Sunday Dinner Week #37: Easter Brunch at Nani Mau Gardens

"He is risen"
"He is risen indeed"

We haven't been going to church lately, but the significance of Easter is not lost on us. It's about serving a living God, so to celebrate, we went to Nani Mau Gardens in Hilo for Easter brunch. I used to love buffets, but I notice that I'm a lot more finicky now, so my observation was more about what our plates say about us than about what kind of food options were at the buffet. Here's my take on what our first plate says about the kind of person we are. Remember, this is only the first plate. It takes too much analysis to worry about the second through fifth plates.

Plate 1: We'll start with me so my family can't say I'm picking on them. Prime rib, rare and bloody with creamy horseradish and au jus, crab legs (no claws) and a little bit of garlic butter. I don't have my gall bladder, so I can't eat too much butter, but my plate says several things:

• carnivore - thus the rare meat - I really would like it a little more rare, but then it's too creepy for some people
• Pake - tight wad - at a buffet, look first then take the most expensive things first. What a waste of money and stomach space to start on salad and fill up on fiber

Plate 2: Pono

Salad, half a plate of rice, sausage and bacon. Analysis:

• Porkivore - I won't eat bacon unless it's stiff and crispy, but not burned. Boy 3 will eat bacon whenever he can get it. Guess I don't cook it enough.  
• Riceaholic - As long as he can afford a 20 lb. bag of rice, boy won't starve. 
• Guilty conscience or warped attempt at health? - What's with the salad? Not sure. He is usually allergic to all vegetables unless hidden very carefully in pork.

 Plate 3: Isaac

Boy one has sworn off rice so on his plate: ahi poke, tako poke, bacon, portuguese sausage, prime rib and pork. Verdict:

• Straight up carnivore and surf and turf man - this also shows that since living with Grandma and Grandma hardly cooks, he's going for things that she either doesn't make or he doesn't normally eat at the hospital cafeteria (as an RN, he eats for free but it's leftover hospital fare)

Plate 4: Ahi

Boy 2 is my artist, so he eats with his eyes first. Greens salad with edible flowers, ahi poke and couscous salad. He ate the roll before I took the picture. Verdict:

• Visual - he likes earth colors in his art as well as in his food
• Health conscious - he weighs himself whenever he is feeling a little heavy, so he always keeps track of his intake, although he never deprives himself of food - he just runs or works out more.
• Pake - boy 2 is our most frugal boy, maybe it's a middle child thing, so although I said don't start with salad, he starts with salad because he knows that this is only the first of many plates and he's making his way around. He can pack it in and he will eat whether he's hungry or not.

Plate 5: Ken

I swear this is not the last picture I took. Ken's plate: remnants of lamb with mint jelly, potatoes, couscous, spring veggies and. . .? Verdict:

• Youngest brother - If you are the youngest brother, you learn to eat fast before someone steals something off your plate. You also learn to eat the good stuff first, again to hinder stealer robbers.
• Food luster - He eats lamb because I don't like lamb, so whenever he can get it, he eats it. Blech. 

Now you know us. Which plate are you?
At this point I would normally talk dessert, my favorite, but dessert was not happening. Many of the things were store bought or reheated and there was something wrong with my custard pie. I like my custard pie solid and creamy, but this was chunky and gummy. The best dessert was the packaged candies. :-(