We had a great week in Maui meeting vendors and doing tastings for our wedding. It is always so hard to leave the island but we felt better knowing we will be back there in less than 6 months!
Aloha Events Catering - this was our first meeting on the island on saturday evening. We went directly from the Airport to the tasting. Michelle was out of town but was extremely helpful via email to coordinate the tasting with Chef Lee. Oh my! The tasting was incredible. Chef Lee had prepared the following menu below for us and everything was delicious...beyond expectations! Being foodies, we absolutely fell in love with Lee, her food and her adorable personality. She answered all of our questions regarding the menu, their service staff and we had an amazing conversation with her as well.
Chef Lee uses lots of local ingredients such Kula Strawberries, Maui onions, and goat cheese from the Surfing Goat Dairy. She uses organic grass fed beef and makes everything from scratch.
The appetizers/pupus were delicious. The goat cheese in the zucchini rolls was slightly spicy which added great flavor to the veggies. The onion & goat cheese tartlets were amazing especially if you love the goat cheese/carmelized onion combo :-) and the Chicken Satay was delicious as well.
I am a total veggie girl so the salads were one of my favorite parts of the meal. Lee's homemade vinaigrettes were very flavorful and the 2nd salad with the watercress, papaya, mango & jicama with the cilantro was out of this world...so flavorful!! It was so tasty we forgot to take pictures!!
We tried 2 preparations of fish since all of our guests are either fish or beef eaters plus we couldn't decide which sounded better. I loved both of them. The Ti leaf preparation comes all wrapped up like a pretty little present and then they cut the leaf to reveal this beautiful piece of fish. The fish we had was Monchong which is a dense flavorful white fish that doesn't dry out like Ono does so the fish was juicy and delicious. The flavors of ginger and the vegetables with it were so yummy. The 2nd piece of fish was the Mac Nut crusted which I think was the best Mac Nut crusted filet I have ever eaten. Chef Lee prepares the crust by using only Mac Nuts instead of the usual panko and mac nuts. This allowed the fish to still shine through as the star of the dish and wasn't as heavy as most preparations of this fish might be. The balsamic citrus glaze she serves it with was so delicious and complemented the rest of the dish perfectly.
The Filet Mignon was cooked perfectly and the Onion Red Wine reduction was delicious...so delicious that I ate it on its own (i am not a red meat eater) FI loved it and even asked for a doggy bag of it to take home....lol
Both of the desserts were incredible. The Pannacotta had amazing flavors and it was prepared to perfection and the lava lava cake was gooey and chocolatey and delicious. I wasn't thinking of having a dessert course in addition to Wedding cake but thanks to Chef Lee I am highly considering it now!!!
Tasting Menu
AppetizersZucchini Rolls - Hawaiian herbed goat cheese, roasted red pepperSweet & Sour caramelized Maui onion and goat cheese tartletChicken Satay ~ peanut sauce 
SaladsButter lettuce & greens with citrus vinaigrette, toasted almonds and shaved parmesan-reggianoMixed Kula greens, Watercress, papaya, mango, jicama with cilantro vinaigretteEntreesFilet Mignon Maui onion-red wine reductionMacadamia nut crusted fresh catch with balsamic citrus glazeTi leaf wrapped & steamed fresh catch with ginger, scallions, and fresh vegetables 
DessertsLava Lava cake, Tahitian vanilla creme anglaiseGreen Tea Pannacotta, white chocolate sauce and Kula strawberries 
On Sunday afternoon we met with Marie Ghiselani of
Ghiselani Designer Cakes for our cake tasting experience. What an experience it was!!! Marie greeted us at her door with Champagne and then she had 12 different types of cake and 64 different flavors of frosting for us to choose from and taste. We tasted each flavor of cake & frosting separately and then in combination to help us decide on our flavors. Throughout the process she answered all of our questions and fed us cheese & crackers, wine and other yummy snacks. Once we decided on our flavors she got the cake pans out so we could see what the actual size of our cake would be.
We choose pineapple cake with champagne buttercream frosting with a layer of pineapple and 2 layers of fresh strawberries for our top tier and a white cake with champagne buttercream frosting and fresh raspberry puree for our bottom tier.
On Tuesday, we met with
Lori Lawrence, our WC, and her husband
Jaime Lawrence for our tasting with
Stella Blues in Kihei. Lori & Jaime are both incredible people. They greeted us with a hug and answered any wedding related questions during our tasting or any Maui related questions for that matter. Lori was wonderful and checked in with me throughout the entire time we were there to answer questions and see how the vendor meetings were going. She said "Contact me if you need anything wedding related or not wedding related...that is what we are here for !!"
The
Stella Blues tasting went well. Their food was good but not as good as
Aloha Events and I must say I wasn't terribly impressed with the service staff we met.
We tried a goat cheese stuffed Hibiscus blossom, tomato-fennel soup shooter, cilantro scallop lettuce cup and a chicken wonton cup for Pupus and all was delicious but not terribly impressive. Our entrees were the Mac Nut Crusted Mahi mahi which was okay but you could barely taste the Mac Nuts in the crust and then Filet Mignon with a red wine reduction which FI said was really tough.
The salad had too much dressing and wasn't really memorable.
After our tasting with Stella Blues we went to Tommy Bahama's to hear
Jaime Lawrence play. Jaime is amazing!! He is even better in person than on his CDs and we are so excited that he will be singing at our Wedding.
On Wednesday, we spent the morning meeting
Della of Dellables. Della is even better in person than I expected. She was full of enthusiasm to meet us and had so many great ideas for our wedding flowers. We can't wait to see what she designs for the wedding! After meeting with Della, we went to tour
O'o Farm and have lunch. I highly recommend this to anyone. The farm is on the slopes of Haleakala and you get tour the farm, pick fresh organic veggies and then have an amazingly delicious lunch with an incredible view of the island.
Wednesday night we had our engagement shoot with
Anna Kim (pictures coming soon!) I had my hair/makeup done by
Andrea Duarte of A pampered maui bride for the shoot and she was super nice and did a great job.
Anna Kim is incredible! She is super funny and we got along very well with her and had a fabulous time with her.
Thursday we went to the
Kapalua Resort Spa for a seaside couples massage which was amazing.
We also did a tasting with
Maui wedding cakes but we just picked up the cake from them. The cake was very moist and yummy.
All of the vendors were amazing! Everyone greeted us with hugs and enthusiasm! We are so glad we made the trip to Maui and are so excited to work with the vendors we choose: Aloha Events, Ghiselani Designer Cakes, Dellables, Anna Kim.