We did the East Shore tour. It was me and my wife and our daughter (age 15). We have learned that food tours are a great way to learn about a new place. This was no exception.
We really enjoyed meeting the owners/chefs and hearing their stories. The tastings were delicious and gave us some good ideas of places to visit in the future. We particularly enjoyed the juice company and learning about kombucha.
There were a few issues with this tour.
Price- it is the most expensive tour we have been on and it had the cheapest food (juice, hamburger, poke, bone broth, etc). No alcoholic drinks were included unlike other tours we have been on (I realize there might be issues with a driving tour).
Guide- this was her first time doing this tour and it showed. She was nervous and over-shared her personal issues and beliefs.
Agenda- this tour seemed to push an agenda of places they want to promote. Others we have been on seemed to promote the best in the area rather than companies they are trying to help or companies they align with philosophically.
In summary, I probably wouldn't recommend this tour but we still had fun.
Одговор домаћина
Apr 2019
Aloha X8150NXstevet!
Thank you for your honest feedback - greatly appreciate you joining us on our food tours! We haven't had a 3-star review in a while and I appreciate you outlining the things you were dissatisfied with.
First off, glad you enjoyed meeting the chefs, owners, and hearing their stories. Glad that the tastings were delicious and you got great ideas! Love that you love the things we love :)
Secondly, price. I totally understand where you are coming from! I've been on many food tours around the world and we are actually priced on the low end. I have yet to be on a food tour that offers 6 tastings that cost less than $150.
We may have not mentioned to you on the tour but Kauai and Hawaii in general has the highest cost of living and highest cost of food production in the U.S. Hence, the 'cheapest' things are quite pricier than anywhere else in the world.
With that, on the tour you were privied to some of the highest quality and locally sourced food on Kauai. We pride the fact that our Restaurants and Chefs don't skip out on supporting local farmers instead of going for the cheap stuff to keep their prices low. Hence this is why our tour is $109, you get 6 stops with the highest quality food on island .
Keep in mind, the whole purpose of these tours is to help our guests enjoy our island (which you did) AND promote restaurants and chefs who source locally in order to help Kauai become sustainable. Currently, we import approximately 90% of our food to Kauai and on your tour, you were able to taste food from the 10% of food that is local.
As far as our Guide - thanks for your feedback! It was shared with her and I'm sure she'll be much better the next time you join us.
Lastly, that is exactly our agenda. We promote restaurants, chefs, farmers, who align with our ultimate goal: to help Kauai become food sustainable and create amazing culinary delights with our local ingredients.
Funny enough, these are the places that are also the best in the area. Every restaurant and chef we work with are award-winning and often are listed as the best of the best in Hawaii.
With all that said, thank you. Without your feedback we wouldn't know what we could improve on. Aloha!