Rocky’s Guide to Maui

If you’re not on Instagram, you missed the beaches, mai tais, and eating marathon that happened on my stories last week in Maui. Basically lived my best life for 5 days and absolutely cannot wait to go back! I know quite a few of you have upcoming Maui trips planned, so I wanted to put together a guide of the best things we did while we were there - shocker it’s mainly FOOD ;) but seriously, all the food we ate was soooo good, couldn’t be happier!

Anyways, let’s start with my favorite EATS since that’s why we’re here anyways right ;)

FOOD:

Star Noodle

This place was recommended to me by many frequent Maui goers and for good reason! The food was incredible and a great Asian fusion restaurant with some traditional Hawaiian dishes. Absolute must haves here are the Adobo Ribs and the Nuoc Cham wings. We also got the Local Saimin, a noodle soup common to Hawaii which was quite good with a flavorful broth, but not a must try in my opinion. They were completely booked up for reservations weeks out, so we just grabbed food to go and took it to the beach - perfection!

Papa’aina

A cute little brunch spot right on the water in Lahaina, this spot was a little hidden gem. We got stuffed on the Breakfast Ramen, fruit plate, and plenty of bloody mary’s - it was the perfect brunch for our last day! I especially loved the fruit plate as it came with a great variety of fruit uncommon in California. They have front outdoor seating or a beautiful outdoor patio inside - both great options for outdoor eating.

And more!

• Monkeypod Kitchen - the BEST mai tais with a honey lilikoi foam they were so so good!

• One of the things we loved so much in Maui was the BOMB ice cream and shaved ice. I don’t think you could go wrong anywhere, but our favorites were Ululani’s for Shaved Ice and Lappert’s for their coconut caramel ice cream - to DIE for!

• Down the Hatch - this place was recommended by a few people and was featured on Diners, Drive-ins, & Dives. Although their Lava Lava shrimp appetizer was delicious, we found the rest of their food to be pretty average. I think if we had done it again, we would come here for apps and a drink and then gone somewhere else for dinner.

Places recommended to us we didn’t get to go to:

• Fleetwood’s on Front St - a fun rooftop for cocktails at sunset

• Fish Market Maui - highly recommended for fresh seafood and poke

• Aloha Braised - food truck in Lahaina

• Paia Fishmarket - in Lahaina, known for fresh seafood

• Tamura’s Fine Wine & Liquors Lahaina - a surprising recommendation for great poke in Lahaina

• Joey’s Kitchen - popular for poke and tacos

• 808 Plates - food truck with poke and katsu

Road to Hana

Road to Hana Eats:

One of the most fun parts of the Road to Hana (aside from the gorgeous views of course) was the food stops along the way. Some of our favorite meals in Maui were at food trucks on the side of the Road to Hana, so wanted to list out our favorites below!

• Aunt Sandy’s Banana Bread - one of the first stops we hit and some of the best banana bread I’ve ever had

• Braddah Huts BBQ Grill - a killer BBQ spot with Kahlua Pork and Kolbi short ribs that were to die for!

• Coconut Glen’s - really delicious and fresh vegan ice cream!

• Tin Roof Maui - a casual lunch spot by Sheldon Simeon that was right by the airport - great for dinner driving back from Hana if you’re staying in Kaanapali! The pork belly and Garlic Shrimp were incredible. Since we were traveling with a friend who does not like fish, we got poke here too, although it is not what they are known for and I think their plates were better.

Road to Hana Stops:

There’s a million different stops along the Road to Hana that are beautiful and worth time in their own right, but if you’re like us and trying to get it done in one day (and before sunset at that), you’re gonna wanna hit the big ones first. Being conscious of our limited time, we decided to hit our high priority stops on the way, and then hit our “bonus” stops on the way back. This way we made sure we made it to the stops we were most looking forward to, like Black Sand Beach and Oheo Gulch after Hana, and still made it off the windy road before sunset. Below were our favorite non-food related stops along the Road to Hana!

• Keanae Lookout - this was just a bit further from Aunt Sandy’s and is a stunning little point on the water with crashing waves.

• Upper Waikani Falls - we did not listen to TLC here and chased allll the waterfalls.

• Black Sand Beach - this was a unique beach with black sand and little coves to check out. We spent about an hour here to hike around a bit and swim in the ocean and it was beautiful. Keep in mind, this is part of the Waianapanapa State Park and due to Covid restrictions, you have to reserve and pay $25 per car for a time to enter the park, ideally a few days in advance.

• Hana - we ate in Hana but didn’t have too much time to walk around the town. This is however where we went to Red Sand Beach - it’s a bit of a slippery hike down and there are no signs to point you in the right direction, but it is such a beautiful beach. Almost like Zion meets Hawaii.

• Hamoa Beach - just a bit further than Hana, this beach was beautiful - white sand, clear water, perfection. I wish we had had more time here because I would have loved to have a picnic on the beach or swim in the water.

• Wailua Falls - also past Hana, this is a gorgeous 80 ft waterfall right off the road. We went swimming in the waterfall and jumped off the rocks and it was so much fun.

• ‘Ohe’o Gulch - we went a bit outside from what most tourists do and spent most of our time at the stops beyond Hana, including the Seven Sacred Pools. A quick hike down, it was a beautiful combo of nature hits ocean.

Stay

One of the best choices we made was staying at the Hyatt in Kaanapali - we saw a lot of hotels on the beach stretch and by far loved ours the most. The pools were great, it was super close to Lahaina, and was walking distance from the restaurants in Kaanapali. I think if we had stayed longer than 5 days we maybe would have considered more of an apartment style stay, but this worked well for what we wanted to do. We only rented a car for the Road to Hana and the volcano, and just ubered outside of that. It probably would have been nice to have a car, but the daily cost of a rental was much higher than our Uber costs.

Hope that was helpful! If you have any questions at all or are planning a trip to Maui, reach out to me on Instagram @rockinmeals I’d love to chat about it and relive my memories through you!