A unique restaurant in Kawaihae

If you are staying at a hotel on the South Kohala coast or are up that way for dinner, a truly unique place to eat is the Blue Dragon Restaurant and Spa. The restaurant bills itself as Coastal Cuisine and Musiquarium. When they are open for dinner, which is Thursday through Sunday, they feature some of the top musicians on the island and a menu you want to work your way through.

We recently went there with some friends who hadn’t been to the Blue Dragon. We specifically went to enjoy our favorite slack key guitarist, John Keawe, who was playing and being accompanied by hula dancers (his wife Hope and two grandchildren). We have been enjoying the performances of John and Hope for the past 15 years.

As usual, we began the evening by sampling the scotch menu. We all selected the Glenmorangie Nectar d’Or, which is a delightful whisky. It has an excellent nose and a delightful fruity flavor. 

Then the really hard part of the evening began. We had to choose from the menu. The first thing that caught our eye was the Living Salad. The chef grows salad greens in small containers of vermiculite and serves them with a pair of scissors for clipping off the leaves and an excellent dressing for dipping. Accompanying the greens are baby carrots, daikon and cucmelons which are tiny melons with a cucumber taste. We had one container for the table and enjoyed clipping off the greens and dipping them in a Kiawe Honey Dressing. It is a truly unique salad that we had never seen before.

For appetizers Betty had Kohala crayfish which are raised in Kohala and were excellent. I had fried oysters which were equally good. For entrees Betty had lamb chops with a truly outstanding pomegranate-port wine-fig sauce. I had Cajun angel hair pasta with crayfish. We both savored our dishes which were again unique. I keep using that word, but the preparations are unlike anywhere else on the island.

To keep using the unique theme, we had a half mango with mango ice cream sprinkled with li hing mui. If you haven’t had that powder on anything it adds a wonderful flavor to sweet items. It was the perfect end to a delightful meal.

Our server, Nathan and his assistant Makani, were very attentive and knowledgeable about the menu and preparations. We and our friends will definitely be back to work our way through the ever changing menu.