Sunday, July 27, 2008

Breakfast at The Hau Tree Lanai

There are few restaurants on O`ahu that I just have to visit when I come home. Time takes it's toll on businesses and the list of places that used to be becomes longer than the list of those that still are. But the ones that remain become that much more precious.

A bite of a Kua `aina Ortega Burger can transport me back in time and space. I'm sitting at Sunset Beach watching Dane Kealoha in the Duke Kahanamoku surf classic. A bite of fries and Michael Ho is getting spit out of huge barrel with a cast on his arm at the Pipe Masters.

Lunch at Keo's triggers memories of the old restaurant on Kapahulu. Meals spent with Gerry and Lori Ackerman in a time and place long gone. Yet those dinner conversations still reverberate in my head, summoned by an Evil Jungle Prince.

The Hau Tree Lanai still sits on that dwindling list. The prices have crept upward and the linen napkins have been replaced by paper; but the old lady can still conjure the ghosts. Swells long past arise again at Old Man's, waves are reridden, for a brief time I am a twenty-five year-old surfer again.

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