Joyce B. wrote:
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If you're looking for restaurants there (that's not clear from your interrupted posting), I found that the dining room in the Volcano House, a hotel perched on the rim of of the caldera just across the road from the Visitor Center of the Volcano National Park, has very good food. What we had was properly prepared from fresh ingredients, pretty well presented, surprisingly inexpensive ($55 for two people at dinner, including wine and desserts). The wine list is short, a few by the glass; desserts were not quite as good as the entrees. Service was quite good. The view of the caldera is excellent, but would have been better if there had been a lava flow instead of just venting gas. We ate there on 9/28 this year, and found the food to be substantially better than in the five-star dining room in the Hilton east of Diamond Head on O'ahu, and about a fifth the price.Hawaii
Big Island (Hawii)
If in the vicinity of Volcano, try the Kiluea Lodge instead of Volcano House. It is one of the Big Island's best restaurants. It is also a good place to stay, in which case breakfast is taken care of. I dis-recommend Volcano House. It is often crowded with tours, sometimes so much so that you can't get in the lobby. They haven't figured out how to turn off their fire alarm and just stuff a towel up there. The food is not what it was in my view, especially with Kiluea Lodge nearby. The view _is_ good, but you can see it for free by walking outside the building. There hasn't been any lava since Mark Twain's time. On the Kamuela side of the island is Merrimans - a first class restaurant with a mixture of western, local and Thai influences, excellent service, pleasant, clean, and yes - reserve if you can. Cheerz, -Larry