Trip Report: Oahu day 1: The Alley Restaurant, Dragon Tea, & Sweet Home Cafe

We went to Hawaii to celebrate our anniversary. Normally I would have an extensive list of things do, dining reservations, shows, etc.. but this time we went with no prior obligations.

I'm liking the new planes that Hawaiian Airlines got. They have tablets and phone holders.

Complimentary breakfast.



Landed got our rental car. Our room wasn't ready yet, so we headed out for some food.

Looked online and settled for The Alley Restaurant at Aiea Bowl

The restaurant was featured on Diners, Drive-ins & Dives.


Pan-Seared Furikake Ahi & Short ribs. This was delicious.

Ox Tail Soup. Which was featured on Triple D. It was good and tender, but I've had just as good Ox-tail back at home. So it was nothing too surprising.

Our server recommended the pumpkin pie which had a chocolate chip cookie crust. This was really good.

After our meal, we thought we'd check out the Mini Mall below... don't bother there's not much in there.

Time to head to the hotel to check into our room.



We were staying at the Aqua Pacific Monarch. Which was next door to the hotel we stayed at a year ago which was the Aqua Bamboo.




Our hotel was connected to Musubi Cafe which I had last year and was great. So I'm definitely going to grab some later on our trip.


Across the street from the hotel was Dragon Tea.





Nearby was also a few food trucks.


We grabbed our drinks and headed to the beach to watch the sunset.






After it got dark we headed back to the hotel to check out the rooftop pool and to watch the fireworks.




The fireworks are shot every Friday from the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

For dinner, we had Sweet Home Cafe. Taiwanese Hot Pot. I'm not a big fan of hot pot. Usually, there's a long wait, but when we got there, there was hardly anyone there.


You order your soup base. You can even split the pot into two different soups if you like. You order your sliced meat.

and they have a fridge full of other stuff that you get yourself and they charge you by colored plate.

I mainly wanted to go here for the dessert that comes with the meal. It's delicious. The coffee pudding is my favorite part. This one consisted of coffee pudding, soy pudding, strawberry tapioca, pearls, shaved ice, brown sugar syrup, and some other stuff which I can't remember.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel called it a night.

That ends day 1. Tomorrow we head to the Farmer Market.