An Evening In Tuscany

OK, so this might not exactly qualify as a "travel post" but I thought someone out there might be interested in this event I went to this week. I was very excited when my friend asked me if I was interested in going to a Mystery Dine Around Event hosted by the Chamber of Commerce.  I had never heard of it before and it sounded so fun to me!  So three of us signed up and had a girls night out. 

My friend tells me that last year, the event started at the Yacht Club, then they were bussed over to a museum in downtown Hilo, then taken to separate restaurants.  After a special dinner, they were bussed back to the Yacht Club for dessert.  I was amazed that this fun event was actually in my backyard!

So, we all looked forward to this special night... my only complaint was that it was on a Wednesday. But I sucked it up and had a blast!

Before I tell you about our night, let me just send out a BIG THANK YOU to my awesome Mother in law who was our designated driver and baby sitter for the night!  She picked all of us up and told us to have a good time.  She's awesome.

OK now that that's out of the way, we headed to the Naniloa Hotel on banyan drive and checked in at the crown room.  We were then guided to grab our first drink (champagne) and then take a prom picture.  We opted to take a group photo to commemorate the night.

After we got our photo, we headed to the lobby, where they were serving appetizers and more wine.  Now I'm no really a wine girl, so I stuck to white wine.  Here's a couple of the appetizers that came our way.  Don't even ask me to try to identify them.  But they were GOOOOOOOODDDD!

Here you get a glimpse of our prom shot. LOL!

They also brought out several platters of antipasto.  Everyone loved it!

Here's another appetizer featuring my favorite- Hamakua Mushrooms!

Can't have a girl's night without a selfie!

After a few drinks and a lot of pupus, we were herded to wait for the "buses" that never came.  Instead, we followed the crowd to the hotel next door... Hilo Hawaiian.  This was our view of the sunset.  We were feeling pretty good by then.  Good thing I didn't fall down!

We were assigned to go to Florence...

 We actually ended up with people we knew on our table!  But I forgot to take a picture of them.  Next time.  Here's what everyone got... Chiopino (hope I spelled that correctly).  It was very tasty!

After dinner and more wine, we headed back to the Naniloa Crown Room for dessert.  They also had a live band and dancing.. but we were only interested in the desserts!  I had to try one of each...

 After that, we realized how old we were... and how we couldn't talk over the loud music. LOL!  So we called our designated driver about 9pm and waited outside.  I really thought I'd be suffering the next day but I was not sick at all!  I would totally do this again!  If you have the opportunity, you should definitely sign up!