This is shave ice. Let me translate. This is CRACK.
Kristina gave me her amazing shortlist of favorite places, and Waiola Shave Ice was at the top. "BEST Shave Ice on the planet", she wrote. I got in a cab and pointed to the address, and a few minutes later we arrived...somewhere that I was sure was totally wrong. Shabby little apartment buildings and houses surrounded us. "Uhhhh...." I said to the cab driver. "I think I have the wrong address".
"Shave ice - here" he said. "Best shave ice."
I felt like I was part of a joke, or that thugs were going to come take me away and steal my $20. Was Shave Ice code for dumb tourist?
Suddenly, I saw a corner store. Unassuming little place. Where you might go to buy, I don't know, toilet paper and a 40?
I looked at the cab driver who was saying, "Shave ice, shave ice..." and motioning me to get out. "I'll wait," he said.
I went into the store, and delivered the words like I was a nerd trying out a password to get into an underground rave. "Shave...ice?"
"Window", the girl at the counter said.
I went outside and there was a walk-up window, with a menu on top, looking like it had been written by Care Bears. Aha! I thought. At last.
I ordered a rainbow (2 flavors) of strawberry and mango mixed, with mocchi added to the bottom. It came back in a Dixie cup with a spoon looking an awful lot like a Sno-Cone, one that you made with your crappy plastic Sno-Cone maker at home.
Seriously? I thought to myself. This is it?
I got back into the cab and took a bite. Mmmmmm. Melted in my mouth. Delicious sweetness. So refreshing. Would be so good with vodka. But I digress...
My cab driver nodded knowingly as I ate and fawned over my shave ice. I showed him my list of Kristina-approved restaurants and asked him to take me to one of those, any one. What did I care? I was tripping on Shave Ice, HARD.
He looked over my list (which I had shortlisted from Kristina's short list) and took me to the one place that I hadn't written down. "Green Papaya", he said. "Eat there." I walked in, still cluching my Dixie cup of Shave Ice and spooning the last melted drops into my mouth.
That was it - I went from the best shave ice, to the best pho on the planet. I killed a family-sized bowl of beef pho (Waiter: "what kind of beef do you want" Me: "All of them?" Waiter: "OK") and went home to collapse into a happy food coma.
Now when I say "Shave Ice", I say it the right way. "Shave Ice!" with an anxious, panicked look on my face and spittle forming at the corners of my mouth. "SHAVE ICE"!!
