By Amy Wolf, Sunset travel editor
Having just read Pico Iyer’s essay in Time Magazine about his chance meeting with Barack Obama on Oahu’s North Shore, I’m left with two burning questions: What burger shack was it that happened to be serving Pico Iyer, Paul Theroux, and Barack Obama at the very same moment in time? And how good were the burgers?
Photo courtesy of The Huffington Post
Because really, in these tight times, a good burger is a beautiful thing—even if we have to go to Oahu to get it. Iyer never did reveal the spot where he met Obama over a burger. Which Obama probably would appreciate. After all, a president needs to keep his cheap burger haunts secret even more than the rest of us do. But the rest of us are left asking: What about that burger?
Here’s what I was able to pull up from a quick web search in terms of great burger shacks in Oahu:
Teddy's Big Burgers near Diamondhead
The Shack Hawaii Kai
And, well, that's it. I couldn't find anything else.
My colleagues, whom I turned to in desperation for input on burger shacks, offered me alternatives: "I can tell you about shave ice, shrimp trucks." But no burger shacks. Which makes me even more miffed at Iyer for not giving it up.
I did appreciate, though, that by withholding the burger shack scoop, Iyer baited me to read his essay through to the end. Because the piece did bring up an intriguing point that I’ve been stewing on myself for some time: namely, that the two media darlings in this last presidential race, Obama and Palin, both came from states that have almost mythical significance to Americans: Hawaii and Alaska. Isn’t it true that people who are from these two states are automatically more interesting than, say, me?
But that said, as the essayist points out, how much more different could those two states possibly be? One is the very essence of a melting pot, where people of all races mingle and the spirit of aloha reigns. The other is an outpost of the American frontier spirit, home of Joe Six Pack (and his dog)—a harsh (albeit beautiful) place to visit. I love both places dearly, but if I had to be spend the rest of my life being ruled by a president from one or the other of these two places, I’d have to go with Hawaii.
Especially because I hear the burger shacks there are great.
