I went to Hawaii a couple months ago and was absolutely stunned to discover how awesome the food was there. Almost every single thing I crammed into my maw was a taste delight and completely fresh. And don’t think I ate at a lot of highfalutin’ places, most of the places were cheap to moderately priced. I even went to a McDonald’s there to relax with a soda and discovered stuff on the menu not available on the mainland: Portuguese sausage and coconut custard pies. Both were pretty good, and once again, fresh. Food preparation seems to be taken pretty seriously there. Service was a tad slow by mainland standards, but still not bad, so everything was nice and hot. Hawaii, I applaud you!
Uh, not to criticize, but I read that Hawaii is the U.S. leader in Spam consumption. How is it that a place with such excellent food is so into Spam? It’s awful. Does it magnify your awesome food preparation skills somehow? If so, by all means, carry on…
Why, thank you. Next time you’re here, do try the Spam musubi.
We just got back from my birthday dinner at Kona Brewing Company, where we stuffed ourselves with seared ahi, crab cakes, mahi mahi, and hebe in guava-ginger sauce. Quite broke da mout’.
I cannot explain the local fascination with Spam (except for above-mentioned musubi), since I don’t particularly share it. My guess is that it’s cheap.
Aw, you didn’t try the spam musubi? It’s a local favorite! I’ve heard of people who don’t like spam end up liking spam musubi.
If I remember right, the whole spam fascination came from WWII. It was canned, it was cheap, and it was there. That and I think that soldiers sucked ‘em down a lot too.
Which island did you visit? I’m dyin’ to know!
I believe they might have phased out the haupia pie at McDonald’s for now (the coconut one you tried), and recently replaced it with the banana pie. They also had a taro one for a while, but again, I haven’t noticed if they phased it out or what. I don’t go to the one in town very often.
And if you want to find Portuguese sausage on the mainland, look for it under the name “linguica”. That’s what it’s called outside of Hawaii. Then you can have Portuguese sausage, eggs, and rice for breakfast every day and feel like you’re back here.
I’m really, really glad you liked the food here, and it sounds like you had a wonderful time visiting. 