>I was in Waikiki in late January, sent you an e-mail... either you didn't want to meet a curmudgeon or a spam filter knocked out the e-mail along the way. ;) FWIW I hadn't been back since the Ilikai was the Hawaii-50 hotel and *the* place to stay. Thing are a bit different now! The Pink Palace is still there though it has a monstrous Sheraton looming over it and there are tourist hotels and apartments extending blocks back from the beach.
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>>>That's one of the things I sure miss over here...real BBQ
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>We thought the food was great- I take your point about BBQ but the fish is as good as you'll see anywhere. Also we noticed that there seems to be an ABC store on every corner but not so many supermarkets- though we did locate the big Food Pantry and Safeway. We also spent time across the other side at Kailua which is less crowded and really very nice.
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>Interesting part of the world you choose to live in! Next week I expect to be in another interesting location that will be overrun with tens of thousands of healthcare executives- almost as many as there are grockles on Waikiki beach. ;-)

I stayed at the Pink Palace on my honeymoon. What a place. If the Sheraton is white, it was there even then (1989). It didn't detract a bit from the Pink Palace. At the time I was traveling a lot and used some of my frequent flyer miles (this was back when you could actually use frequent flyer miles) to upgrade to a posh suite overlooking the beach and the ocean. Now that's honeymooning.

You are so right about the fish. We stayed on Waikiki for 3 days of the 10 day trip, on the way in and the way out. We had fish for dinner all 3 of those nights and you're right, it was out of this world. Yum.

Over here there has been a lot of publicity about mislabeled fish. There is an organization that buys fish or orders it in restaurants, then analyzes it to see what it really is. The basic game, as you might imagine, is to pass off cheaper fish as more expensive fish. The worst offender is red snapper. When the group was here last year they ordered or bought it at 9 places. Only one of them was actually red snapper. There were similar findings on the east and west coasts, so this isn't a Chicago corruption thing.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-02-21/news/ct-met-phony-fish-20130221_1_seafood-fraud-fish-fraud-grouper-samples