Big Island Trip Part 7 - Sushi and manta rays

July 21, 2012

So Romi finished her chocolate class and we met up to go to dinner at Kenichi. This was recommended as REALLY good sushi and I have to say I agree. It was happy hour and drinks and sushi were half off. Romi and I just shared everything so we could both try lots of different dishes.

 This was kona sea salt roasted edamame. Roasting the pods and crusting them with sea salt just made them utterly delicious!

Here is the sushi menu link. This is the "Kenichi special roll" on the left with tuna, snow crab, cucumber, avocado inside and smelt roe outside. The one on the right is an "Austin roll" with tempura asparagus, edamame paper (which I like a LOT better than nori), smelt aoili and teriyaki sauce.

 The left is an "Eel roll" with eel, cucumber, avocado, teriyaki and sesame seeds. The one on the right was my favorite of all, the "Super kakiage roll" with crispy mixed vegetable tempura, spicy tuna, hot aoili, edamame paper and teriyaki sauce. YUM YUM YUM.

 Dessert was a tempura fried pound cake with tempura fried vanilla bean ice cream and a raspberry coulis and chocolate drizzle. YUM. Super YUM.

After we ate ourselves silly we headed back to the resort. Romi had several adult beverages so I drove. Once we got back we hurried out to the ocean so we could see the manta rays. We paused to take some photos of us with the sun setting behind us.

Every evening they shine big lights onto the surface of the ocean behind the resort hotel. The plankton int he ocean head up towards the light then the manta rays skim along the surface of the ocean to eat the plankton. They are amazing. We saw them Friday and Saturday nights we were there. It was utterly fabulous. Manta rays are harmless, unlike stingrays. I was hoping to go snorkeling with them but I wasn't able to arrange that activity. I wasn't able to get photos or video but Romi did so I have asked her to send them to me. Once I get those I will post more. For now, here are some from YouTube.

The manta ray viewing is an amazing part of the experience in Kona. The Sheraton has a nightly manta ray talk and a viewing area where you can see them from land. They even have a web cam set up.

After watching these amazing manta rays we went and changed into swimsuits and went tot he bar. I got an adult beverage and we took it to the pool. We swam in the beautiful pool then made our way tot he hot tub and relaxed there while I drank my beverage. We were getting tired so we eventually called it a night. After showers we collapsed on the freaking awesome wonderful fantastic beds that the Sheraton has and slept. Here are some views of the pool.

Still more to come, Sunday we went snorkeling, shopping and to some REALLY neat places before catching the plane back to Oahu. To be continued...

Aloha!
~Melissa