We have a Teddy’s here in Woodinville, Washington. It’s gooood.
http://teddysbiggerburgers.com/locations.html
See, I guess I’ve only managed to get stale King’s. The ones I’ve bought (once or twice) have been dry, and other than a cloying kind of sweetness, almost flavorless.
Will have to try again, I suppose.
The rolls are a family favorite for Thanksgiving/Christmas dinners, warmed in the oven…butter melting…dipped in the pool of gravy on the mashed potatoes. NOM!
Huh? Its Wikipedia page says it was founded in Arizona…
Yes, stale Hawaiian Bread is awful. You want to give it a good strong but gentle poke at the store. If it’s soft as a pillow, it’s good. Hard or stiff loaves should be left on the shelf for some poor schmuck who doesn’t know any better.
ETA: And I know it’s cliche, but I love mine with spinach dip and carrot sticks.
When most people say “Hawaiian” these days, they’re usually talking about modern Hawaiian stuff. Even the hula and music and food they envision are the modern, post-colonization versions of themselves. Traditional Hawaiian dance, music, and food is quite different from what you find today.
This is what happens when Polynesians are pushed aside by Europeans, who bring in Portuguese to run plantations and Asians to work the fields. Everything mixes together, from the food to the language to the people, and you find yourself unable to really describe everything.
kaylasdad99, the restaurant/bakery you’re thinking of closed in the late '80s. There is a restaurant/bakery in Torrance, roughly the same size as the Honolulu one, though with cheesier decor. They also have a smaller takeout-only place.
And that’s how you get a new culture - by mixing bits and pieces of old cultures.
All their rolls are made with sweet bread dough. I don’t find any made with it besides King’s Hawaiian any more. I however do make sweet bread rolls for holidays sometimes. You use sweet bread dough for homemade cinnamon rolls too.
I see they use palm oil too, which I’m sure is key to making the bread taste different than if they switched to straight soy oil like many brands.
I’ve heard of King’s bread, but we don’t have it in my areas.
However, we’ve got plenty of Portuguese bakeries which bake Portuguese sweet bread.
Also, I had no idea until I saw this thread that they’re one and the same 
I almost never eat King’s Hawaiian Bread. I like it. The thing is that it’s not very filling, and I fear that if I got some I’d eat the whole loaf in a sitting. Better not to have it around.
Since this is becoming a thread about Hawai’ian multiculturalism and the melting pot, I felt that I should at least mention the wonder that is spam musubi.
Add lomi-lomi salmon to the list; i am not aware of any historic salmon runs in Hawaii.
Yeah, that matches my memory.
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There is a restaurant/bakery in Torrance, roughly the same size as the Honolulu one, though with cheesier decor.
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I’ve been to that one, although I found it a bit pricey for the quality. I think they took over an old restaurant that used to be called Ichabod Crane’s. Or maybe it was called Thirty Tons of Bricks.
Or first one, then the other. Lots of bricks there, I remember that. Sometimes I think that there’s a correlation between bricks on the outside and cheesiness on the inside.
Yes, and as someone else said, it makes the best French toast ever. Restaurants around here all serve enormous hunks of French toast made from it.
And anything containing pineapple. Hawaii’s iconic fruit was introduced in the early 19th century.
How does the taste compare to that of challah? They sound similar.
They are similar, but Hawaiian bread is softer and a bit sweeter. I believe it’s made with pineapple (or at least pineapple flavor), and it’s just this side of a cake, really. It’s made with yeast, but it’s not kneaded very much, so the gluten strands are short and the grain pretty fine.
A 4-pack of King’s Hawaiian rolls is the perfect partner for a single-person serving of fried chicken and a Pepsi.
Or fried catfish.
Internally, very similar–challah is eggier, but the flavor and texture is similar. The big difference is the crust. Challah has a slightly tough/crisp crust. Hawaiian bread has no crust texture at all (think like a wonder-bread hamburger bun).
There was a King’s Hawaiian restaurant still next to the bakery in Torrance when I lived there in 2001-02. It served “Hawaiian specialties,” but I never went there so I don’t know what they were.