I’m throwing a surprise birthday party with a Hawaiian luau theme. I think I have decorations pretty much covered, but I can use some help with food and beverage. I’d love to hear your thoughts on food, and I’d really appreciate recipes for your favorite tropical drinks.
Aloha,
Mala
why not start with the basics of macadamia nuts and fresh fruit like pineapple? i bet if you did a google search of basic hawaiian foods or food ideas for a party, you’d get a lot of hits.
Make a white cake mix but use guava juice instead of water in the recipe. Yum. Approximates a particular lovely Hawaiian thing.
Slow cooked pulled pork. Get a pork butt/ shoulder and bake it with a tiny bit of liquid smoke (approximates Kalua pig)
Fruity drinks like daquiris, served in coconut shell halves.
Look for a recipe for “haupia”
A fruit platter with good tropical fruits-- kiwi, mango, guava, etc, instead of the usual strawberries and apples.
BBQ a big ass whole fish with hot peppers and lemon or lime slices stuffed in slits in the sides. Yum.
Some links forya:
http://gohawaii.about.com/library/weekly/aa082901b.htm (Caution: popup ad)
http://www.luaupartysupplies.com/planyourluau.html
http://www.hawaii-luaus.com/index.htm
The last link has a recipes page.
Here’s a link to one of the two major newspapers in Hawaii:
http://starbulletin.com/
You can do a search for “luau recipe” and get a few hits, for example this page that includes a recipe for oven kalua pork. If you can get/afford fresh, sashimi-quality fish and if you and your guests are into that kind of thing, I’d suggest shoyu poke (cold, cubed raw ahi seasoned with soy sauce, green onions, onions, sesame oil, and red chili pepper). Mm-mm good!
Should we tell her about spam musubi?
Kabobs are always great.
Tomatos/cheese/peppers/pineapple/meat
Upside down Pineapple cake
Tropical fruits and nuts for snacks
What are ypou doing for your main course? A friend and I once dug a pit in the back garden and made a pit BBQ. We cooked half a pig and a whole turkey.
Again, lots of tropical fruits… pineapple, coconut, etc. Macadamia nuts.
Sounds yummy! Enjoy yourselves 
Don’t forget the Spam!!!
At our annual Hawaiin Luau Bash, we give each guest a lei, a beachcomber straw hat, and a pair of sunglasses (the really, really inexpensive versions of these items - we ask for them to be returned so they can be re-used the following year). We also give them a plastic “flying saucer” drink “glass” (those kind that Margaritas come in) with a tag for their name to be written on it. We have a blender upstairs and a blender downstairs going nearly non-stop. The most-often requested drink is Mai-Tai, with Pina Coladas a close second. There are also some requests for Blue Hawaii and the various Daiquiris. And of course, the various flavored Margaritas. The main thing to keep in mind for both blender stations is: ICE! you’re gonna need a ton.
We try to keep the menu in the “finger food” category. Usually egg rolls, kabobs, chicken strips (marinated in Yoshida’s Sauce), and bacon-wrapped water chestnuts (also marinated in Y Sauce). We usually have cheese & crackers trays and sliced meat (sausages, ham&creamcheese rolls, SPAM!, etc.) and crackers trays. Oriental salad inevitably shows up, and a tropical fruit tray is a great idea.
The whole shebang is done up in paper plates, cups, and bowls, by the way. And plastic utensils. It’s your party as much as anyone else’s - don’t spend time in the kitchen cleaning! Put some big trash cans lined with plastic trash bags in strategic locatons and forget about cleaning during the party.
We get out the leetle pineapple and palm tree lights, string them up on the back deck, set out a tub of ice and Corona, and voila! Instant luau! (The big secret to being able to just set all the party stuff out on the afternoon of the party is to do all the preparation ahead of time… like the day before.)
You can find most of the stuff I mentioned (lights, theme paperware, inexpensive hats and leis, and the “flying saucer” cups) in local party shops. If you are having trouble finding that stuff, and you have enough lead time, you can try Oriental Trading Company (I think they are on-line).
Now all you have to do is learn how to say, “Hang loose, cousin” while you give the proper hand signal (thumb and little finger exended, other fingers curled in - rock the hand back and forth). Remember that the party should run on “Hawaii time” - no set schedule, and it’s okay to be running late…
Whatever you do, it won’t be any worse than the real thing.
make sure the pig is dead before trying to roast it.
really, trust me on this.
I threw a Hawai’i party this winter-- only a few people showed up, mostly midwesterners, and none of them would touch the spam musubi. They were scared of about half the food there (poi being the biggest source of terror. I mean, POI!?). It was kind of upsetting as I’d spent a lot of time cooking.
Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t suggest spam musubis for the Portland 'fest…
When I try to think of Hawaii foods, everything that comes to mind isn’t a luau food. All I can think of is chow mein, fried rice, shoyu pork, spam musubi, mac salad, kal-bi, sushi, sashimi, chicken katsu… pretty much anything you can or could get at Rainbow’s or the old Honda’s Delicatessen. So not traditional luau fare.
:sigh: Anyway, an alternative for beverages-- fruit punch is a good non-drink type drink.
It’s called the shaka sign. And if you say “cousin”, you’ll look like the non-kama’aina you are. Ya gotta say, “Cuz”. 
I thought that was “HOWzit, bra-dah. . .” or is that so 1980s?
MAI TAI
2 oz Rum
1 oz Orange Curacao
Dash of French Orgeat Syrup
Dash of Rock Candy Syrup
Juice of ½ Lime
¼ oz Lemon Juice
Orange Juice
Fill large (14-oz) glass with ingredients, add crushed ice & orange juice
Garnish with exotic fruit on a skewer
BLUE HAWAIIAN
¾ oz Blue Curacao
¾ oz Crème de Banana
Pour in given order over crushed ice into Hurricane glass
Then fill with pineapple juice
Garnish with pineapple chunks on skewer
Oh, the punch bowl sized version would help:
Blue Hawaiian Punch
Mix all ingredients in a large punch bowl. Add Sweet & Sour mix to taste. Serve well chilled and garnish with pineapple wedges.
Serve in Punch Bowl
Ingredients
1.75 l. Malibu Coconut Rum
1 l. Blue Curacao
2 Quarts Pineapple Juice
Maybe you should replace the pig roast with a tofu roast!
Or maybe you shouldn’t…
Dig a hole & BBQ a whole pig in it. Should feed 200
Hey, if we’re going for authenticity, shouldn’t it be “froo’punch”?
Another non-alcoholic bev: plantation iced tea. Brewed tea sweetened with fruit juice (pineapple, passion fruit, etc.) and served with a fruit garnish, usually a big honkin’ slice of pineapple. Served at hotels here.
If you want to spend the money, you can also buy this humorous guide to Hawaiian Pidgin English as a conversation starter. Samples are here. The book is over twenty years old, so there’s some stuff in there that probably wouldn’t be considered PC today.
A childrens wading pool, on a table filled with ice, makes a wonderful buffet setting, and keep everything nice and cool… Same thing for drinks. (Of course, at the end of the night, the drunks want to go swimming, but as long as they have their water wings on, they should be OK.) 
My mom had a luau for her wedding reception a couple of years ago… Great fun!!