GO NAVY! I rolled out of bed this morning at 6:57 and headed downstairs to turn on the Army-Navy Game. I got downstairs to find ES already had the TV on and was flipping through the channels looking for the game. YS had no interest in watching football and went to watch Star Wars in the front room. ES lost interest a little before half time. The boys were making a colossal mess around the house and I gave up on watching Navy kick the CRAP out of Army at the end of the third quarter. That was pretty amazing to see Army fumble the ball at the ONE yard line though. That 98-yard kickoff return (pictured at right) was awesome, too. That happened on the initial kickoff of the 1986 game at the Rose Bowl, too.XBox Rant: I'm a little annoyed with XBox Live at the moment. LW and I have gold accounts to play XBox online with our friends. The gold membership costs like $50 per year. The boys like to play, too, but they don't play enough to make it worth paying the $50 per year. We were so excited when we found out about this new "Silver" membership that was FREE though. With the Silver accounts, we signed the boys up as children under our accounts. It worked great and we had a lot of fun playing online until today. Come to find out, when we signed up for the Silver accounts for the boys, it automatically came with a free-month trial of Gold access. So when that free month trial ended, it reverted back to Silver, and as it turns out, Silver does NOT allow you to play online. WHAT THE HECK?!?!? What's the POINT of having the Silver membership? It let's you have a FRIENDS list... WHY? There's NO POINT in having a FRIENDS list if it won't let you PLAY with your FRIENDS!!! They should offer some sort of a family membership that let's you set up multiple profiles for online play without paying the fifty bucks for each individual. Okay, sorry, I'll get off my soap box now.
A New Restaurant Discovery: Two of my guys were reenlisting tonight at Dave & Busters down at the Ward Center in Honolulu. Not sure how bad the traffic would be, we left early this afternoon and headed toward Honolulu. We figured if there wasn't any traffic, we'd head to the Ala Moana Center and took care of some Christmas shopping. Traffic was a breeze and we made it in plenty of time to get our shopping done, check out the fish in the koi pond in the middle of the mall, and head over to Ward Center a few blocks away.The boys would go nuts if we took them to Dave & Busters. The games all look cool, but they aren't really little-kid games. It's more of an adult arcade. A friend told us about a restaurant called Ryan's in Ward Center (kiddy-corner across the street from Dave & Busters, next door to Brew Moon). So I went to attend the reenlistment ceremony while LW and the boys went and got us a table at Ryan's.
The reenlistment ceremony went well. I thought Dave & Busters was a cool place to have it and spend some of their reenlistment bonus check - certainly better than what I saw some guys do with their SRB checks in Guam (but what happens in Westpac stays in Westpac, right?).
Ryan's was AWESOME. I absolutely loved it! I checked out the menu online before we went out there, and I was very pleased with the prices. We got there and it was a nice place overlooking the Ala Moana park. We had really good service from a nice waitress from Oregon (Aside: Tonight we learned that there's a cooperative agreement between Oregon and Hawaii, and Oregon residents get in-state tuition rates at Univ of Hawaii, and Hawaii residents get the same benefits in Oregon.) The food was just fantastic! Now, mind you, I was really good on my diet all this week. It's a good thing I was though, because I gave into temptation tonight. I started off with a salad...Seared Island Poke Salad with Frizzled OgoOMG, my taste-buds were in Heaven! Something THAT good could NOT have been "good" for my diet. Oh, but then the boys' dinners came with ice cream sundaes, and I made the mistake of looking at the dessert menu. I love coconut, and I have a weakness for creme brulee. When I saw the Haupia Creme Brulee on the menu, I just HAD to try it. It was equally as good as the salad I had for dinner. Now I should go run a few laps around Navy housing...
Soy-garlic marinated Island fish wok-seared with Maui onion and sweet bell peppers. Served atop seasonal greens with our housemade ginger- wasabi aïoli, fried ogo and toasted macadamia nuts.
The boys liked their food, too. They DO have a kids' menu and provided the boys with activity sheets and crayons. ES had the pizza and YS had the chicken strips. For those of you who know YS, this comes as NO surprise to you since that's almost all he ever eats. However (comma), YS's chicken strips came with sweet potato fries, and they were really good! He actually ate them, too!
So, for those of you in Hawaii reading this blog, if you haven't been to Ryan's, I highly recommend it. Great food, great service, nice atmosphere, and all for very reasonable prices (on the food anyway, the drinks were pretty steep). I couldn't believe the place was mostly empty at 6 p.m... on a Saturday night... in a shopping mall... during Christmas shopping season... What gives?
Incidentally, we had previously tried Brew Moon which is next door to Ryan's. I don't recommend Brew Moon. The beer wasn't very good. The food was so-so and not really worth the price you pay for it.
Umm, you also had a beer... go run. ;-) I am still waiting to hear how you can do WW and still have beer...
ReplyDeleteGlad you guys finally got to Ryan's. I've been telling Amy that it was one of our favorite restaurants since you guys arrived on island :-)
ReplyDeleteThe silver membership is good for the Arcade (you can access and download games) and keeping score of your achievements. The friends list would be to compare achievements with your friends. I see why they have it but a family membership would be great too. You should write MS and suggest it.