Giovanni's Hot and Spicy Shrimp

Today was the Honolulu marathon. Over 28,000 marathon runners ran in it starting from right outside our apartment and running to Hawaii Kai. The race started at 5:00, and Cassie and I know because there was a lot of cheering, and my favorite fireworks. Yes, there was a fireworks display at 5 in the morning. It was really our fault though, we should have been up at 5 in the morning, on a Sunday.

Later on Cassie and I took another trip to the North Shore, and today the weather was much better, but I’m feeling under the weather. The beach we went to had 6 to 8 foot waves, so we spent most of the time watching people get battered around by the waves. In a couple of months the waves will be almost 30 feet tall. It was good to spend to spend some time out in the sun.

After we went to Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck which is a mini bus with writing on it that sells shrimp. There are many imitators all over the beaches, but there is only one Giovanni. There are three types of shrimp: garlic, lemon butter, and hot and spicy. The hot and spicy has a warning on it: NO refunds. In retrospect that warning is better than something like: Three fatalities a year from our hot sauce. No matter the warning it was a challenge. I’m thinking about using my warning to get Cassie’s brother to try the hot and spicy when they come up in January.

When things are hot and spicy I place it on one of three levels. First are things that are not too spicy but are challenging enough for most people. There is nothing wrong with this category; most of these things are rather tasty really. Tabasco sauce is in this category. The second category is heat, here things are hot but not that tasty. Heat really is easy to do but people are constantly trying to outdo each other most of the novelty hot sauces are in this category. Finally is the combination of the two, hot and tasty. This is truly difficult to do.

Giovanni’s hot and spicy shrimp is in between the second and third categories. They were rather good, but also hot enough to take away from the taste. Whenever you are on the North Shore stop by there (Cassie got the garlic and it was very good) and accept no substitutes. It was really good with the fresh pineapple that we picked up at a nearby fruit stand.