Discovering the Big Island: Dining at the Manago Hotel in Captain Cook, Hawaii - Travel Books Sometimes Lie to You . . .

Fodors refers to the Hotel Manago as bragging about having the best pork chops on the island. The guide books says the fish is good, and I believe it, although once in the dining room, I remembered that I'd had ahi sashimi the night before, and the day before that, and I wasn't in the mood for things that swim. So I skipped the ono, the ahi and the butterfish, which, in retrospect, may have been a mistake.

What Fodors doesn't tell you is that the current Manago was built in 1929 and has been run by the same family ever since. In fact, there was an earlier Hotel Manago, started in 1917 by a Japanese couple who couldn't make ends meet working in the sugar cane fields. They started a small concern that concentrated on good food, and their concern nourished both them and the community.

In the lobby is a newspaper item from 1993, where the current owner, grandson of the original owners, attributes the Manago's ongoing success to its employees whom, he said were more like family. It's true; the employees we met in the dining room, the hostess who seated us and the two waitresses who took care of us were smiling, hospitable and gracious. When the hostess asked if we had reservations, our mouths dropped open: it didn't look like a reservations kind of place. I nearly giggled, but then saw she was serious, and we shook our heads. At that moment, I was thinking of Señor Billy's, the Mexican cantina located in what looked like a newly built fast-food building right next door. But the hostess told us we could take a table near the window, so we did. And it turned out we were there just before the rush: soon, every table with a reserved sign was filling with diners.

Service was fast without anyone rushing us, and the dining room was full. The Manago dining room consists of around five tables for two, half a dozen more for four or five, and probably another five that seat eight or ten. I guess that makes seating for around 90 people, all told. As to the mix of local vs tourist, it was probably 80% local, happy families chatting and laughing, creating a sound that was jovial without being noisy. The tourists looked as we probably did, a little worried.

The reasons for worry were twofold. Well, maybe threefold, now that I think of it. First is the smell that meets you (I won't say "greets you") as you enter the dining room. It is a fusty smell, of old wood beset by mildew and termites, formica tables with rust-blackened metal legs and grooved chrome surroundings that collect grease and crumbs, and meals past without perhaps as many serious cleaning episodes as one would really prefer in a place where one eats. The Manago dining room, in a word, is old, and it smells it.

Next is the menu. Chalked on a board positioned high enough for all to see is a list of items available for breakfast (served from 7-9 AM), lunch (I forget the times) and dinner, 5:30-7:30 PM. The dinner items were listed by meat type, because the meals are all standard as to side dishes, so all you have to do is choose between a number of fish, pork chops, teriyaki beef or chicken, liver or hamburger. My dining companion (restaurant reviews always refer to "my dining companion": is it wrong to call him my husband Mike?) Mike chose the pork chops, and in a rare mood of copycatting, so did I. I thought about getting a cheeseburger, but that seemed like a cop-out. Or a copy-cat-out, if you prefer.

When you're seated and the waitress has taken your drink order, you are provided with a small plastic plate and matching rice bowl, both of hard plastic. Next comes a gigantic bowl of steamed white rice and side dishes, which according to the Fodors guide vary from day to day but are always good. I can't explain why Fodors and other guidebooks feel the necessity to tell such nasty lies, unless the writers are being bribed by establishments to do so, and I can't imagine the nice people at the Manago going to such lengths, so there must be some other reason for assuring people that food will always be good when you can be pretty damned sure it won't be. I will say this for the Manago; unlike the plate-lunch variety traditionally prepared Hawaiian meals I've ordered, this one could be eaten. The side dishes were fresh and they tasted okay. I won't succumb to the food writer's prevarication and claim anything else. For one thing, what kind of cuisine can conscientiously serve four starches to accompany a meal consisting only of meat? That's right, count them, four. First the bowl of rice, along with a saucer-sized plate of boiled black-eyed peas which had been seasoned with sugar. With that came another saucer of steamed or boiled pumpkin, similarly sweetened but unspiced.

The last side dish was the ubiquitous Hawaiian macaroni and potato salad. I don't like macaroni salad a bit, and was glad that this one was mostly potato with some spaghetti noodles tossed in for luck. I'm always a little sad when potato or similarly constructed, mayonnaise based salads don't contain pickles, which I love with unceasing, uncritical joy. But this salad was redolent of boiled eggs, which I also like, and although I couldn't actually find anything like a boiled egg in the cloak of mayo, I knew it was there, maybe mashed to an eggy pulp in the surrounding medium. There were a few green peas too, maybe six.

After we had dined fairly heartily on accompaniments, our pork chops arrived, light brown, crispy, not swimming so much as reclining in a small puddle of juice. The juice was that of a piece of meat taken immediately from the deep fryer before it has gotten dry inside, and it was unadulterated by anything as obvious as wine or garlic. It was, simply juice. The pork chops were plump and juicy still, and large-there were probably twelve ounces on my plate and Mike's was similar. We ascertained that we had each been given a smaller, tender pork chop, and a large, tire-tough one. The chops had been cut in a style unlike that of the standard chop, and we found plenty of small, sharp slivers of bone while eating them. They were seasoned with something that looked to me like Shake-and-Bake, a microscopic layer of super fine bread crumbs, combined with salt and probably MSG. All this is speculation, but I have pretty good tastebuds. My guess is that the chops were lightly coated, dumped in the deep fryer until done and popped onto a plate, served hot and fresh to our table. I ate about a third of my chops; Mike ate probably ¾ of his, and we got a take-away plate for the remaining rice and pork chops.

he Manago has no dessert menu, and nothing resembling fresh fruit or vegetables. Do not look for a green salad: you will not find it. On the other hand, you get a ton of food, and for a total of $25, including Cokes and a tip, we were fed for that night and still have leftovers serious and plenty for a big dinner of pork fried rice today. And if you're dying for a sweet, the case in the lobby holds a wide selection of candy bars.

But here's what we liked, really liked about the Manago. It is real in a way you won't find in Senor Billy's (delicious, fast Mexican food, by the way) or any of the fine dining at the resort hotels 20 miles up the Kona coast. It's an old hotel, so old in fact that it has a TV room complete with folding chairs and a couple of ancient guys hanging out watching the big screen. You can imagine previous generations of TV watchers and TVs extending back into the first half of the 20^th century, on ever smaller screens, black and white, maybe even a radio before that. Recall the time when tourists never invaded with dining room with food prejudices, jaded palates and unrealistic expectations derived from tour books that only tell part of the truth. We didn't actually come to the Big Island for four star dining: we came for the old temples, the tropical botany, soft breezes and things we've never seen before. To dine in a place like the Manago is to experience history; to take part in something that is what it is. We didn't encounter a mesclun mix with Chevre and dried tropical fruits, clad in a lithe and winsome pareo of balsamic vinaigrette , but the evening, as far as we were concerned was a rockin' historical success.