Hawai'ian-kine food party-- help

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Ok, I am a now-mainland-haole who spent my junior high and high school days in Pahoa. I’d never gotten into cooking at that age and was more into the pizza lifestyle than the local thing, but in recent months I’ve had a real kind of nostalgic home-sick like feeling (caused by holidays, I suppose) and have decided to throw a Polynesia themed holiday shindig for the edification of my pals who have ever had guava cake or lau lau. Suggestions? Ideas? I’m game for everything between kalua pork and malasadas and spam bento. Also, I was a kid so I have no idea what one drinks in da kine. Primo? Other than tequila with packages of salty plum/ lemon peel added. . . Fire away.

(Oh my God. I just thought about breakfast loco mocos. . . now I am truely homesick haole. . .). . .

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Take a look around, see if you can find any Oriental stores in the area: you may luck out and find one of them is more of an Island style than Oriental. (There’s one up in San Mateo, but that’s a wee bit of a drive…;)).

Also, Mexican grocery stores tend to carry guava stuff. Guava paste, guava drinks… Heck, even the local Wally-Mart here in Elvis-ville is carrying a house-brand guava drink in their ‘fresh’ juice section!

And… here[/rul] for some crackseed stuff, [url=“http://www.hilohatties.com/”]Hilo Hattie’sfor the truely tacky stuff (Sound on their website! Warning, warning!). Both of these links can be used to get you started on other internet sites, in case you can’t find goodies nearby…

Hmmm. What else. Make Chex-mix with li hing mui powder. Make everyone take their shoes off before coming in. Play some good slack-key guitar in the background. Serve chili over rice.

Hope I remember ths song lyric right for my sig…

<< “There’s a dog in Kalihi, and a chicken in the valley… little do they know, they’ll be adobo…” --Frank De Lima >>

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And of course, there goes the coding… that’s what I get for tying to type up a post while working on a take-home final. Grrr.

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Capybara, we lived in Honolulu from 1979 to 1982 and picked up some local tastes. Hawaii enjoys a lot of different cuisines. You might want to add some lumpia for an appetizer and some pancit for a noodle dish. Huli Huli chicken or shoyu chicken always goes over well. If you can find it, you might want to have some poi available, most people have never tried poi. Sticky rice is a requirement for any hawaiian meal. You can wrap some thin spam slices and some rice in seaweed, I don’t know what it is called, maybe because I never acquired a taste for spam wrapped in seaweed. I don’t know if Primo is still made or not, the last I heard the Miller beer company was brewing it. For those who don’t drink don’t forget the Froo’ punch.

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Spam musubi! The Hawklette loves it. I don’t.

Don’t forget poke and haupia. I like kal bi. Try this site for some recipes and other ideas. (It’s for homesick military type people in Korea, I think, hence the info on what’s available at “the commissary” and the local groceries.)

And don’t forget the music. Some Makaha Sons, Hapa, Na Leo Pilimehana, Brothers Casimero, Shawn Na’auao, lotsa slack key - the Pahinuis, Ray Kane, Led Ka’apana, Keola Beamer. And Bruddah Iz. Oh, what the heck. Check out the list on the top of that site, it’s chock full of goodies.

(“Hungry! And I want something quick, yeah I’m hungry! Want something two inches thick! Yeah, I’m hungry! Want something shaped like a brick! SPAM MUSUBI! I wanna grind one spaaaaam musubi!” yah, okay, get Frank de Lima, too. Not sure I remember the song lyrics right, either.)

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Did you ever go to Honda’s Delicatessen in Liliha? Masu’s is there now. Honda’s had the best bento fare ever. In my head, I’m picking menu items off a shelf that bears striking resemblance to the ones they had. :slight_smile: Anyway, I’ll help you out by listing all the stuff I miss:

Loco Moco (The Hungry Lion’s. There is no other.)
shoyu hot dogs, shoyu chicken, shoyu pork
lau lau
portuguese sausage or spam or shoyu hotdog musubis (For the hot dogs, you cut 'em in half lengthwise, so they have a flat surface that won’t roll anywhere.)
triangular musubis, with furikake sprinkled on it
chow mein or chow fun
andagi
malasadas
teriyaki chicken
tonkatsu
chicken katsu
cold somen salad
hamburger or chicken long rice
mochiko chicken
shrimp tempura

I don’t think the Primo brand is around anymore, except for on a few T-shirts on a couple guys down in Waianae or Waiamanalo. :smiley: I second the fruit punch idea.

Some links for you:
http://www2.hawaii.edu/recipes/
http://www.royalelephant.com/food.shtml
http://naio.kcc.hawaii.edu/tours/grinds/grinds2.html

That last link in particular is totally cute.

Here’s what I remember of the song:

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree
A Filipino Christmas tree!

Hear the dogs in the valley
(arf arf arf! arf arf arf! arf arf arf arf arf!)
And the chiiiiiiicken in Kalihi
(bwok bwok bwok! bwok bwok bwok! bwok bwok bwok bwok!)
Little do they know
they going to be adobo
Dinner for the Filipino clan!

Oh come, all you people!
Joypul and triumpant!
[There’s some line about Ewa Beach and Kalihi Uka somewhere here.]

You’ll find us in Waipahoo!
You’ll find us in Waipahoo!

Black dog roasting on an open fire
bagaong boiling on de stove…

I actually had this song on mp3 once. I wish I remembered it better than that.

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I’ve got the VHS tape with the performance of the song… I should transfer it to a CD one of these days, before the tape degrades.

Hey, that’s what capybara should do, play Frank’s stuff in the background, along with the music.

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Oh, Audrey, you should come back and try Big City Diner’s on Waialae in Kaimuki. Purely in the interest of scientific exploration. I understand their kim chee is to die for, but I am not a kim chee fan. The fried rice is great and the poke… Broke da mout’.

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SparrowHawk, you should try BCD’s ribs - awesome. Their kim chee fried rice is also awesome, for those of us who like that kind of thing. :wink:

As far as the party goes, a google search for “coconut mochi” yields a ton of sites, but I don’t know what recipes are good (me being very much a non-cook and all). It is great stuff, though!

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KKB introduced me to Big City Diner a couple months before we left, SparrowHawk, and god, I loved their burgers. Thick and juicy and full of burgery goodness. Mmmm.

capy, if you have chili, curry, or beef stew, no fo’get fo’ serve 'um on rice, 'kay? :wink: Also, kakimochi and soft ika make great appetizers! :smiley:

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AudreyK, excellent song! I live in Waipahu and have never heard that one.

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Anyone got a good recipe for kalua pork? That’s the shredded pork typically served with rice, right? I developed a taste for that while vacationing in Hawaii, and I’d love to learn how to make it. How do you make the rice that goes with it? IIRC, it ain’t normal white rice - is it glutenous rice?

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Isn’t the “trick” behind sticky rice just to use calrose rice and not pre-rinse it so much? Not Uncle Ben’s fluffy non-stick kernels (what is the appeal of that, anyway?).
Since the guests have no knowledge of local culture-- i.e. can’t understand a word of pidgin, etc., Frank deLima might be lost on them. . .
Mmm. manapua. . .

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As far as making real rice, I always get a Japanese brand (I buy Nishiki here in Chicago). I never rinse it through, but just put enough water to cover right above my knuckles when I put my hand on top of it. For some reason, it works out to the right ratio.

I asked my mother for a kalua pork recipe last night, oddly enough. She uses a crock pot, to fill the house with mouth-watering aroma. The recipe is basically a 7-8 lb pork butt rubbed with a salt mixture (I’m trying ONO Hawaiian seasoning which is sea salt, cracked pepper, and some other things I can’t remember), a half-cup of water, and a few drops of Liquid Smoke. She sets the crock pot to medium and lets it cook for about 9 hours. Then she pulls the pork apart with forks to shred it. After that, she sautes the pork with some cabbage and onions, and serves over two scoops hot rice. And you can always freeze the leftovers!

I personally think pork adobo is the perfect winter pick-me-up.

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You need a good recipe for macaroni salad! And in a pinch, you can always do macadamia-crusted fish for a touch of home… Hmm. Macadamia nuts.

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HubZilla, it’s Frank DeLima’s Christmas medley. I know KSSK is a fan of Frank’s and I can guarantee you that they’ll play it in the next few weeks. It’s great, because it mentions Waipahu, Kalihi, and Ewa Beach. All in pidgin or with a Filipino accent. :smiley:

One of the links I posted has a link to a recipe book that I think has a kalua pork recipe. I’m on my way out so I can’t check right now.

We buy a Japanese-brand rice (whose name I don’t remember) here in Seattle. The darn thing sells for $20/20lbs, but it’s worth it. Anyway, I rinse it two or three times; it’s more out of habit than necessity or preference. It turns out fine. Back home we used calrose rice, and even with the same rinsing it turned out “sticky”.

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Well, there’s a recipe for kalua pork on the link I put up:

I have never made it, so I can’t say how it comes out. I will say I never rinse my calrose rice and it comes out fine, water to rice ratio 2 to 1 for cooking.

BCD’s burgers are great (I like the mushroom one). Next time I go, I’ll try the ribs, KK.

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It’s been a loooong time since I was stationed in Hawaii ('78-'80), but doesn’t anyone remember Rap Replinger (Poi Dog)? LMAO funny.
Also, you can’t go wrong with huli-huli chicken, it’s no ka oi!