Maka by Mana

Well, it's official, I'm unemployed. I have worked my last shift at Maka and I am all packed up and ready for life on a new island! Oahu here we come!

A quick update: I have lived on Maui for nine years now. I just finished my second year of school at UH Maui College, completing my prerequisite classes for the Food Science and Human Nutrition program at UH Manoa on Oahu. My husband, Tom, and I just moved out of our house and are packing up our cars to ship over! A new chapter or our lives is about to begin with a new island to call home. We are both super excited for the adventure and nervous for life in the big city. It will be a big change from slow and sleepy Maui!

I have been working for the past six months in a new restaurant in Paia: Maka. It's owned by Mana Foods, the best grocery store in the world. Maka is a "Live & Raw Foods" restaurant with a completely vegan and gluten free menu. I am so lucky to have been working in the kitchen since it opened; learning, adapting, and improving with this amazing restaurant!

I have been so inspired by the recipes I have learned from Maka that I make them at home and use them as a guide for new creations. I finally went in and ate as a proper customer rather than a kitchen employee and wanted to share my experience. If you ever find yourself hungry and on Maui's north shore, dip into Maka by Mana and get nourished.

Along with daily flavors of coconut kefir ice cream and pies are daily soups. Today we were pleasantly refreshed with a cup of chilled Thai butternut soup to start our feast.

The next course was quite the spread; Kiawe chili with cashew sour cream, coconut cream cheese stacker with house made sour kraut and raw rosemary bread, and the yet-to-be-release raw tacos!

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the juice bar! Complete with killer combo juices, superfood smoothies, local wheatgrass shots, and local Big Wave Kombucha on tap! 

These raw tacos aren't on the menu yet but because we are VIP, we got a little sneak peak ;) 

And then, just when we thought we couldn't eat anymore.... pitaya coconut kefir pie. We obviously ate it. 

Check out Maka by Mana on their website, Facebook page, or on instagram @maka_by_mana. And don't miss out on this goodness if you are in Paia, you'll regret it!