For the Top Award I like to give it to Yelp Hawaii for giving me the opportunity to attend this…read morespecial event. My +1 and I was seated with local business owners and people who make a difference in Hawaii's food economy, so awesome! As for Battle of the Chefs, Chef James Aptakin took two awards for Display and Presentation with his Kualoa Shrimp and Lobster Tom Yom Soup, while Chef Wade Ueoka took the taste award with his Shinsato Pork dish. I thought the voting was fair and well deserved, delicious, I want more than one, I better not because Dinner is coming soon bites. This event was so well organized, awarding local businesses with their contributions to the local economy supplying good food and desserts which everyone enjoys, while supporting local! Great Great evening with Good Hawaiian Music and wonderful service from the Pomaika'i Ballroom staff made the event a memorial night. Thanks to Yelp Hawaii and Emi H. for a giving me a opportunity to attend this Awesome Event!

We were so thrilled to be selected to attend this event! Thank you Yelp Hawaii and Hawaii Food…read moreManufacturers Association for giving us this opportunity. I give a shout out for the great attention to detail and service that was provided by Dole Cannery's Pomaika'i Ballrooms staff. This event was well-organized and was truly a pleasure to attend. The 2nd Annual TASTE Awards: Battle of the Chefs featured 3 local chefs who have distinguished themselves or have been innovative in the food manufacturing industry. Tonight, Chefs Wade Ueoka (Owner/Chef, MW Restaurant), James Aptakin (Executive Chef, Hilton Waikiki Beach) and Benjie Cabutaje (Sous Chef, Moana Surfrider, Westin Resort & Spa) showcased their signature dishes. Several other locally manufactured alcoholic and non-alcoholic refreshments were served such as MauiWines, Koloa Rum, PacifiKool, Pau Maui Vodka and The Tea Chest's Tropical Teas.. Each chef vied for attendee votes for Best Presentation, Best Taste or Best Display. In the end, when the votes were tallied, Chef Aptakin won BOTH awards for Best Display and Best Presentation for his Kualoa shrimp & Kona lobster coconut trio . Chef Ueoka won the Best Taste award for his Shinsato Pork with Ka'u coffee & Hawaiian macadamias. Did the battle be like Iron Chef America's kitchen stadium? Sort of...It turned out that the battle was an interactive cocktail hour and later, we were treated to a TASTE awards dinner. It was a good thing that we looked at the program as we wove our way through the crowds sampling the goodies. Emcees from Hawaii Krater 96.3 (Gregg & Shawnee Hammer) kept the program rolling along with local humor and provided background information about each of the nominated contestants. In addition, during the awards banquet, we were serenaded by Hawaiian group, Kaiao. We were fortunate to be seated with Award Finalists for Innovate Hawaii's Manufacturer of the Year, HC&S and Maui Brand Sugar brand and Hawaii Popcorn Company and members of a technology human resources company (Aon?). The room was filled with contributors and supporters to the local food scene. Everyone came out as winners...local food industry businesses were honored just to be nominated even if they didn't get the coveted wood poi pounder (pohaku ku'i 'ai). Ah, but, there's always NEXT year! Allez cuisine! #351

What an amazing event! I had a blast with Yelp Elite All Star Buddy Irene M…read more I always wanted to see this event with the local food vendors, entertainment, and Bishop Museum as well! It drizzled a little bit but that did not deter us from enjoying all the great finds, food and entertainment. Loved the Lego exhibition! This was a favorite highlight of this event. I enjoy putting LEGO kits together. Amazing display of flags and so much more here. Please enjoy the pictures. Then I got to experience Dipped by Dee for the first time. Wow, the dipped strawberries are delicious. I picked up a s'mores dipped apple for consumption at a later time. Also delicious and decadent. A bit on the pricey side, but worthy of the occasional treat. And the sushi hand roll I had was so fresh and amazing. I can't remember the name of the vendor. As the sun went down, we enjoyed the great entertainment and cool trade winds blowing through the air. Highly recommend this event! Parking was free with ASB debit card. Nice perk.

Happy. National Girlfriend Day…read more.. It's the first of August and my semi-weekend starts and as I do like events Taste of Honolulu at Bishop Museum was going on tonight along with a bunch of food and retail business sprawled out on the Great Lawn along with entertainment and full use to all exhibits including Aloha Bricks which is what Yelp Elite Jackie K wanted to see and what better way than this. For ASB card holder parking is free along with various discounts at some merchants it's like the entire state coming together to celebrate our amazing local small businesses and we get to show up and enjoy it all. It's all very very well put together along with some games for the kids, beer garden and the massive space Bishop Museum has for all to enjoy. It was a real treat and so much fun as we brought our own chairs to relax and enjoy it all. Whether it's to eat, drink, visit the museum or just chill this is one unique event that really do showcase the Tastte of Honolulu. Thank you!

BEEER LOVERS ASSEMBLE!!! This was the second year in a row that I've gone to the Brewers festival…read moreand I have never been let down. If you love food and most of all beer then this event is a must. When you enter the event, you get treated by smiling faces and get a taster glass. You also get a wrist band with 10 tabs on it that you trade I for beer tasters, the food is all you can eat!!! If you want to try more beer but you ran out of tickets the. You can purchase extra taster tickets for 2$ each but trust me, 10 tasters with all that food is plenty enough. Good tip is to bring your own chair to relax and enjoy the entertainment! Cheers P.s. Buy a beer holding landyard so that it will hold your beer while you stuff your face with super good food!!!

What do you get when you combine 80+ craft beers, 20+ restaurants serving great food, and 2500…read morepeople? The 2015 Honolulu Brewers Festival (Or Brewfest). This event was held on April 18, 2015 in Kaka'ako. $70 got you entrance to the festival, a souvenir tasting glass, 10 samples of craft beers (a lot which you can't find on Oahu), and pupus from local restaurants inspired by the beers. An additional $5 and you got a beer lanyard that allowed you to be hands free while eating. Genius! I think for additional beer samples, it was $2? I can't be 100% sure as I was pretty much done at 10 samples. We got there before it opened, and the line was long. Luckily we didn't have to wait too long, but I know others did. The set up was pretty good. Beer tents on one side, giant open space in the middle, and then food tents on the other side. I liked that it allowed me to grab a beer, and walk on over for some food before rinsing my glass in the large center tent. It was a really sunny day, but luckily there was a nice breeze. However, I think because of the sun everyone decided to stay under the tents, specifically the beer tent. I think that would be my only complaint is that it was difficult to navigate who was in line to grab beer and who was just talking story and mingling. I managed to find my way to the beers I wanted to try, but sadly some of the beers ran out by 4:00pm. Major sad face! The servers/volunteers were all really nice, but some of them had trouble pouring the sample beers which was sad when I saw beer being wasted. Save the beer! :) I really appreciated the variety of beers that were brought in. A lot of the beers tied to the MauiStone brewing collaboration (please bring these beers to Oahu) as well as some other craft breweries I haven't heard of. I think out of my 10 samples, I only disliked one beer as I found it bland and not much to it. Favorite beers likely went to Modern Times Fortunate Islands and the Stone Brewing Cali-Belgique IPA. Again, please bring the MauiStone brewing collaboration here to Oahu! We love our craft beers here too! The entertainment was great and the bands really made the event all the more enjoyable. Overall, it was a great event and I can't wait till next year! Maybe we'll be lucky and they can bring Dogfish Head beer to the event! :) Overall, a solid 4.5 stars! #24 of 100 2015

This event was good but too few food trucks for the amount of people. I think that in the future…read morethis will be a promising event. Free parking at restaurant row!

The Prince Kūhiō Festival, which includes several cultural events and a Commemorative Parade, is…read moresponsored by the Hawaii Tourism Authority and Kamehameha Schools. Annually, this festival occurs to celebrate the birthday and legacy of Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaole who was also known as "The Citizen Prince". Just who was Prince Kūhiō and why do the people of Hawaii honor him? "Prince Kūhiō was a prince of the reigning House of Kalākaua when the government of Queen Lili'uokalani was illegally overthrown in 1893. He later went on to become a politician in the Territory of Hawai'i as delegate to the United States Congress. Prince Kūhiō founded the first Hawaiian Civic Club on December 6, 1918 and led the passage of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1921. The people of the State of Hawai'i acknowledge his many contributions and have memorialized the Prince by naming schools, buildings, streets, and beaches after him, and designating his birthday as a state holiday. " - see www.princekuhiofestival.com The parade started at Saratoga Road and Kalākaua Avenue and continued down Kalākaua Avenue. Unfortunately, it was drizzling and then the rain really came down so we left early. We walked back to our parked car near Kapiolani Park. We knew that there were more planned events at the Kapiolani Park Bandstand that featured local hula hālau, live entertainment, Native Hawaiian arts, crafts and exhibits. Uh, sorry to say that I'm a fair weather consumer so we just "buzzed" in and considered purchasing a Hawaiian plate lunch from one of the local food stalls. However, many of the vendors weren't quite set up and everyone else was scrambling around to keep their merchandise or artwork protected from the rain. Still, in spite of the ugly weather, there were many who came out to enjoy the festivities and to honor Prince Kūhiō. Thanks again to the HTA and the Kamehameha Schools for annually sponsoring this festival. We'll certainly return for this event next year.

The first Hawaii Greenroom Festival "Save the Beach, Save the Ocean" is a transplant from Japan, a…read morepositive, family friendly, Japanese friendly event with live music, food stands, and art vendors. Spend the afternoon with the grass between your toes, eat some local grindz, sip a cold one, and enjoy the eclectic line up of music from local performers/local ties Jake Shimabukuro, Shen Brown of Def Tech, Donavon Frankenreiter, and Mokka Rothman, with their special guests. With the warm setting sun and cool breeze, this is a relaxing and fun Sunday afternoon.

Thank you to Yelp for sharing this great festival with me!…read more First annual Greenroom festival in Honolulu, Hawaii. This festival has been going in Japan for a decade and the owners of the Greenroom decided to bring it to Hawaii. This is a surf themed music, art, and lifestyle festival which has Jake Shimabukuro, Def Tech, Makua Rothman, Donovan Frankenreiter, and Lotus. Located at the Waikiki shell on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. Has food vendors, artists, surf related boutiques, and local nonprofits such as Surfrider and Sustainable Coastlines. We brought out beach towels and sprawled out on the lawn above the seating area. Vibe was really mellow and relaxing. Was nice to have beer concessions because the trades were very light. Beers were Kona Brewing Company Longboard and Big Wave plus Bud Light for $7/$6. A couple of food vendors but wish there were more food trucks. My fiancé and I split a Ramen Teriyaki burger with mushrooms, cheese, and grilled onions. It was saucy but went really good with our Big Wave beers. I also bought a TSSC x Greenroom T-shirt. It was pretty pricey but it's a nice quality T-shirt (not silkscreened). Should've brought sunscreen as there was not much shade in the afternoon and the trades were very light! A good mix of Japanese tourists, but seems to be a lot of locals. There were lots of families which was nice. Enjoyable Sunday afternoon festival with great lineup, mellow vibe. Overall very fun! This reminds me of a smaller Kokua Festival which is put on my Jack Johnson's Kokua Foundation. Well done Greenroom, look forward to next year! Hope there is a better lineup and more interactive, educational booths to educate the many tourists about the importance of Hawaii ocean, keeping it clean, local AG, and sustainability. Suggest allowing people to bring their own Hydroflask or water bottles and having free ice cold water fill ups. Also, suggest running full recycling stations where all waste is separated and recycled with food wastes, cans, etc. Also suggest food vendors be required to serve on non syrofoam containers.

Yelp 365 Challenge x 2 #249/365…read more Dawn of the Dead Dash event, November 9, 2013 (Saturday) Ever since I completed the Spartan Race, there have been other runs popping up in Hawaii, which I've been signing up for because it seemed like a lot of fun OR there were other people sharing about it with the assumption that they would be signing up too. Well, I did the early bird sign up, figuring what's a few 5k's before next year's Spartan Race in March 2014? I don't know what I was thinking because after adding up the runs between August 2013 and March 2014...it is a total of TEN runs. Now, for the avid runners-it's probably not a big thing to you. But, to me? It is because last year I only did a total of THREE. While the years before that was BARELY. Anyhow, Dawn of the Dead Dash. Being that I am a Walking Dead fan and noticing that this was an urban run with no prior information of the course, I thought it was pretty daring and fun especially since the event was at night. The week prior to the event, an email was sent to all participants on the race packet pick-up location (Lulu's in Waikiki). Once we picked up our packets, we were given the instructions that all participants were to meet at the Kapiolani Park bandstand at 7:00 with a 7:15 briefing from the race coordinator. That night, it was raining earlier. As I sat in my car, I didn't see that much people but as 7:00pm drew near, alot more people started coming out. Some were dressed in regular running gear while others were dressed as zombies. At 7:15, we were given glow collars and the instructions that if we were tagged, we had to give up our collars and become part of the zombie communty. Prior to the event, we were encouraged to carry our smart phones because we had to log onto their website and enter a code. This gave us the clearance to run as well as the first checkpoint location, which showed on google maps. Note: In-between checkpoints, zombies were laying in wait for runners, which meant it didn't matter if you were a slow runner or fast runner-you basically had to strategize on how you were going to get from point A to point B. It was hilarious because you could hear yelling and screaming. Thank goodness the Waikiki residents along Kapiolani Park were nice and just watched us run. As we got through to the first checkpoint, there was another code that led us to the 2nd location/checkpoint. There were three checkpoints around Kapiolani Park and Diamond Head. Our final checkpoint afterwards was Lulu's. If you cleared each checkpoint, you could post your success to twitter or facebook. If you died..you entered in the dead code, which says you are infected. The third checkpoint was the most difficult and the funniest. I can't remember the name of that little park up Diamond Head road but as you entered the gate, there were zombies waiting. However, to get to the code (in the middle of the park)-you had to get around them. While I was an individual runner. There were teams that basically looked at one another with the look of, "Who's going to sacrifice themselves for us to get to the number and survive?" It was an interesting night. Oh, did I survive? No...I died at the zombie hands of a little girl because I was trying to run away from her zombie mom. If this event comes to Hawaii next year, sign up because there are limited spots. Suggestion for Dawn of the Dead Dash 2014 in Hawaii 1) If it's urban...make it AROUND Waikiki NOT Kapiolani Park! Start talking with different businesses to let them know that there will be an event. Give the participants a stamp card that we must stamp at each destination points 2) Have more staff distributing the glow collars 3) Make sure that zombies confiscate the glow collars instead of allowing the runners to give it up at the next station 4) Put up a mini "finish" line because there were some that were confused if we had to return to Headquarters even after we died

"The Joy of Sake" - touted to be one of the events of the year, with 300+ sakes available for…read moretasting and delectable morsels of goodness from restaurants around the island, including Chai's Island Bistro, Morimoto's, Hakkei, Lewer's Lounge (?! Yup, you read that right), Gyotaku, Rumfire, Yoshi-ya and even some "out-of-town" guests, like Banzai (Haleiwa) and Marian's Catering (Wahiawa). The event was *packed*! Sake connoisseurs, aficionados and newbies alike all filed into the second floor ballrooms of the Sheraton Waikiki. 6-8 tables scattered across the ballroom and the foyer displayed bottles upon bottles of sake available for tasting. "How does one manage to taste sake with reasonable pours with that many people wandering around for tasting?", you ask. By tube droppers straight out of chemistry lab class. Each fill was probably around a 1/4 to 1/2 ounce, and was probably just enough to get the flavor of the sake, while still allowing you to try as many sakes until you ... well, yopparai ni natta. Junmai, Ginjo, Daiginjo - all of the different grades of sake available, from different prefectures and different regions of Japan - an amazing variety! Some attendees took a scientific approach to tasting, documenting their tastings with notes and/or pictures of the bottles. To be honest, it was really the only way to effectively get much information out of the tasting - after that much sake, how much do you *really* remember? As varied as the sake selection was, so too was the variety of food samples available! I'll hit just the few personal highlights of the event: - Hakkei: my personal fave. Chicken dumpling, with assorted vegetables, immersed in the "famous" Hakkei oden dashi. This was delicious. I couldn't get enough of the dashi. After our first taste, Kyle H. and I were already planning out the next time we could make it to Hakkei for dinner! Delicious, delicious stuff. It's a must try. - Rumfire: Chad Y. and Kyle H. were also in agreement here - the spicy ahi sampler was amazing! (Pic: http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/rOerYe1whpfcIDFWiexf2A?select=8D5MJgRwSPuueb_acdtpNw ) It's a shame that the appetizer would probably cost you ~$15 at Rumfire, though. (Joking ... but not by much.) - The Kahala: the Kahala (formerly known as the hotel that had the word "Mandarin" in it somewhere) had two dishes available - a butterfish dish and a beef medallion with a lotus root chip over a potato with gravy. The butterfish was "ok", and the beef medallion was good - a bit savory, good texture with the lotus root chip. - Yoshi-ya: a new (?) Japanese restaurant located in the front of the Sheraton Waikiki, this booth was popular, with the familiar post-imbibing scent of deep fried tempura. The batter was light and crisp, the shrimp tasted great - was ono! This was another item that had us talking about the next time we'd be going to dinner! Reality hit when we passed by the menu on the way out and noticed that the shrimp tempura was about $4/pc. Positives: .... are you kidding me? 300+ SAKES AVAILABLE FOR TASTING, 15+ RESTAURANTS SERVING FOOD. Try *not* finding a positive there! Drawbacks: Unfortunately, it's only during this 2 1/2 hour alcoholic trek through the country of Japan that this spread is available. Leaving the event was bittersweet - as though saying goodbye to a friend you won't see for a while and who you've only been able to spend a few blurry hours with. Props to Emily & Thomas for tirelessly running the Yelp area and bringing in people to take pictures under the Yelp banner (and if they didn't, to come back in an hour, lol). And big mahalo goes out to Emi - THANK YOU!!! The Joy of Sake 2011 was an impressive event, living up to the hype created. The wide variety of sake was virtually a guarantee that one would walk away with some good memory(ies) of the event, taking away the name of their new obsession. Unfortunately, for this wet-behind-the-ears sake taster, most of them starting tasting the same after a while. (Obviously, your experience will vary here.) Loved the company, loved the food, loved the sake ... I just wish I could remember all of them. Ah, well ... sho ga nai. (Cannot help.) Til next year!

The Joy of Sake was fun!…read more I went there and the Sheraton guest parking lot was almost full I park on the second highest floor! Where there is no roof!!!! I never park that high there before. We went down to the Sheraton hotel and when I saw the crowd I though maybe the event was sold out! When you get to the event they were asking for tickets and helping putting wristbands on people. It is a good thing I asked one of the workers if we can still get tickets for this events. They directed us to one of the table far off to the left side. $80 a person! I know it sounds expensive but it was fun! They had around 300 different bottles of Sake!!!! Prior to this event I have tried around 10 different Sake but now I sample maybe around 200+ types. I really like the different booths with food! All of them had tasty food! Even Hawaiian Airlines was serving food that was great! I wish they had more food booths with a diversity of Japanese food! I am happy that they focused on Japanese types of food! I will definitely go again! Tons of fun!