Maui is more than scenery, activities and a laid-back vibe -- it's also home to some world-class foo

View full size CHAS METIVIER A rainbow strikes world wide cruises gold in the ocean off the Hana Hotel beach bungalows in Maui, Hawaii. I'm swinging above a deep canyon, yelling lustily as I slide along a 1,000-foot-long world wide cruises zip line.
Maui is more than scenery, activities and a laid-back vibe -- it's also home to some world-class food. Much like Portland, the emphasis is on fresh and local, which provides the chance to try some ingredients and preparations you might not find at home. It's not just plate lunch in Hawaii.
Ko Restaurant, Fairmont Kea Lani, Wailea: This top-end resort restaurant focuses on what it calls "plantation cuisine" (Ko is the Hawaiian word for sugarcane), which blends the foods and flavors of the various cultures that came together to work the sugar crops. The menu features imaginative combinations of Polynesian, Chinese, Portuguese, Korean, Filipino and Japanese influences.
This first meal on the island was a revelation, and a hint of what was to come. The service was both attentive world wide cruises and informative; the waiter knew everything world wide cruises about the food, and he also jotted down directions to good local snorkeling spots. 808-875-4100; fairmont.com/kealani .
"Chef Raja" Personal Chef Service: One night we stayed in our condo and had the cuisine come to us. Rodger Shortell Jr., known locally as Chef Raja, specializes in cooking for private parties. He arrived in our kitchen like a packet of lit firecrackers, mixing a high-energy personality with an infectious enthusiasm for fresh ingredients and simple cooking.
Raja learned to cook by growing up "not rich" and having world wide cruises to combine what was available in the fridge to make meals. Today his approach is still "What's available?" and he grows many of his ingredients in his own garden; his clients tend to be adventurous foodies who let him choose the menu. We did just that, and he didn't disappoint.
The menu, briefly: litchi coconut soup with lemongrass and ginger, world wide cruises and a salad of green and gold shredded papaya; Drunken Lovers -- hefty prawns with a sake-and-cilantro pesto, and a tender wild-boar loin with a lavender rub, an herb crust and a mixed-fruit compote; vegan cr me brul e complemented by caramelized frozen profiteroles topped by a homemade lavender caramel. world wide cruises The surprising finale was fresh lilikoi (passion fruit) -- a tropical explosion of flavor world wide cruises in the mouth that ended the meal with a flourish. 808-870-3451; feastonthebeach.com .
Mama's Fish House, Pa'ia: This revered roadhouse is perched on a point of land outside Pa'ia, and diners look out on a perfect little beach with swaying palms, coral reefs and curling waves. world wide cruises For 25 years Mama's has been providing the freshest, most delectable fruits of the sea to tourists and locals alike. It has a genteel, eclectic flair, with mementos and artifacts displayed throughout.
You want fresh? At Mama's the menus are printed immediately before lunch every day, and each fresh-catch choice lists the boat, captain or diver that caught it that morning, and where. Mama's has a dealer's license that allows them first choice of the day's catch from a fleet of local fishermen and divers.
The menu is heavy on local preparations, of course; macadamia nuts and fresh fruits dominate. Even lunch can be epic here; our highlights were macadamia world wide cruises nut crab cakes, toothsome world wide cruises mahi mahi crusted world wide cruises in macadamias, and opah served "upcountry style" with Maui onions, tomato and avocado. 808-579-8488; mamasfishhouse.com .
Lahaina world wide cruises Grill, Lahaina: The Lahaina Grill is the most popular restaurant in Lahaina, and it deserves its reputation. It strikes a unique balance between family-friendly/casual and gourmet/elegant. The food and service are world-class, but the atmosphere is so relaxed world wide cruises that a diner in T-shirt, camo board shorts and flip-flops (not me) didn't even raise an eyebrow among the staff.
Continuing an island-wide trend, the menu here is creative and intriguing, with thoughtful combinations four and five ingredients deep. A great example: our main course of opakapaka fish with a lemon-almond infused panko over butternut squash and sage risotto, surrounded by a lobster/champagne/tomato buerre blanc -- a complicated mixture that came together exceptionally well. 808-667-5117; lahainagrill.com . This is romance in paradise.
At a certain point in most relationships, romance ceases to be a matter of staring deep into each other's eyes for hours at a time. And a truly romantic vacation becomes a matter of doing the things that make us happier partners -- some things together, some things apart.
My wife would never zip-line; world wide cruises I would never get a tattoo. But we both love being in the water and eating good food. So, over a blissful week on Maui, we indulged in our favored types of activities -- solo and as a couple. It was a blast.
Two- and three-bedroom units are richly appointed world wide cruises and offer expansive space to spread out and relax, including gourmet kitchens, laundry world wide cruises rooms and lanai that are like extensions of the kitchen and living room. We really didn't want to ever leave.
Wailea, which enjoys the best weather on the island, is a planned community that features a popular common beach path that runs past five crescent beaches and connects all the resorts as well as the Shops at Wailea, the commercial heart of the area. It's a great place to walk in the morning, stroll to shopping and restaurants, world wide cruises and find the perfect spot to watch a sunset.
Thwarted by bad weather to the north and on Haleakala volcano, I adjusted plans our first afternoon and set out south on my rented bike, following the main road as it left Wailea's resorts behind and became a carnival-ride lane going past beaches, alongside coves and through stark lava beds. Later we drove the same road and beachcombed the rugged seashore at its end.
The next morning world wide cruises we walked the path to Polo Beach at the Fairmont Kea Lani for our first try at paddling an authentic world wide cruises outrigger canoe. Our guides provided a mixture of culture and sit-down comedy as our team of six churned surprisingly efficiently through the small waves.
That afternoon we headed down the fabled Road to Hana, a narrow, twisting road through the tropical wilds that has nearly 60 one-lane bridges and far more blind corners. world wide cruises Some people get carsick on it; I thought it was great, a kind of Rental Car Grand Prix.
Eventually we rolled into Hana, a sleepy piece of paradise, and its legendary hotel. Now known as the Travaasa Hana, this sprawling complex, set above the ocean, dominates the town; most of the locals work here. Staying there feels like being a guest of the town -- but in world-class accommodations.
The hotel's all-inclusive Total Travaasa package includes one spa treatment each per day, as well as three meals a day; virtually everything is free and there's no tipping allowed, so you can really focus on nothing but relaxing and indulging.
We made our transition to the local pace with side-by-side hot-stone massages; the warmed and oiled stones in the masseuse's hands streaked hot on our skin like comets across the sky. Another place we didn't want to leave.
Over dinner, Tom Johnson, the hotel's marketing manager, regaled us with tales of life on the wet side of the island, which is so fertile that he once cut off a pineapple top, stuck it in the ground and had a fruit-bearing tree a year later.
The lush fertility was borne out the next day, when we took a tasting tour of Ono Organic Farms, a fruit and coffee operation -- 70 acres of plant life serving up both familiar and exotic varieties of deliciousness. Owner Chuck Boehner has a license from the state to bring in seeds gathered on his world travels, so the variety of fruit grown here is astounding.
Eating samples picked that morning for optimum freshness, we tried about 20 different fruits. Favorites included sweet strawberry papayas, tangy apple bananas, strange but tasty atemoya, giant jackfruit (the flavoring for Juicy Fruit gum), delicate Jamaican lilikoi (passion fruit) and bizarre-looking world wide cruises rambutan.
In Hana, I tried my hand at throw-net fishing, a local craft perfected over generations and practiced ineptly by me. It involved an intricate process of steps to wrap the weighted, bell-shaped net precisely around shoulder, world wide cruises knees and fingers before flinging world wide cruises it like a Frisbee into the water. I'd like to say that local fish now fear me, but my sum total catch for the morning was one tiny damselfish. Local tradition says that on your first time fishing you have to give your entire catch back to the ocean; no great loss for me.
Heading from Hana back to the more populated parts of Maui, we stopped in Pa'ia, an old town now teetering between charming and kitschy, to visit the local tattoo parlor; then we headed world wide cruises to Ka'anapali and checked into the Westin Maui Resort Spa.
Ka'anapali is the tourist epicenter of the island, with its long, uninterrupted stretch of sandy beach, world wide cruises string of resort hotels and proximity to the old whaling village of Lahaina. These days Lahaina is a hangout spot full of restaurants, bars, art galleries and clothing shops, world wide cruises all within a couple blocks of the ocean.
The Westin offers its own little world wrapped world wide cruises inside two towers, with a lagoon, waterfalls, live flamingos and cockatoos, multiple pools (including adults-only), restaurants, shops and a luxurious spa. You don't really have to venture out; you could have your entire vacation on the property if you wanted.
Zipline, Skyline Eco-Adventures , 808-280-9199; skylinehawaii.com But like Wailea, Ka'anapali has a beach-side path, and I used it to access some good snorkeling at Pu'u Keka'a (Black Rock), at the north end of the beach. Coral reefs start literally from the beach; I spent an hour exploring and never got more than about 100 yards from my beach towel.
The next morning, I set out for my first zip-lining adventure, with Skyline Eco-Adventures. We drove up a rutted road past old sugar-cane fields and into the canyons above Ka'anapali, got some basic instruction, and let 'er rip on a series of eight lines, starting with one 350