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Food & Drink
Moana Bakery & Cafe
A great place, even if they don't have apple strudel
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December 08, 2005
Usually we hold Maui Time Weekly editorial meetings at the Maui Time Weekly World Headquarters. They're basically informal affairs, where we talk about what we did the previous night, what we're doing the upcoming weekend and other stuff like that. Anyway, for reasons that are still a little hazy to me, we decided to hold last week's meeting away from the office. Far away from the office, actually: Moana Bakery & Cafe in Paia.
For those of you who've never heard of Moana Cafe, it's a quaint little place on Baldwin, which I know doesn't tell you very much because everything in Paia is on Baldwin except for Livewire Cafe, that new pizza place and that secret nude beach.
It's a simple layout: walking in, you see tables and booths on the right, a combination bakery counter and full bar on the left. Scanning the menu, I decided on the Roasted Vegetable sandwich.
"You're such a closeted vegan," said Sam.
"I am not," I said.
"Yes you are," she said.
"I had pepperoni pizza for dinner last night!" I said.
"Yeah, but you're going vegetarian," she said. "You write about it all the time. You cover all the vegan lectures…"
"I don't cover all the lectures," I said, realizing my protests were getting weaker.
"You cover most of them," she said.
I was there for lunch, not rigorous introspection, and I dropped the matter. But I still ordered the Roasted Vegetable sandwich.
It wasn't what I expected at all. Served open-faced on two squares of fluffy focaccia bread, each half was piled a couple inches high with roasted vegetables. One slice supported a tangle of sprouts, some squash and a few avocado wedges, while the other held more squash, onions and tomatoes.
If placed together, they would have constructed a sandwich well over three inches tall, so I gamely knife and forked it. Like most of the sandwiches, it also came with a small side salad and some delicious potato chunks.
Jen ordered Lamb Wahi wrap, which is just a wrap with lots of tender chunks of lamb and some vegetables thrown in.
"Would you call it lambtastic?" I asked her after the meal.
"Yes, I would call it lambtastic!" she said. "It had sprouts, too, and I hate sprouts. But I ate it all."
I suspect—but naturally can't prove—that Sam spent extra time grilling me because she couldn't decide what to order. Eventually she asked our server about the Seared Ahi wrap.
"That's my favorite thing in the menu," said our server. "If you don't like it, I'll eat it and you can order something else."
"I'll go with that, then," Sam said, smiling. As things turned out, our server was profoundly disappointed.
"This is the best thing ever," Sam said, digging into the wrap of greens and ahi. She then proceeded to eat it all—not voraciously like the way I consumed my meal, but more ladylike.
On our way out, we passed by the bakery. Sam looked over the many pastries, then sighed.
"They only have cherry strudel," she said.
"What?" asked Jen. "No apple?!"
It was a hell of a way to end a meeting. MTW
Tags: Moana Bakery & Cafe
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