When we were seated, Josh ordered a bottle of bubbles from California. “So we can celebrate the start of the New Year, officially,” he said. I thought it was a lovely idea. The waiter brought the bottle, showed Josh, who nodded, then cracked it with a well-practised whisper. He poured into two flutes, allowing the bubbles to settle so he could top them up. Then he disappeared, leaving us alone.

Josh raised his glass. “To the most incredible woman I’ve ever known.” It was a beautiful toast, but heavily loaded with all the things we still hadn’t said to each other.

I simply smiled, accepting the compliment, and clinked my flute against his. I took a sip. It was delicious—toasty, dry, and with a hint of honey.

The first course was a tomato stack and I mean, literally a stack of tomato slices, one green and others in varying shades of a sunset—yellow, orange, red, deep purple—all drizzled in olive oil and dotted with black pepper. I eyed the stack dubiously.

“What are you thinking over there?” he asked.

“I didn’t think Hawaii was known for its tomatoes. Pineapple, yes. Coconut, sure.”

He laughed and I was pretty sure it was at me. “Well, they’re not going to be as good as Greek ones, but how about we just try them.”

I picked up my knife and fork and sliced from the top of the stack down, getting several different colours into the one bite. I put it in my mouth, and then a miracle happened. I found out that there were tomatoes in the world as good as Greek ones—maybe even better.

I groaned and met Josh’s eyes. He was having the same experience as me, I could tell. We swallowed our respective bites. “Oh, my god,” we both said at the same time, and then laughed. We didn’t speak as we finished our stacks, each of us savouring every bite.

I sat back, regarding my empty plate. “I can honestly say, if that’s all there is for dinner, I’ll leave here happy.” He smiled, his hand extending across the table to take mine.

The waiter appeared, as if by magic, and cleared the plates, and another waiter came and topped up our bubbles. Josh and I sat in a comfortable silence as we watched the light from the nearly full moon dance on the water and waited for the next course.

It was crab—more specifically, hand-made crab tortellini in a white wine sauce with fresh herbs. The pillows of pasta were brimming with chunks of fresh crab and once again I was in food heaven.

“You keep moaning like that and they’re going to think we’re having sex in here,” said my dinner companion. I smiled, resisting the urge to moan again, as a waiter topped up our drinks. I knew there were two of them, but honestly, I was so focused on the meal, they’d become interchangeable to me.

After a respectable pause in the proceedings, dessert arrived—roasted pineapple with coconut ice-cream and toasted coconut flakes. Are you frigging kidding me? The meal was battling it out for a place in my top five. Every bite of the dessert was a food orgasm. The only thing that stopped me from asking for another serving was that I was starting to feel full and I was planning on having an actual orgasm—or two—later on. A giant food baby does not make for a sexy time.