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| Ukulele Site |
As a child I heavily disliked the one-hour-plus trip to Oahu’s North Shore (it would be about 30 years before electronic distractions for children would become commonplace). I tried reading, which gave me a headache, and I could never fall asleep in the car like my Mainland cousins.
60 years later the drive was unpleasant, albeit for different reasons.
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| North Shore Goodies |
The road from Haleiwa to Kahuku was still a nerve-wracking single-lane in each direction.
Surfers and swimmers didn’t bother looking for crosswalks as they ambled across the street; cars making a left turn waited interminably for an opening, and the numerous potholes and the crews called out to repair them certainly didn’t help.
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| Giovanni's |
We stopped to browse the unique boutiques—the
Ukulele Site had a fine collection of instruments, and
North Shore Goodies made their own Island-themed peanut butter and jellies. Luckily my Hawaii ID card was still good, so I got the
kamaaina discount for some of the purchases.
We sampled shrimp plates from two food trucks,
Big Wave Shrimp and
Giovanni’s.
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| Big Wave |
Numerous locals had told us that Giovanni’s had the best shrimp, but none had actually tasted the dish (much as San Franciscans don’t dine on crab cocktails at Fisherman’s Wharf). One of the Haleiwa store owners had vouched for Big Wave Shrimp, so that afternoon we conducted a taste test. Well, sometimes conventional wisdom is correct; Giovanni’s shrimp was plumper and juicier, though the Big Wave Shrimp was certainly a fine dish with its more intense garlic flavor.
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| From left: Big Wave garlic shrimp, Giovanni's lemon-butter shrimp, Giovanni's shrimp scampi. |
Is the shrimp truck experience worth the trip to Haleiwa? Maybe once, but unless I’m playing tour guide I wouldn’t go up there again, and certainly not on a weekend.
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