Day Trip to Waimea Bay Beach Park

Since I moved back to Oahu in November of 2005 I have been in search of the best Mexican Restaurant on the island. I have been in the army over 20 years now but before I committed my life to Uncle Sam I had worked in a Mexican Restaurant in Oklahoma...therefore I have some preconceived notions of what Mexican food should be like. I like chunky homemade salsa and I like guacamole made from fresh ingredients. I like home made tortilla chips and I like my Mexican rice to be on the fluffy rather than slimy side. I like having the choice of re-fried or black beans and I like Dos Equis on tap. I also like a good margarita on the rocks.

Rosie's Cantina in Haleiwa is excellent. They fulfilled all of my Mexican food needs except the Dos Equis on tap. They did have Dos Equis and several other imported bottled beers. Since they didn't have my beer on tap I decided to try a margarita and I wasn't disappointed.

On my first visit, my son and I had just finished up swimming at Waimea Bay and we were hungry and thirsty and had heard of Rosie's and wanted to try it. We both ordered the fish tacos dinner. The tacos are made with batter fried mahimahi and served on soft corn tortillas and came with rice and choice of black or re-fried beans. They were excellent.

On my second visit, my wife Brenda and I went up for lunch. I had the tamale dinner and she tried the chicken chimi changa. Again...excellent...however, this time, we started out with an order of the deep fried avacodos. WOW! I had never had anything quite like that. We filled up on those and chips and salsa and ended up carry most of our lunch home in a box...as a matter of fact...we just ate the leftovers for lunch. Yum!

Rosie's menu was full of most things you expect to find in an authentic Mexican Restaurant....tacos,tamales, carnitas, chile verde, burritos, fried ice cream...The prices were average...about what I have found at other Mexican places on the island.

When we lived here the first time from 1992 to 1995, one of Matt's favorite places to go swimming was Waimea Bay in the summer time. During the summer months there is little to no surf at Waimea. Matt liked to jump off the big rock. Of course there are signs posted all around this rock saying that jumping off the rock could result in severe injury or death but they don't seem to have much affect on the local population. On this particular day it was just Matt and I that drove up to the North Shore. We arrived shortly before 8 in the morning and because it was a Tuesday, there were actually parking spaces available in the parking lot. If you attempt this trip on a weekend, you will have to park along the road somewhere and walk in. Not fun. Even parking in the parking lot has drawbacks.

The beach at Waimea is huge. It extends almost 100 yds from the water and the sand is deep. It is a somewhat difficult feat dragging a cooler and carry all of your swim/snorkel gear down to the water. Once you get down there you will find it well worth the effort. There is lots of reef to snorkel around and check out all the different kinds of aquatic life. Then, of course, there is the big rock if jumping from heights is your thing.