Family Means No One Gets Left Behind

As part of half marathon and marathon recovery in Florida, we headed to dinner at ‘Ohana at the Polynesian Resort.  (Who gets the ‘Ohana reference in the post’s title?)

If you’ve never eaten at ‘Ohana, it’s an all-you-can-eat Polynesian-inspired restaurant featuring large spits of meat.  And for a group of people who have collectively just covered 104.8 miles, it seemed like the perfect place for us to go!

We made a reservation for 8:25 pm, but we weren’t seated until close to 9 pm.  It was really frustrating for people who were starving and exhausted (hello 2:00 am wake up!), but I should have expected it because I have NEVER gotten into ‘Ohana at the time my reservation was actually made for.  Fortunately that gave us plenty of time to watch the Wishes fireworks and select our drinks from the drink menu .

When we were seated, we promptly jumped in on the bread (which has an incredible coconut flavor) and ordered some drinks for celebrating!

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Matt ordered the Backscratcher, and it came with a really big one!

Poor Matt does not like artificial coconut or lettuce, so when the bread and salad were the first dishes that arrived and his stomach was growling, he was watching us eat while trying not to eat his own arm off!  But Matt not liking salad meant there was more for me to dig into!  The salad comes in a honey lime vinaigrette that is incredible!!!  I seriously love that dressing and wish I could have it at home!

Sorry for the photo of basically just lettuce on my plate…I forgot to snap a photo before all of the salad left the bowl!

Eventually the appetizers started to arrive!  (And that made me REALLY happy because they’re some of my favorite things on the menu!)  We had a big bucket of honey-coriander chicken wings and pork dumplings with a sweet and sour sauce.

I love the dumplings so much I actually asked for a second round of them!  I crave them and they’re part of why I love going to ‘Ohana even though I’m not a big meat eater.  The chicken wings are also incredible.  They have wonderful flavor and are deliciously juicy.  I was loving loading up on both of these!

Once we finished chowing down on the appetizers, the side dishes for our meal arrived: teriyaki noodles with vegetables and vegetable stir fry.

I actually really love these noodles and went to town on them.  I’ll be honest, I could make a meal at ‘Ohana out of the dumplings, chicken wings, noodles, and dessert.

And then came the meats!

The meats are brought around on large spits and include chicken, pork, steak, and shrimp. The shrimp are by far my favorite, which are a little spicy but have a killer punch of flavor. There’s also a peanut sauce served on the sides that adds a great flavor to the meats.

But really, the best part of this meal arrives after all of this has been cleared away.  Dessert is the most amazing bread pudding a la mode with banana caramel sauce that is to die for!

The caramel sauce is amazing and I wish I could load up on that bread pudding every day.  (Actually, my butt is quite thankful I can’t have this every day or it’d be HUGE.)  But the ice cream, caramel, and bread pudding are such the perfect combination…somehow I am forced to try to find room in my completely stuffed stomach to eat some of this!  So if you’re planning on eating at ‘Ohana, make sure to save some room!

My full tummy left me very sleepy after dinner, and I’m pretty sure I BARELY made it back to our villa before passing out.  But with such a fun weekend to celebrate with family, it was well worth it!

Your Turn:  Are you a bread pudding person?  Would you go for the meat or the sides?  Who is somewhere where I could wear those short sleeves again, because I need to go there (we’ve been getting snow all afternoon)!?!