A sucessful hunt for vegan food in Hawaii

I successfully found some really good food in Hawaii, although I ate some mediocre meals in addition to the delicious ones and I had to be careful about restaurant selection.

At Huggo's in Kona we were able to eat right on the water -- practically right on top of it. I think we saw someone with a table on the edge get hit by some spray from some waves. It was definitely a touristy place, but the view was really beautiful and the atmosphere was relaxing and the service wasn't too over-solicitous compared to the other water-front restaurant we tried in Kona.

I had the "garden grill," which included some grilled vegetables with a rice pilaf and some black beans. It sounds very simple, but it was really delicious. The vegetables were very flavorful (especially the portobello) and fresh. The beans and rice were both very good too. It was plenty of food, but was light enough not to make me feel stuffed. I loved that the beans and rice came inside of a cooked tomato!

The other great meal I had was in Waimea at Daniel Thiebaut Restaurant. The restaurant was very beautiful, and it's in a building that used to be a country store for the locals (it's in a ranching town). They had a whole "vegetarian and pasta" section on the menu with several things that sounded like they could easily be made vegan. For the whole trip, I had been seeing on menus "macadamia nut-crusted" this and that...usually fish and chicken. I was dying for something vegan crusted with macadamia nuts...and I finally found it. Daniel Thiebaut had a macadamia nut-crusted tofu napoleon on the menu. It ended up being a very large serving of tofu with mac nuts and a mixture of wonderful delicate stir fried veggies between the layers served with a very rich tahini sauce. It was incredibly delicious.