiolani Park, at the foot of Diamond Head—was comprised of hundreds of yard-long segments of strung-together plumeria, orchid, hibiscus and other flowers.

Hannemann, the event’s de facto head cheerleader, seemed elated. “I’m very happy we’re going to be in the Guinness Book of World Records,” he said. “It’s another great cultural achievement for the people of Honolulu.”

After documentation, the crowd was allowed to take segments of the record-breaking lei with them as souvenirs.

Check out a video report on the event from Honolulu TV station KHNL here.
 

Perhaps you’ve heard the old hapa haole hula anthem, “May Day is ‘Lei Day’ in Hawaii.”

The song is still largely true. Each year on May 1, many residents statewide celebrate Hawaiian culture and island culture by attending music and hula shows, sporting their best aloha wear and wearing colorful floral lei.

But Honolulu politicos—Mayor Mufi Hannemann, most prominently—are hoping to prove May Day is indeed Lei Day this year with the construction of Guinness world-record-breaking floral lei in Waikiki’s Kapiolani Park. Minimum length? One mile when the string of flowers is finally tied together. 

Thousands of fresh flowers, hundreds of volunteers and two full days will be necessary to accomplish the task. And if you’re in town on May 1, you could participate in the world-record attempt as one of many residents and visitors holding the lei when the mayor connects the ends.

We’re thinking seriously cool photo op for the mayor (and you) here.

The city’s 81st annual Lei Day celebration in Kapiolani Park will also feature live music and hula, demonstrations and exhibits of Hawaiian craftmaking, and lots of colorful and fragrant lei for sale.

You’ll find a complete schedule of Lei Day celebration events here. More information about the city’s Lei Day celebration and Guinness world-record attempt is here.
  

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.

 

The cover feature of the new issue of HAWAII Magazine is all about the “15 Things We Love About Hawaii” right now.

Among them, you’ll find the Big Island-made chocolate we’d fly from our Oahu offices to savor. The Hilo designer whose Hawaii-inspired fashions and prints we’d pick up while we’re there. And the hula dancer whose graceful movements we’d most want to accompany an oceanside mai tai and Waikiki sunset when we return home.

We've already clued you in about our love for Lost actor Michael Emerson in a previous “15 Things We Love About Hawaii” post. The love currently quenching our thirst for a carbonated beverage like no other, though? Artisanal sodas from Waialua Soda Works.

Trust us. You haven’t had a great vanilla cream soda until you’ve had a Waialua Soda Works vanilla cream soda. HAWAII editor John Heckathorn and I emptied a small office supply of the stuff in an afternoon binge session. (Our original plan was to share a single bottle.) And I’m still unsure whether associate editor Sherie Char got to enjoy any at all. (Burp.)

Here’s an excerpt:

Waialua Soda Works is all about homegrown Hawaii ingredients. There’s Big Island vanilla and Kauai honey in its vanilla cream soda. Island-grown fruits, when available, infuse its pineapple and mango sodas. Maui sugar cane sweetens its root beer. … The contents are handmade and hand-bottled by Jason and Karen Campbell (who) make old-fashioned artisanal soda in the former plantation village of Waialua on Oahu’s North Shore.

Read the full text of our Waialua Soda Works write-up and the 14 other things we love about Hawaii in the May/June 2008 issue of HAWAII Magazine, on newsstands now.

  

Jack Johnson’s Kokua Festival wrapped up its second day of music Sunday night in Waikiki. As promised, here’s writer and Jack fan Jessica Ferracane’s fifth-row-from-the-stage view of Saturday’s sold-out show.

I’m at the Waikiki Shell for the first night of Kokua Festival 2008, standing in a line with about 150 people, trying to buy a $20 festival T-shirt.

The beer lines are far shorter, populated mainly by the boyfriends and husbands of the countless women in line with me. We’re missing Go Jimmy Go on stage. Tragic. But we boogie in place, inching our way towards the 100-percent-organic-cotton proof that we were here. 

Hawaiian singer and ukulele player Paula Fuga goes on stage next. There’s no way I’m missing Paula. So I take a last sip of my husband Steve’s $7.75 beer, leave him in the T-shirt line, and try to find our seats—just five rows back from the stage.

Paula’s soulful lyrics and rich vocals set the late afternoon vibrating with melody. At the end of her set, I scream, “Hana hou!” (Hawaiian for “one more time”) at the top of my lungs.

Steve, like Jack Johnson, is so far nowhere in sight.

When Dave Matthews walks out on stage, shrieking females rush back to their seats with full beers in one hand, veggie burritos in the other, purses bouncing off backsides.

The fans erupt in adulation when Dave opens with “Crazy." Tim Reynolds—his longtime friend and fellow musician extraordinaire—joins him. Dave’s raucous vocals, contagious energy and the duo’s genius guitar riffs soon have everyone on their feet.

It’s Matthews’ first gig at the Waikiki Shell (and in Hawaii), and he’s obviously moved.

“Everything about this festival has a great vibe. It’s beautiful,” Matthews says solemnly to the masses, his normally sarcastic humor put aside.

The crowd erupts again, flashing shaka signs and cameras. Even guys previously content to politely move their heads from side-to-side while their women shake it, shout back, “Aloha Dave!”

It’s all pretty cool.

Steve finally shows up—two T-shirts in hand, with another full beer. It’s too loud to ask where he’s been. And when Jack takes the stage I’m so star-struck I just grab Steve and sing every word to every song— “Better Together,” “Banana Pancakes,” and all those Jack tunes Steve likens to chick flicks. Still, I catch him singing from time to time, too.

Jack’s set stretches into the night for a gloriously long time. He eventually calls his friends on stage: Dave, Tim, Go Jimmy Go, Mason Jennings. But first, Paula Fuga takes the mike again and she and Jack sing “Country Road”—my personal anthem to drive with both hands on the wheel, and keep an eye on the other guy.

At the end of the show, there are more shaka signs and waves of applause. Everyone takes some time to pick up discarded biodegradable plastic beer cups and trash, and put it in the appropriate receptacle on the way out.

Mahalo for your "Kokua," Jack. See you next year!

  

Hawaii singer-songwriter-musician Jack Johnson’s Kokua Festival is happening today and Sunday in Waikiki. Our friend, writer and Jack fan Jessica Ferracane, will be at tonight’s sold-out show. She’s promised us a post-concert report and photos. Until then, we’re happy to share her view from the ground of Friday’s pre-Kokua Festival press conference.

Pinch me. I’m in a crowded lunch tent at the Waikiki Shell, and there’s Jack Johnson and his wife Kim noshing on Mexican food with one of their sons. Seated next to them is Dave Matthews with his wife Ashley and their twin daughters. Hawaiian songstress Paula Fuga is standing in line behind me. I try to get her to cut but she’s all “no need, thanks though” with a wide smile.

There’s a casual vibe I’ve never experienced at a press conference. The atmosphere is more baby luau, minus the Heineken.

It’s a good vibe. And it’s for a good cause, too.

The Kokua Festival is a benefit for the Kokua Hawaii Foundation, which supports environmental education in Hawaii schools. And festival and foundation co-founders Jack and Kim Johnson, and their eco-conscious dream team, take their commitment to the cause seriously. The festival is as environmentally responsible as it can be.

There are water stations throughout the Waikiki Shell grounds so concertgoers can refill their water bottles. Recycling, food waste and composting stations are also set up. Generators are powered by bio-diesel. Organic cotton concert tees—and other sustainable products—will be on sale in a Kokua Village concertgoers pass through on the way to their seats.

After lunch, the press conference begins. There are reporters representing everything from Sunset Magazine, to BBC Radio, Surfer’s Path Magazine, Honolulu TV stations and print publications, and Australian and Japanese media.

Jack is center stage, seated at a long table. He is sandwiched by Kim on his left; and fest musicians Matthews, Fuga, Tim Reynolds, Mason Jennings and members of local reggae-ska band Go Jimmy Go to his right.

They tell us that Kokua Festival, now in its fifth year, is striving to be the first zero waste music festival in Hawaii. They hope to inspire organizers of other music festivals to do the same.

Kim Johnson can clearly articulate the educational and environmental impact of the festival she helped create. But most questions from the press are directed at Jack. One “reporter” in short surf trunks and a bikini top exposing well-sculpted silicone enhancements, gets the rest of us snickering after asking Jack a breathy question that’s already been asked and answered by Kim.

No time to ponder that, though. I’ve got to pull out my organic cotton outfit and get ready for Saturday’s show.

  

You ask. We answer.

A couple of readers wrote, lamenting that they couldn’t attend Jack Johnson's Kokua Festival shows in Waikiki this weekend.

This is the fifth-annual go-round of Johnson’s music festival, happening this Saturday and Sunday at the Waikiki Shell. Johnson, Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds  headline, with Mason Jennings and Hawaii acts Paula Fuga and Go Jimmy Go as support.

Tickets for the fest sold out mere hours after going on sale in February. We’re sad for our readers that, unlike previous years, this year’s concerts won’t be streamed live on the Web.

Ally Estrada of Wichita, Kansas, asked which music acts had played each Kokua Festival, and whether we thought attending next year was worth a trip to Hawaii.

Let's answer those two questions in reverse order, Ally.

We think exploring the scenic wonders, cultures, food, activities and everything else we have to offer in Hawaii is always worth a visit, period. However, as long-term residents, we may be biased.

You might also be swayed by the fact that all the cash (minus Ticketmaster fees) goes to the Kokua Hawaii Foundation—the nonprofit founded by Johnson and his wife Kim to support Hawaii-based environmental education programs.

Hope that helps, Ally.

The four words of advice you really need if you want to go to Kokua Festival 2009, tho?  BUY. TICKETS. RIGHT. AWAY. We're talking the-minute-they-go-on-sale.

We'll post the date as soon as we know.

And here’s the answer to your first question, Ally. Jack, no surprise, played every one of the fests.

Kokua Festival 2007
April 21 & 22 @ The Waikiki Shell
Eddie Vedder, Ernie Cruz Jr., Matt Costa, The Girlas

Kokua Festival 2006
April 19 @ Maui Arts & Cultural Center, April 22 @ The Waikiki Shell
Willie Nelson & The Planetary Bandits, Ben Harper, Henry Kapono, Paula Fuga & The One Love Ohana Band, Animal Liberation Orchestra

Kokua Festival 2005
April 13 @ Maui Arts & Cultural Center, April 16 @ The Waikiki Shell
Jackson Browne, John Cruz, Ozomatli, G. Love & The Special Sauce, Kawika Kahiapo & Kaukahi

Kokua Festival 2004
January 3 @ Blaisdell Arena (original location at Kualoa Ranch was rained out)
Amy Hanaialii Gilliom & Willie K, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Makana, DJ Logic

For more Kokua Festival information, click here.