Your Guide to the Perfect Weekend: Aug. 2–6, 2017

A lineup of the weekend’s best events.

By Marisa Heung

Boo-hoo. We rarely cry (honest), but tickets to Jack Johnson’s Friday and Saturday concerts are officially sold out and we have no one to blame but our own procrastination. As luck would have it, though, there are lots of other things happening this week, from serious sake tasting (more than 400 kinds!) to a festival presented by HONOLULU Magazine, celebrating all the best goods and businesses our city has to offer. One stack of banana pancakes and a good, five-minute cry, and we’re ready to tackle the weekend.

PHOTO: colin cross

Second Annual Best of Honolulu Festival

Saturday, Aug. 5, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Earlier this year, we asked HONOLULU readers to vote on their favorite restaurants, services, foods—you name it—for 2017’s Best of Honolulu winners. Now, we’ll celebrate the best our city has to offer at the second annual Best of Honolulu Festival presented by American Savings Bank this Saturday. The Frank F. Fasi Civic Grounds will transform into an outdoor bazaar, and your ultimate opportunity to shop and eat local, with 40-plus vendors of food and fashion. Up your summer style with local brands offering clothing, accessories and jewelry (including Island faves 19th & Whimsy, HVN Apparel, Jana Lam, Katrina Cordova Designs, Kira Hawai‘i, Sandy Feet Hawai‘i and Yireh). Leave the Snickers bar at home—when hunger strikes, wouldn’t you rather have freshly made pizza, handcrafted pies, juicy burgers or all the above (and more)?

The Best of Honolulu Festival will also have a special keiki fun zone just for families, complete with games, face painting and glitter tattoos. Plus, work up a sweat together and register your fam in the first-ever HONOLULU Family Fun Run, a leisurely 3K course with snack stations, selfies stops and entertainment, taking place at 8:30 a.m. at Honolulu Hale.

Free, Frank F. Fasi Civic Grounds, 650 S. King St. For more information on this event, go here.

Fifth Annual Obon Festival at Valley of the Temples

Saturday, Aug. 5, 5 to 8 p.m.

We admit, as born-and-raised townies, we’re not easily persuaded to venture beyond Hawai‘i’s capital city. But the fifth annual obon festival, held at the Byodo-In Temple in Kāne‘ohe’s lush Valley of the Temples Memorial Park, may just be an exception. Obon festivals are usually held at Buddhist temples in the summer to celebrate and commemorate our ancestors, whose spirits are believed to return to this world each year to visit living relatives (in a nonspooky way, unlike Halloween). Byodo-In Temple’s obon festival lineup includes traditional Japanese customs such as taiko drumming, along with other live performances, food and, of course, bon dancing. At 7 p.m., the temple will hold its own lantern floating ceremony, meant to guide spirits back to the world of the dead. Admission and parking are free.

Free, Valley of the Temples, 47-200 Kahekili Highway, Kāne‘ohe. For more information on this event, go here.

PHOTO: Courtesy of the joy of sake

The Joy of Sake

Friday, Aug. 4, 6:30 to 9 p.m.

We could drink sake all night long, but we’ll settle for an evening of it. Considered the world’s largest sake festival outside of Japan, The Joy of Sake returns to the Hawai‘i Convention Center bigger and better (and boozier) than ever, with nearly 400 sakes brought in from Japan and the U.S., half of which include daiginjo, the crème de la crème of sake grades. Some of these bottles are so exclusive that you wouldn’t be able to find them here in the states. Head to Izakaya Alley for seriously gourmet food pairings from several Hawai‘i restaurants (think miki noodles with ham hocks, tuna tartare with Asian pear, lemongrass-and-sake-cured salmon gravlax, mmm). Want to know more? Check out our full write-up here.

$95–$145, 21 years and older only. Hawai‘i Convention Center, 1801 Kalākaua Ave. For more information, go here. To purchase tickets to The Joy of Sake, go here.

Grand Opening: Herringbone Waikīkī

Wednesday, Aug. 2

Tired of all the new, upscale restaurants popping up in Honolulu? Who wouldn’t be (isn’t Island living so hard)? Today, International Market Place gets yet another upscale addition to its Grand Lānai. Go ahead and mumble and grumble your way through a menu of fresh raw shellfish, line-caught fish, high-grade meats and local, seasonal produce. Owned by Hakkasan Group (which also owns Yauatcha, the not-your-Chinatown’s-dim-sum joint that opened in International Market Place earlier this year), the restaurant is designed to make you feel like a guest in a (trendy and extremely wealthy) friend’s home, with details such as a homey indoor living wall and a SoCal-inspired outdoor dining deck. Helmed by former Top Chef finalist Brian Malarkey, Waikīkī is Herringbone’s newest location, with three others in California and Las Vegas. Yesterday, dim sum. Today, coastal cuisine. We can’t help but wonder: Will Hakkasan’s next Hawai‘i venture be a nightclub?

International Market Place, 2330 Kalākaua Ave., Third Floor. For more information and to make reservations, go here.

Looking for more things to do? Check out our events calendar.