La Mariana: A Great Escape from HNL Airport

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I was set on going to La Mariana Tiki Bar Honolulu from the moment we booked our tickets for a mileage run to Honolulu (HNL).  I didn’t find it on any travel guide, or even Yelp.  I came across it by Google-Mapping the HNL airport to uh, pretend “fly” into the airport.  (I wish I were kidding.  But if this is what convinces you that I’m a dork, you don’t know me well enough :D).

While “flying,” I came across a scattering of sailboats near a clearly labeled restaurant.

I looked it up and the more I read on it, the more I wanted to go.  It is near the airport, not along any major traffic sources, has a great view, and (so I read) makes really great tiki-drinks.

The place was a little hard to find at first.  It didn’t look like there was much out there.

But then we spotted it!

The place really threw us off because, as you saw before, it was hard to find in a desolate area, and then you were walking through this:

We sat, semi-covered outside.  Perhaps the coolest part (to me) was there was a tree growing right around the table.

Since this was our only “real meal” throughout most of our mileage run, I apparently took ordering way too seriously.

Whereas Keri seemed to not realize the enormity of the situation:

We carefully selected our cocktails.  Keri went for a Lava Flow — pina colada swirled with strawberry daquari.  I went for a zombie.  Basically, a high powered Mai Tai.  The Mai Tai on our plane was a bit too sweet for me, so I figured its deadly cousin would be more up my alley.  It was.

I like little touches.  And these looked like tiki bar drinks, so that just made the trip for me.

Oh and they were delicious.  The zombie is definitely dangerous though, so only go for one!

We had a great view of the boats while there.

And then our entrees came.

Keri had the grilled shrimp salad to combat the carb-heavy airplane food.

And I felt obligated to try out the macadamia nut encrusted mahi-mahi.

It was good.  Not amazing, but definitely good.  As in, if I go back, I’d order it again, but I’m not craving going out to HNL just for the food.  Maybe for the zombie though!

The interior of the restaurant was kitschy, in a controlled sort of way.

But the best part of going there?  Watching the sunset over the water.