We were starving by the time we arrived in Lanai after the ferry trip across the channel and the subsequent drive up the mountain. (Oh, yeah, they don’t sell food on the ferry.) Being so hungry just made the surprisingly good food at the Blue Ginger taste even better.
Once in the Jeep, I had headed directly over to the Lanai Hotel where I’d eaten before and been pleased but soon discovered it was only opened for dinner. Between the only other two choices offered in the town and therefore on the entire island, we decided the Blue Ginger with it’s blue painted clapboard and cute little gingerbread sign was a better choice of the two. We still weren’t expecting much. I mean, competition here is not exactly keen.
Upon entering the establishment we were instantly encouraged by the enticing looks of the huge baking sheets filled with pastries that were lain across the glass counters below the menus and across from the little antique (or just old?) cash register. A glance around and we found tropical printed oilcloth table coverings, yellow painted furniture and clean floors. Another pleasant surprise.
The menu was written in dry marker on a board hanging behind the fellow who had appeared suddenly to take our order. After explaining that we’d missed breakfast and that he had left his baking in the back to take over for the order taker who had obviously gone for a break during this service time lull, we settled on a fried egg sandwich for the breakfast seeker. Now, could you put the eggs separate from the bread in a sort of a Jack Nickelson solution to the issue, we asked? The man was not amused. Fried egg sandwich it was.
As I watched the steaming platters of meats, rice and macaroni salad parading out from the kitchen and being served up to what appeared to be every local in town, I was wishing I’d noticed the selection of plate lunches, a Hawaiian island specialty, before I instinctively ordered the hamburger and fries. When my food arrived, my regrets were abandoned as I bit into a hand-formed juicy real meat patty couched between the warmest, freshest baked yeast roll I’ve yet to find cradling a hamburger. The addition of the special sauce (we think it was some sort of mayo-mustard-pickle-ketchup combo) and melted cheese and I was satisfied once again with my choice.
The fried egg sandwich was similarly bedecked with shredded lettuce and special sauce and was snuggled between thick slices of freshly baked bread which this typically picky eater demolished within minutes. Then the egg-sandwich guy washed it all down with a chocolate shake. I had to sample this one solely for journalistic reasons. I proclaimed it terrific.
We all agreed that if you can only have two restaurants on an island, it's good that Blue Ginger is one of them.