It’s one thing to go to the beach to catch some waves in Portugal, but it’s an entirely different thing to catch a 90 foot wave successfully, breaking a world record. And that’s just what surfer, Garrett McNamara, did. McNamara broke the world record for the longest wave ever surfed when he caught this 90 foot wave off the coast of Portugal. The largest wave claimed to have been surfed before this one was 80 feet, and there’s no solid documentation to back up that the 80 foot surf actually happened. Although little documentation, other than this video above, has been released regarding McNamara’s feat, as far as I’m concerned, this little video clip above is pretty decent documentation. Watch this video if you’d like to sit in awe for a minute or if you’re simply interested in scoping just how big some of those waves off of Portugal’s coast can get.
An ode to the Hawaiian Plate Lunch
One of the finest meals I’ve ever eaten was on the island of Oahu at a fancy bistro called Chef Mavro. This place is expensive — It’s no problem to spend 100 dollars per person on dinner. But the beautifully sculpted little plates had melt in your mouth sashimi and delicately browned crab rolls in fine rice paper wrappers and, oh, truly, it was a memorable experience.
I can’t think of Chef Mavro’s pricey restaurant without, in the same moment, thinking of a meal I’d had not 24 hours earlier at a bright green diner in funky, hippie-crunchy Honoka’a on Hawaii’s Big Island. At CC Jon”s Snack and Shoppe I spent about 7 dollars on chicken katsu, rice, mac salad, and a huge Styrofoam cup of soda. And there, I fell in love with the plate lunch. For some reason, I mentioned this to our waiter at Chef Mavro. “You went to CCs!” exclaimed the self described Big Island boy. “I’m from Honoka’a, that place is da kine.”
Hawaii has remarkable food. Smack in the middle of the ocean, populated by Native Hawaiians, Europeans (predominantly Portuguese, at first), and people from around the Pacific Rim, it’s a melting pot of culinary cliches — fresh, fusion, Pacific Rim, organic, local…. There’s an abundance of tropical produce and the boats come in daily bearing fresh seafood. Hawaii Regional Cuisine — the combination of locally sourced ingredients combined with the chef’s own sensibilities — seems almost inevitable in a place where good ingredients are readily available.
But my heart and its hardened arteries belong to junkier offerings. Haupia malasadas: essentially, a donut filled with coconut pudding. Chicken long rice: Fried noodles with chicken and a passing acknowledgment to vegetables. Milkshakes from the Roselani counter in the International Marketplace, good lord, the butterfat. And all that takes back seat to the main course, the plate lunch.At its most basic, the plate lunch is two scoops of white rice, a scoop of macaroni salad, thick with mayonnaise, and a serving of meat. Fried, probably, though you can also get two grilled Portuguese sausage patties or a serving of garlic shrimp. Plate lunch typically comes on a flimsy paper or other throwaway plate, or in a Styrofoam container that you can carry across the street to that picnic bench that’s makai — ocean side — from the food truck. It generates a shocking amount of garbage, the containers, the napkins, the plastic forks and knives. The classic plate lunch is unhealthy, environmentally unfriendly, and awesome.
Historically, the plate lunch is attributed to plantation workers combining leftover rice with whatever meat or fish was available. It was the 1880s; sugar and pineapple magnates imported laborers from the Philippines, Portugal, Japan, China… they had to eat. The meal has evolved over time to include a green salad (probably with Thousand Island dressing) or brown rice in a nod towards taking the cholesterol count down a notch. On your plate lunch you can get fried chicken or teriyaki beef or kalua pork or any number of things. Can’t wait for lunch? There’s the breakfast plate lunch, loco moco. White rice, fried eggs, a burger patty, all smothered in gravy. I pass on that and go for either garlic shrimp or my favorite, poke — marinated raw tuna.
It’s easy to fall into metaphors that use the plate lunch as an analogy for life in Hawaii. A combination of cultures, all hanging out together and making something better for their merging. I don’t necessarily buy that happy idea. I think plate lunch is more of a delicious mess than a expression of cultural harmony. And wrapped up in that delicious mess is an experience that is quintessentially Hawaiian islands.
The wind picks up your napkins and hurls them down the beach, you have to run after them. Stuffed on rice, you bring your coffee milkshake the to car and leave it in the cup holder and then, in the mini-fridge in your room. Your fingers are sticky from peeling shrimp so you wash them in the surf and they are sticky from the ocean. You’re wracked with guilt over the staggering amount of mayo in the mac salad, and yet, you eat every last elbow shaped mayo coated piece of pasta. You swear that you will take a long walk to make up for the unbelievable amount of calories you consumed that afternoon, but when you get back to your rented condo or hotel, you are lulled into indolence by the evening light on the beautiful beach boys and girls. Somewhere, a kid who looks like a total bad-ass is playing the ukulele like an angel, the sweet sound of it floats on the breeze. Dinner time is coming and the L&L, Hawaii’s infamous takeout chain is right there.
“Plate lunch,” you think. “I could have that for dinner, right?”
Image: The Even More Legendary Giovanni’s #2 by Permanently Scattered via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Video of the Day – A ride through Lisbon
Can you describe your favorite city in one word? Yellow Bus Tours, a tour guide company in Portugal, recently asked tourists of Lisbon to describe the Portuguese capital in one word.
Set to a montage of beautiful scenes shot in and around the city, the video sets a vibe that certainly makes the city look inviting. Kudos to Yellow Bus Tours for capturing the feel of the city & inviting their guests to help promote Lisbon tourism.
Can you describe Lisbon in one word? Have a link to a video of your favorite city? Share it with us in the comments below. It could be the next Photo/Video of the Day!
Traveler Q & A: Pavia Rosati
Pavia Rosati is the founder of Fathom, a recently debuted travel website. Fathom is smart and beautifully designed. It’s full of exciting short briefs about various destinations across the globe.
Rosati, as you’ll see from her answers below, is an experienced editor and an avid traveler. Her enthusiasm for Fathom’s subject matter is palpable and infectious. We love Fathom and can’t wait to see how it’s going to develop.
Q: Good day, Pavia Rosati, and welcome. How would you describe your occupation?
A: I am the founder and CEO of Fathom, a new travel website. It’s my job to help connect you to places and experiences you didn’t know you were going to love.
Q: Tell us about Fathom.
A: Fathom cuts through the clutter of the online travel space with stories and destination guides that are as practical as they are inspiring. People typically go to a travel website for one of two reasons: They know they’re going to London, and they need to know where to stay and what to do. Or they think, “I have two weeks off…I like nature…Where should I go?” Fathom addresses both needs through two main sections: Guides and Postcards. Guides have quick information about the basics: hotels, sites, restaurants, and itineraries. Postcards are inspiring travel stories organized around the passion points of travel with a “I Travel for the …” theme: I Travel for the Food, I Travel for the Thrill, I Travel for the Kids. We aren’t motivated by what’s expensive or what’s trendy. We’re interested in what’s special and what’s awesome. Sometimes that’s a three-Michelin star lunch at Le Meurice; sometimes it’s a five-euro falafel at L’As du Fallafel.
Q: What are you trying to do with Fathom that hasn’t been done by other travel sites?
A: I wanted to create the one-stop travel website that I could never find. You know how the best travel guide is the email you get from a friend who lives there, detailing what you need to do and know? That’s the spirit that motivates us. I used to spend 80 hours researching dozens of sites to boil my findings down to an essential nugget of information. Fathom aims to deliver that nugget. I don’t want to wade through a list of 200 shops in Buenos Aires; I want 20 that are amazing. I want to know what locals know. I want pre-edited links to the best articles, websites, and online resources. Perhaps most importantly, Fathom recommendations are not driven by a mega travel agency’s vast and impersonal database; our recommendations are personal and special.
Q: How do you anticipate Fathom developing? For example, will the city guides grow in number?
A: Absolutely. It’s a big world, and we want to get everywhere. Postcards are updated continually, and we will launch several new guides every month. Reader feedback will be critical: We’ve had a lot of requests for Amsterdam since launching, so look for that soon. We want more Postcards from Fathom readers, a community we call the travel-proud. This fall, we’ll launch Boutique, with our favorite travel products; Traveler Profiles, based on the popular Fathom Questionnaires; and My Itineraries, so readers can save the places they want to go.
Q: How did your decade at Daily Candy prepare you for this endeavor?
A: First and foremost, it’s where I met my partner, Jeralyn Gerba, Fathom’s editorial director. We had one priority at DailyCandy: We had to delight our readers every day. To achieve this, we had to be trustworthy, we had to recommend quality places, and we had to deliver information readers wanted in a way they wanted it. And it helped if we had a great time doing it. These are excellent editorial priorities. By the way, before DailyCandy, I spent four years running the Entertainment Channel at AOL. That taught me a thing or two about building and serving a big audience.Q: Enough shop talk. When you’re not traveling, you split your time between New York and London. Care to share a secret hometown place or activity in either metropolis?
A: My life tends to revolve around what’s in front of me at the dinner table. In New York City, the bar at Tocqueville feels like a hidden escape, and breakfast at Balthazar feels like homeroom. At the end of the day, I always want to eat everything on the menu at L’Artusi. In London, I love Del Parc in Tufnell Park (of all places!), where two men cook and serve delicious Spanish/North African small plates from a closet-sized kitchen in the middle of the tiny dining room. And I love Moro, but who doesn’t?
Q: What are your favorite places to travel?
A: Sometimes I travel to feel familiar in a foreign setting. I could spend every weekend at Lo Scoglio on the Amalfi Coast and never tire of it. Similarly, I lived in Paris in college, and going back is like visiting an old friend. Other times, I travel for the difference and the discovery. Recent revelations include desolate and dramatic Salta, in northwest Argentina, and Sri Lanka, where I spent an incredible day on Taprobane Island. I loved Syria, and I hope it can recover from its political tumult and be the great country it should be.
Q: Where are you planning to travel next? And where are you dying to go?
A: Oh, the never-ending list. The wish list for the next few months includes Lake Austin Spa, Bighorn Revelstoke, Cartagena, and Portugal’s Douro Valley. I was married last year and am hoping for an eventual honeymoon in Chile. It’s my great embarrassment that I’ve never been to Southeast Asia — Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. Zambia. Shanghai and Hong Kong. I’m obsessed with the Canadian Maritime Provinces. And in case my husband reads this, yes, honey, I’m dying to go to Tokyo, too.
Q: Where do you have no interest in ever visiting?
A: Cuba. I think I missed it. Though if an opportunity presented itself, of course I’d go. I’m curious about everything.
Q: Give us a travel tip or secret. Or five.
A: 1. Never eat airplane food. 2. You won’t use 50 percent of the stuff you’re packing, so leave it at home. 3. Find a local market to get a real flavor for a place. 4. It’s easier to go away than you think it is. And it’s always worth it. 5. I watch the sunrise on the last morning of every trip I take. I’m not suggesting that you do this; I am suggesting that you invent a travel ritual that you can share with yourself everywhere you go.
Q: What’s next for Pavia Rosati?
A: More sunrises in new places, and sharing them on Fathom.
Did you enjoy this Q&A? Check out previous Gadling Q&As with travelers like Jodi Ettenberg, Zora O’Neill, and Philippe Sibelly.
[Image: Jimmy Gilroy]
Drink your way to Portugal with this new contest
If we weren’t traveling and writing about it for a living, we think it would be pretty cool to be a spirits writer. I mean, we get paid to travel and they get paid to drink.
Now, you can put your amateur mixologist skills to the test with Sandeman Port’s newest contest, where the winner will snag a five night trip for two to Oporto, Portugal.
To enter, create an original drink with Sandeman Founder’s Reserve Port ($16-$18 per bottle). Photograph your drink and e-mail it to The Don (that’s Dailo Calado, an acclaimed Portugese mixologist and cocktail expert). The company and Calado will judge your drink of choice on taste, creativity, and originality.
The grand prize includes airfare, hotel accommodations, breakfast and dinner daily, a tour of the Sandeman Port Wine Museum, two city tours and oh-so-important travel insurance.
Like most contests these days, you can enter on Facebook between now and June 15.
Psst – if you prefer wine, we’ve got another trip contest idea from a wine company that can take you to New Zealand.
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Flickr via flydime]