The episode of No Reservations in Hawaii started with Tony having to get the typical.. or in this case, the untypical Aloha shirt. Tony said he wants to blend. Instead of just picking out a standard Aloha shirt he heads to Baileys Aloha Shirts and meets the owner David Bailey. David gives Tony a history of the shirts and shows him some vintage shirts worn by all types of celebrities. Tony ends up picking out a $3000 vintage design.

With his $3K shirt on, he heads to Puka Dog with his friends Bruno Stemple. Tony and Bruno are shown how the Puka dogs are made, with the bun wrapping all the way around. The fillings are squirted down in the bun and then the dog slides into the bun. Good idea and looks like a great variation from the typical hotdog.

Next stop is Ono Hawaiian Foods with Colin Nishida, owner of Side Street Inn. Colin says Ono is the place for true Hawaiian food. They sample a big variety of traditional Hawaiian dishes including lau lau with pork, poi, kaluha pig, poke and coconut jello.

During the sampling at Ono, Colin explains how all of the local chefs visit his restaurant after hours. Colin and Tony meet up at the Side Street Inn for drinking, food and discussion with all of the local chefs including Alan Wong, local farmers, and staff from the kitchen. A few of the dishes Tony enjoys with his guests are Big Island smoked pork, Ahi Sashimi, Shoyu Limu and Ahi Poke Combo.

Next is some surfing history when Tony spends a day at the North Shore on the island of Oahu. There he meets up with legendary surfers Darrick Doerner and Peter Cole. Darrick takes Tony to some of the most famous surf spots via jet ski, including Pipeline, Waimea and Sunset beaches. Later they meet up with big-wave surfer Peter Cole for a barbecue at his home on Sunset Derik Dormor.

After a meal with the surfers Tony heads to the Uptown Fountain and meets up with local food columnist David Chu for an explanation of the Hawaiian fascination with SPAM. David arranges a sampling of many different SPAM dishes, all of which Tony seems to enjoy.

Next stop is La Mariana Sailing Club where Tony meets up with Lloyd Kandell, tiki expert and member of the Hawaii musical group Don Tiki. Tony and Lloyd sample several drinks including the zombie and the scorpion.

After a cookout with some locals, Tony heads to Mt Kilauea to check out the volcano and lava flows, along with a local that still lives there running a bed and breakfast right in the middle of it all.

Tony’s last stop is right where he said he didn’t want to be. In the middle of the typical tourist type of laua. The Paradise Cove Luau is a traditional Hawaiian luau with entertainment, a giant buffet, hula dancers and all types of umbrella drinks. Tony didn’t think he would enjoy it, but after he has a few drinks he really gets into it.

Anthony’s first stop for food was breakfast at a Bangkok restaurant called Jok Prince. At Jok Prince, Tony eats a classic Bangkok breakfast of jok (rice porridge) with pork offal and eggs, garnished with chilies and hot sauce.

Next was an interview recap with Eric Rivera… Eric was interview back in 2008 when No Reservations was selecting a person to travel with Tony. Eric didn’t win, but he made an impression on Tony. Since Eric wanted to travel to Thailand to fight a well known fighter (Jom Pop), there was no better time than now for Eric to make the trip with Tony.

No Reservations also arrived during the festival of Songkran (Thia, Buddisht New Year) in which the main activity is throwing water at people. Everywhere you go you get water thrown on you, squirted from water guns and buckets soaking you down. It was obvious that Eric and Tony had some fun walking the streets during all of this.

After a bowl of noodles with Tony’s tour guide Gong at the train station, they head off on a hot and packed train to catch a boat to the coast. The idea was to take a boat to the mud banks and catch some cockles. It didn’t turn out to be that easy. The cockle farmers/fisherman slide across a board digging out the cockles from the mud. Tony gave it a try, but didn’t have much luck… instead getting stuck in the mud with his cameramen. They were going to head off to cook the cockles in an elevated hut, but the winds got cranked up and they decided to head back.

Tony’s next stop was the Amphawa Floating Market. A floating market on the banks of the Mae Klong River where Tony and Gong sit on steps at water’s edge and eat yam ruam mit (spicy mixed salad) and fried shrimp cake.

After the visit to Amphawa Tony heads back to Bangkok to have a meal with local celebrity chef McDang. They visit Tang Jai Yoo in Bangkok’s Chinatown to eat Chinese-style roast suckling pig.

Next it’s fight time. Before the fight though it’s tradition for everyone to have some food from all the local vendors who pull up carts next to the stadium. Tony and Eric go to Likit Gai Yang next to the stadium for a meal of gai yang, a very popular Isan-style grilled chicken dish and green papaya salad. Eric goes on to explain that his size doesn’t matter in muai thai fighting. It’s all about experience.. and the guy he’s going up against is good.

After the fight both fighters sit down with Tony for a meal and discuss how Eric and the Thia fighter Jom met through Facebook. Even though they fought each other it’s all good in the end. Friends before and friends after.

What’s most interesting about an episode like this one is you get to really see what traditional international cuisine is suppose to look like. Every time something American gets thrown into the mix, the traditionalism of the food gets diluted.
A few examples that are very apparent (watch these sections of the show in the videos below… approx time in the video noted).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gODVOORvTyU

(Beginning of video above) -- When Tony visits the Hindu Temple Society and gets to enjoy their food you get a true understanding of how great Indian food can be. None of the American twists on Indian food. Just true vegetarian Indian food. And wow did it look good.

(~ 03:20 above) Tony’s visit to Sik Gaek Restaurant was also interesting. Very clear who visits this restaurant; Koreans. And his guest David Chang even mentions, this restaurant doesn’t want “white people”. But if you like seafood, cooked in a traditional Korean way, this place would be for you. None of it looks that fascinating to me… and I’m not a big fan of watching your food die right before your eyes (Tony & David eat an octopus, ~ 07:00), but I can see how the locals would love it.

(Beginning of video below) Another example is the Tortilleria Mexicana Los Hermanos. Real Mexican food, period. None of the “Tex-Mex” plates served at most American Mexican Restaurants. I wish this place was down the street from me.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PggvAmIgA4E

The last restaurant I found very interesting was the “Diner” restaurant. All locally sourced, seasonal, sustainable food is served here. More and more restaurants are finding the value in doing it this way. I think more and more this will hopefully become the norm and not the exception.

Starting with the local cattle ranchers he gets a first hand look at the day to day operations of life on a cattle ranch. Then he’s off to see some of the locals including painter Russel Chatham and writer Jim Harrison. Tony and Dan Lahren sat down at Pinky’s Pasties for a meat pie pastry that looked awesome. Meat, potatoes, onions, spices all wrapped up in a pastry shell and the covered with gravy. You can see why this was once a staple of local miners. Not only good tasting, but gave you the energy you needed to make it through the day.

The next food stop was at the 2nd Street Bistro where Anthony, Jim Harrison, and Russel Chatham had fantastic looking plates of food brought to them by owner and chef Brian Menges. Brian does his best to source everything locally and you can tell he’s passionate about it.

Check out Tony’s complete Montana travel guide.