'Ilima Awards honor your favorite island restaurants

Advertiser Staff

We'll honor the top vote-getters with their own chapter in our free annual guide to Hawai'i's Best 150 Restaurants. And we'll thank you, the voters, with a series of prize drawings.

This year's Best 150 magazine will be published in The Advertiser Oct. 6 and be available at winning restaurants, in hotels and other locations around the Islands.

The award winners will be recognized at a festive Oct. 14 fund-raising event including an awards show and tasting — a benefit for Diamond Head Theatre held on the theater grounds, always a sold-out success.

Everyone who submits a valid 'Ilima Awards ballot will be eligible for one of three prize drawings conducted during the voting period, now through July 1. Each prize winners will receive a dinner and theater package — a $100 gift certificate to the 'Ilima Award winner of their choice, courtesy of The Advertiser, and tickets to Diamond Head Theatre productions courtesy of DHT.

A few new rules will apply in 'Ilima voting this year:

• Everyone must vote in four key categories. Ballots will not be valid without votes in these four — best restaurant, best new restaurant, best fine-dining and best family or budget restaurant. This is an effort to create a more well-rounded voting pattern. We will name multiple winners in the best fine-dining restaurant and best family or budget restaurant categories. Vote for one restaurant in each; we'll tally the votes and name three winners in each division.
• Ballots may not be downloaded from the Web this time. Last year, ballot-stuffers took advantage of that option.

As in previous years, we ask that all ballots be filled out by hand, that you vote only once, that each ballot be mailed in an individual envelope and that ballots not be photocopied. Invalid and illegible ballots will be disqualified and ineligible for the prize drawing.

The 'Ilima Awards event, featuring spoofs of favorite show tunes honoring the various restaurants, singing and dancing by a talented troupe, a tasting dinner and dancing afterward to Kit Samson's band, will be Oct. 14, Columbus Day. The event is sponsored by Visa for Diamond Head Theatre. The winning restaurants contribute the tasting menu and staff the booths under the stars.

If you have questions about the 'Ilima Awards, call us at 535-2412. If you'd like tickets to the Diamond Head Theatre 'Ilima Awards gala, call the theater at 733-0274.