Tidbits

On one of our daytrips, we stopped at an exotic fruit stand and picked up a few fruits to try.  We brought them back to the condo and tried them the next night for dinner.  I thought I would share with you our impressions of them.  Unfortunately, I can't remember all of the names but I do remember their taste.

Dragonfruit (I've seen this is at our SaveMart)

Scoops out just like an avocado. A little bland (with the color being so vivid, I was expecting big sweet flavor) but very juicy.

This gelatinous mess is something called an "apple??" that tastes like vanilla. From the outside it looked like a big plum but the inside texture was nothing like a plum.  It had 2 big seeds surrounded by this mess.  There wasn't that much meat on the inside but what meat there was tasted somewhat like vanilla.



Above is the meat from the "apple thingie" beside the meat from a mango that our condo owner brought us.



On the left, the mango brought to us from the owner.  On the right, one we got at a farmer's market. The small one was good but the larger one was unbelieveably good-sweet and juicy.

Going clockwise starting at the right: dragonfruit, cashew apple, mountain apple, and snake fruit.

Snake fruit (the outside looks like snake skin) has a thin hard outside layer which you peel to reveal a firm light beige meat with one big seed. Kind of tasted like a "rosy" pear. Pretty good.



Very firm flesh (didn't need to peel this one) but doesn't really taste like an apple that we know.  Kind of bland in taste and not very juicy.



This to me was very intriguing. It feels very soft to the touch and got softer sitting in the fridge. The flesh inside is very soft and smelly (not in a good way). Tim took a bite and spit it out.  I tried it.  The taste isn't that bad - not my favorite but if I were starving, I would it eat it but I would have to pinch my nose so I wouldn't have to smell it.

Now to jump to another subject: landscape. When you fly to this island, you immediately wonder where are you because the landscape (especially around the airport) does not look like what you expect Hawaii to look like.  But it is amazing how you can go from this:

to this:



to this:

All 3 landscapes on the same road within 30 minutes of each other.

This is a beautiful island. Very big (thus the BIG Island-4000sq miles) which means a lot of driving to see things but well worth the time and effort.