MAUI NEI

It's easy to get into a rut. Not good. The only differences between a rut and a grave are the dimensions.

"Where do you want to eat?" It was a futile question. She likes going to the same places and picking the same items off the menu. She tends to hoard her decision-making abilities. The trait can be annoying for someone who has spent his professional life making split-second decisions - believe this person or that, pick this story or that, use this word or that.

Oh, well, she's a sweetie. It's been said you like a person for their attributes but love them for their flaws. No wonder I've been much loved. Just joking about the love, not the flaws.

"You pick." We were almost out of town where a couple of eateries had been done to death. OK, watch the ao forming up over Haiku. It was a little before ahiahi, the time of the burning clouds. She loves watching the clouds shift shape. "Look at them and they don't seem to move," she says. "Look away and then back and they are completely different."

Ponder the Upcountry possibilities. Try to keep it on the genteel side of plate lunch. It's a date, don't you know. Or stop in Paia at the restaurant run by one or more of Laf Young's kids. Food's good and speculating about the passing scenery is entertaining.

"Let's try that honu place, you know, the restaurant at the Haiku Market Place." "Honu place?" "The name's something like that." Live long enough and there are so many names up there they become hard to retrieve accurately, especially the names belonging to familiar faces. Wasn't even close. It's called the Hana Hou.

Drive across the concrete that was once the floor of a pineapple cannery. Half of the roof collapsed during the 1980 storm. What was left has evolved into a country-styled shopping center. The purpose-built, modest restaurant sits over near the chute that funneled pineapple bran into trucks down below on Haiku Road.

Park the car, grab a quick smoke and walk into a courtyard affair with a takeout counter on the side. Lunch menus are posted. Into a covered lanai area. Old friend Dorothy Betz and piano man Les Adams are setting up in the corner. Do the "good to see you" thing. Move over to the door to the inside seating. Pause just inside. "Sit anywhere you like. We'll be right with you."

Walk to the end. Go down a step. Three walls are glass. Outside is a fair replica of a rain forest. The windows slide open to admit a clean green aroma. It's a little like eating outside. It's quiet. Pick one of the five or six tables. A tall guy with a croissant accent comes over.

Drinks? Water's fine. Listen closely as he tells about the specials. They sound continental. The menu looks mostly local. They have a Hawaiian plate with choices of all the standard stuff - kalua pig, haupia, poi, la' dat. Although she loves poi, she picks a goat cheese salad. "I'm trying to get my opu down," she explained.

The pig is tender. The cabbage is crispy. It's two-finger poi, just tart enough to mix well with the lomi lomi salmon. The two-choice plate is more than enough. The greens in her salad are fresh. Coffee is served in a French press. Of course.

The owner turned out to be a chef who was working in Paris when the restaurant opened a branch in New York. Laurent has a thick accent "even after 26 years in the United States." He's affable, even charming. Probably has an interesting story, but I never got around to asking him. That's a terrible failing for a newspaper scribbler.

Dorothy and Les begin playing bluesy standards. At this end of the restaurant, the music is clearly audible but the volume is low enough for easy conversation. The sounds go perfectly with a smooth Irish coffee. The bill comes. There's no need to take out a loan.

Laurent says good night. Drop a bill in the tip jar for Dorothy and Les. Out into the night.

There have been a succession of similar nights, sometimes with other friends and her relatives in tow. Her island-born East Coast daughter was enchanted. "This is just the kind of place she likes to recommend to her friends who come out."

Hana Hou has the right name. Some ruts lead to familiar pleasures.

* Ron Youngblood can be reached at youngblood@mauinews.com.