WAILUA — Sandy Poehnelt of The Right Slice had Menehune chicken Sunday during the 25th anniversary of The Taste of Hawaii. “I’ve been coming to The Taste of Hawaii for the past four years and we’ve never had anything savory,”
WAILUA — Sandy Poehnelt of The Right Slice had Menehune chicken Sunday during the 25th anniversary of The Taste of Hawaii.
“I’ve been coming to The Taste of Hawaii for the past four years and we’ve never had anything savory,” Poehnelt said. “This year, I’ve got the Menehune chicken (Classic Chicken Pot Pie) and Butter Mochi in the Pie Bites.”
More than a thousand people flowed through the gates of Smith’s Tropical Paradise when the Rotary Club of Kapaa gave the signal at 11:30 a.m., many heading to specific sections of the tropical garden, eager to graze through offerings of vendors.
Robin Horn, accompanied by Eileen Winters of the Rotary Club of Kauai, was enjoying her first Taste of Hawaii while Winters has been to all 25 Tastes, starting when the event was held in the parking lot of the Coco Palms Resort.
“There were only about 60 of us and a handful of chefs, back then,” Winters said. “It’s amazing how it’s grown over the years.”
Sunday’s event saw more than three dozen vendor stations offer up a variety of seafood, meat, poultry, vegetarian and desserts with 19 vendors ready with beverages to help clear the palette while patrons basked in the music and entertainment from 14 groups performing in five areas.
“I’ve been coming for 18 years,” said Alan Okuda of the Hawaii Community College culinary arts department on the Big Island. “We’ve seen it move and grow. I remember working with Clarence Nishi, Mark Oyama and their people from the Kauai Community College.”
Okuda was joined by Sandra Dubczak who graduated from the Hawaii CC culinary program.
“I’ve been here for 16 years with chef,” Dubczak said. “I would’ve come for 18 years, but there were those two years where I stayed home.”
To accomodate the hundreds of appetites and scores of platters, utensils and dining accessories, Susan Kashiwabara, sales manager for Jimmy’s Sales, said the event was totally “compostable.”
“Everything is compostable, down to the trash liners,” Kashiwabara said, introducing Ari Patz, owner of Styrophobia, and regional sales manager for World Centric, a California-based organization offer a growing line of compostable products and products made from plants, not petroleum.
The Rotary Club of Kapaa said attendance at the Taste of Hawaii helps the club raise funds to support service projects on Kauai and throughout the world.
“It looks like we’ve got about the same crowd as last year,” said Paula O’Veary Saylor, chair of the 25th Taste of Hawai‘i. “We planned for at least 2,000 people to go through the event.”
Dave Power of The Feral Pig got help from his Honolulu friends, Mark Noguchi and Chris Sys, in creating fresh bread baked in a improvised brick-oven fired by kiawe wood, the aroma blanketing the expanse of the tropical gardens.
Steve Davis of Kauai Coffee said this is the first time they’ve participated at the Taste of Hawaii after being absent for about five years.
“We just missed the deadline for the 2012 Taste when I started with Kauai Coffee,” said Davis, who was looking over the voting. “This year, we knew we wanted to be part of this event. It’s just another way of giving back.”
