10:56 p.m. From all indications, he did a very generic look at the islands. Now, I do remember reading that he brought his wife and baby along, so anything eccentric (as he does in the rest of the world) was probably out of the question. But as I am watching No Reservations off my DVR, I am really expecting the worst episode in the show's history.

11:01 p.m. Holy crap, he's going to spend 3 grand on a freaking aloha shirt in a cheesy tourist trap. What the hell is wrong with this guy?

11:03 p.m. Now he's gonna eat at a tourist trap called Puka Dog. Bourdain calls the place an "island original." Whaaat? Never heard of the place. There's no Puka Dog anywhere outside Waikiki. I suppose the aloha-shirt splurge and weird hot dogs from a tourist trap are good for soon-to-be visitors ... but when this Puka Dog owner says, "This hot dog is really Hawaiian," I wanna barf. So much bull sh*t. Please, make your money and run a great business, but don't feed tourists that kind of baloney (no pun intended). Puke city.

11:06 p.m. It's sad, but true. The commercials on No Reservations are usually interesting, probably because I don't watch Bravo Network other than this show. And so far, the commercials have been more interesting than the show. Watching him eat roast guinea pig in the mountain villages of Peru was far more interesting than his one-block tour of Waikiki (so far).

11:10 p.m. Thank God. He's heading to Ono Hawaiian Food. I haven't been there in ages, but the food is awesome. Too bad they close so early, long before I finish work (around 10 most nights). Some basic laulau, one of my favorites. Damn, I want one now. Lomi salmon, pipikaula. I can live without the watercress. Poi. He's eating it mixed with kalua pig. That's how I eat it! Oooh man, maybe this episode won't suck after all.

11:13 p.m. Side Street Inn. Not a bad choice. Good food, late hours. I'd go there more often if I had some company. Chicken gizzards. Portuguese sausage. Pork chops. Steak. Steamed fish (moi). Baby abalone? Hey ... there's one of our Star-Bulletin food writers! Betty Shimabukuro. Wow! If I could eat one of those dishes right now, It would be the moi, no question. All right, I'm feeling better about the episode. A lot better. But when does he get down and go to the sticks, like he does with all his other episodes?

11:19 p.m. Up to the North Shore. Pipeline. Wtf? Bourdain is gonna hit the waves? I hope not. That would be as insane as his tumble in the dune-buggy bike in the desert last year. Lucky for him, waves are flat. But they're on a jet ski having a blast. Not bad.

11:24 p.m. Woah, poke, sashimi, grilled ahi. No matter where he goes -- somebody's house on Sunset Beach -- there's great food.

11:26 p.m. Spam. "Hawaiians buy over 4 millions cans" of it every year. I don't hate Spam. But I haven't bought a can in ... I can't remember. Maybe one can in my four decades-plus of existence. I prefer Portuguese sausage, actually. "Spam sushi? Oh man, that's f**ked up," Bourdain says. I can see where he's coming from, but even he admits, it's good.

I don't know where he's eating, but they served him five or six Spam-laden dishes and he liked them all, including the Spam saimin. I must re-watch this and find out where it is.

11:33 p.m. La Mariana? I never heard of it, but the location, I recognize. Went there for a grad party sometime in the 1980s. It's a cool place. Kind of a series of hideaways within hideaways. The tiki bar culture ... sorry, it never found a place into my heart. But it's probably a cool place to hang out, day or night. Hmm...

11:36 p.m. Whoa, he's hanging with Lanai. Backyard party. More fish. More poi. Not a fan of beef (or squid) luau, more for everybody else. Music, hula, beer. Bourdain looks content. I'm glad this episode, like the others, had different elements including that key one: down-home home cooking.

11:42 p.m. Bourdain's about to talk to a guy, Thompson (I think) who is one of the last still in Royal Gardens on the Big Island, in his bed-and-breakfast home. He's the guy the local TV news have been interviewing the past few days. The lava flow is less than a mile from his place. He's holding out, but not crazy. Motorcycle will get him out of harm's way. Surrounded by forest, birds, a pristine world.

Thompson: "I've seen Madame Pele do unbelievable things. I can see why Hawaiian people believe she's real."

They talk about Thompson's childhood state, California. "Is it gonna be too late for us," Bourdain asks. "Oh yeah," Thompson said. "It's already happening."

I can see where he's coming from. I was a (Honolulu) city boy born and raised when I moved to the Big Island out of college. It was so crazy quiet, I heard ringing in my ears when I went to sleep. That went on for about a week, then I finally got used to the silence. After eight years there, I moved back home to Oahu ... and found the traffic and noise and overpopulation so obnoxious. I was lucky enough to live in Mililani Mauka for a couple of years. Now that is another pristine, beautiful place. But now I'm back in the city. Thompson knows of what he speaks. I wouldn't mind hanging out in the middle of Royal Gardens someday. When the lava flow stops, of course.

11:55 p.m. He saved the cheesiest material for last: a standard-issue luau. He milks the night for what it is and makes fun of it for what it is.

I'm glad he had some quality material for this episode of my home state, and even though it lacked that one incredible individual -- he had them in trips to Jamaica, Brazil, South Korea and more -- it was still a solid effort. Totally not as touristy as I feared it would be.

I should've trusted Bourdain's intuition to begin with. It wasn't an HVB special, nor was it a visit to the underbelly of Hawaii nightlife, either. (As a younger, single man, he would've had plenty to comment on about the latter, no doubt.)

Still one of my favorite shows even though he had every chance to blow it with a canned effort in a tourist mecca. Instead, it was a noble episode with enough variety. Next time, though, I'd like to see him tap into more of the different ethnic foods and communities. That would last an hour, easy.

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