Letters From The Loft
Stuff From The Desk Of Chuck Thornton
Chuck And Sue And Ken And Deborah On The Big Island
PART FIVE
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I don't think Hawaii is known for its local cuisine. I'll probably get in trouble for saying that, especially with all the folks who like pineapple on their pizza, but the fact remains: when I told people we were going to Hawaii, I received lots of suggestions for places to go and activities to engage in; but not one dining recommendation, other than the usual tips to chew with my mouth closed and keep my elbows down while eating.
Ken had clipped out an article from the LA Times travel section that listed economical places to eat on the Big Island, but, with the exception of one place that I'll get to later, the list was more about pampering the pocketbook than turning the reader into a culinary diplomat.
Still, I tried to come into the state with at least a vague concept of some Hawaii-centric dishes. The national dish, I'm told, is poi, given its name by the sound folks make when they taste it. Poi is made from the tarot root (tarot is a starchy tuber, which is a bad description for something edible, but a great name for a comic strip character). To make poi, the tarot is boiled, peeled, and pounded into a paste that is briefly served in a bowl before being taken to the local elementary school's art supplies closet.
Roasted pork seems to be considered Hawaiian cuisine, if you prepare it by burying it for a few hours before unearthing it and serving it on a platter. As food preparation goes, that process doesn't exactly thrill me, and it makes washing up before dinner seem pretty pointless.
And I guess Hawaiian bread is pretty famous... they sell it next to the Twinkies at my local supermarket... but from what I read, it's actually a Portuguese sweet bread, so I disqualified it.
Loco moco sounded promising, though, and not just because I like saying it almost as much as "starchy tuber." Basically, it's a dish consisting of a bed of white rice (mixed with carrots and peas) and topped with a fried egg, gravy, and some meat. Since fried eggs, gravy, and meat are the only components of the Chuck Thornton food pyramid, I was looking forward to giving loco moco a try...
... especially since I could get it made with Spam. I love Spam, which is basically a salt brick that, via nuclear collider, is infused with something vaguely pork-like and put in a can. The Hormel company has been selling this stuff since 1937 and it's still on the shelves today, so somebody must be buying it, but, except for my dad (God rest his soul) I've never come across anybody who hasn't blanched at the thought of sliding a hunk of Spam out of its can, slicing it up, frying it up, and addressing it as something edible. I don't get to have it very often, because my family can't stand seeing me eat it. In short, Spam gets no respect.
Except in Hawaii. Hawaiians consume more Spam per capita than anywhere else... about an average of 12 cans per person per year, according to whatscookingamerica.com. It was introduced to the island population during World War II by our GIs, who were apparently eager to unload Spam surpluses on the natives. Hawaii appreciates Spam, and last I heard, it is on the menu in some form at the Hawaiian McDonalds, Burger Kings, and state penitentiary.
During my visit to this enlightened state, I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to try a delicacy like Spam loco moco... and, providentially, there was a restaurant listed in Ken's LA Times article where the Spam loco moco was recommended. So one of the places we visited was the Tex Drive-in, which sits off the highway as you make your way over to the east side of the island.
Once we found it, I took a picture of Sue and Ken and Deborah in front of the place...
... only it turns out that's not the front of the place. I probably should have been clued in by the entrance sign and the propane tank, but I was caught up in the prospect of eating somewhere where Spam was actually on the menu.
Eventually, we found the front of the building:
and had our meal on the patio near one of the big potted plants, where my companions could discreetly vomit while I chowed down on my Spam loco-moco. It was delicious.
In no particular order, here's a few of the other places we ate:
Kamuela Provision Company
Although this sounds like a place where the natives get their Spam, it's actually one of the restaurants at the Hilton Waikoloa Village resort, and was recommended because it sits on an elevated point that allows a great view of the Hawaiian sunset:
Obviously, I didn't take this picture... if I was inclined to snap pictures during a meal, I would have done it at the Tex Drive-In.
I can't remember what I ate here... with a view like that, I didn't pay too much attention to the food. (I hope the restaurant wasn't counting on that). As near as I can recall, it was pretty good and not particularly Hawaiian; probably some meat that didn't come from a can.
In the picture, you can see a guy in the background lighting one of the tiki torches. This is a nightly ceremony at the resort that starts at the Kamuela Provision Company. This guy takes off his shirt and runs through the entire resort, lighting all the tiki torches on the grounds. I'm sure the Hilton staff are drawing straws to get that job... I didn't see this guy consulting a map or personal GPS unit, and there are a lot of torches in the resort to commit to memory. Plus I'll bet he gets distracted by the occasional wise guy who calls him over to light up a cigar, and there's probably not much of a break before he has to start back around at daybreak blowing all the torches out. I'm sure the guy has an interesting philosophy about the futility of life.
Kirin
One early evening, when we decided it was dinnertime, we were feeling adventurous, so we hopped on the train and took it all the way to the end of the line. Of course, it was the resort monorail, and the "end of the line" was about a five minute ride, but it's amazing what qualifies as adventure when you're on the downhill side of your fifties. This was another restaurant located on the resort grounds. It's a Chinese restaurant, located at the opposite end of the "lagoon" section where we were staying. We seemed to be the only patrons there, either because we arrived right at opening time, or because my idea of "casual dress" caused the greeter put us in a room away from the other guests. At any rate, it was no reflection on the restaurant... the food was good, but there was no effort to give the Chinese cuisine an Hawaiian spin. There was no Spam Chow Mein or sweet and sour Spam, so, again, I can't really remember what I had.
Huli Sue's Barbecue And Grill
Huli Sue's was another one of the places Ken had highlighted in the LA Times article he had brought along. It's in Waimea on the northern part of the island, and we stopped to eat there on our way back after a long day on the eastern side of the island checking out volcanoes, waterfalls, the Tex Drive-in, and the occasional public restroom. The food was supposed to be good and economical, and Ken's anticipation of sampling the cuisine was running high enough that he allowed me to take this picture of him under their sign before realizing that he was holding a purse. I think it was safe to say that Ken's interest in Huli Sue's was the same level as mine was for the Tex Drive-in.
Unfortunately the anticipation far exceeded the actual event, and the above picture captured the last happy moment Ken would experience that day.
(Over the years, Ken and I have discussed our differing relationship to food. It's obvious by our physiques that we both like it a lot, but, while I enjoy eating, I'm not the real food appreciator that Ken is; I think it's safe to say that one of the first coherent thoughts that form in Ken's brain upon waking each morning is deciding what he's going to eat that day... unless he's made those arrangements earlier. In either case, he starts the day anticipating his enjoyment of the upcoming meal. He's currently involved in legal action to have the "Happiest Place On Earth" motto taken away from Disneyland and given to Lawry's The Prime Rib in Los Angeles.)
Ken found Huli Sue's to be a big disappointment. The rest of us agreed the cuisine was pretty mediocre, but it hit Ken harder than the rest of us This was a mealtime he would never get back, and I think he felt personally betrayed by Huli Sue's and by the LA Times. Sort of like looking forward to An Evening With Leonard Nimoy and then discovering that the show consists entirely of Leonard reciting his poetry.
I had one of the steaks with my choice of two side dishes. The sides offered were fries; mashed potatoes; cole slaw; pineapple rings; baked potato; or bok choy. Of course, fries were my first choice, but I had some trouble deciding on the second. My love for starchy tubers aside, I didn't want to opt for another version of potatoes; and I'm not a big cole slaw or pineapple ring fan. So I opted for bok choy, figuring it was probably some sort of oriental noodle thing.
Of course, as probably all of you who eat your vegetables know, bok choy is a vegetable first cultivated on an alien planet and brought down to Earth to replicate human beings in their sleep. It looks sort of like a green onion on steroids, or perhaps celery with a malignant tumor at its base. I'm told bok choy is of the same species as the turnip... if that's true, there's been a lot of inbreeding in that branch of the family. Although it was tough to approach with a knife and a fork, I gave it a try, but my efforts weren't rewarded with any taste that I could discern, and cutting into my steak was exhausting enough, so I soon gave up on bok choy and sought solace in my fries.
KFC
On our way back from a snorkeling trip (the one where I had performed hari kari on a coral reef), we stopped to pick up some band-aids at a drug store and noticed the sign for this place in a shopping center across the street. We figured the initials stood for something trendy like the Kamuela Freight Company or Komehameha Fine Cuisine, and decided to give it a try. Not being particularly ethnic-attuned, we thought that the gentleman depicted in the logo looked vaguely Hawaiian, in the same way that Poppin Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy, looks vaguely Norwegian.
Once we stepped inside and were bathed in the familiar aroma of 11 secret herbs and spices, we realized that, after all, this was still America, and we could still get Kentucky Fried Chicken.
This made Ken perk up. He loves KFC. (Someday, if I can find it, I'll post my journal of the trip Ken and I took to Metropolis, Illinois, where we discovered a local KFC with an all-you-can-eat buffet, and ate nowhere else for the entire time we were there.) But it prompted an age-old discussion that we've never resolved.
Ken likes dark meat. He doesn't like white meat. I've maintained that I like both. So on the rare occasions where we were the only two ordering a batch of chicken, Ken would order only dark meat, but only after subjecting me to intense coerced interrogation to confirm that I truly had no preference.
This was one of the occasions, because, although the lovely and talented Susan and Deborah were with us, they had decided that the petroleum that drips from the bottom of every KFC container shouldn't be coursing through their arteries. And before Ken ordered, I made a fateful miscalculation: an exercise in poor judgment that I conveniently blame on the loss of blood I had experienced earlier. Whatever the reason, I made the mistake of suggesting that we mix it up by including some white meat in the order.
That's when we discovered that, although the chicken might be the same, KFC Hawaii packages it in different doses than the mainland. And what followed was a surreal clash of the titans, as Ken and The Colonel squared off for the big white meat smack-down.
Ken didn't bother looking at the menu (he thought he knew it by heart), and opened with a 16-piece order, original, mixed, chicken-only (no sides).
The counter person--- well, countered--- by saying that they didn't offer a 16 piece chicken-only choice.
"Oh," Ken said.
"We have a special on 10 pieces, chicken only," she offered.
"Any white meat?"
"No, legs and thighs."
"Oh." Pause. "What do you have with white meat?"
Chuck (in the background): "Don't worry about it. Legs and thighs are fine."
"We have a 12-piece meal, comes with two sides. Or a 16 piece meal, comes with 3 sides."
"We don't need any sides. Can we get a 12 or 16 piece meal, hold the sides?"
Chuck (in the background, staring out the window): "Don't worry about it. Legs and thighs are fine."
"No, that would be chicken only. We don't hold our sides. My machine doesn't have a button for that."
Chuck (in the background and staring at his feet): "Don't worry about it. Legs and thighs are fine."
"Okay, can we have two of the 10-piece chicken only, but make one of those with some white meat pieces?"
"Sorry, the 10 piece offer is for legs and thighs only."
"The sign doesn't say that."
"Yes it does. Sorry, it's at the bottom of the sign in smaller print. It's hard sometimes for seniors to see."
Chuck (in the background and hiding under a table): "Don't worry about it. Legs and thighs are fine."
"Oh. Well, I got no problem with legs and thighs, but my friend here would like some white meat."
I crawled over to the counter and addressed our hostess directly. "No, really, all dark meat, it's fine. Please don't have us arrested."
Ken said, "Did the menu change? We've always been able to order a chicken-only option of any meal."
The counter-person said, "The menus might be a little different where you come from. You're not from around here, right?"
I said, "No, we're strangers in a strange land, and really, legs and thighs are fine. We don't want any trouble."
Ken said, "So there's no way to order chicken-only with some white meat? I just can't believe that."
"Please," I pleaded, "in the name of everything the Colonel held dear..."
"Well," said the counter-person, "you could have the legs-and-thighs order, and then add additional white meat pieces at the per-piece menu price."
The four of us hastily convened a Chicken Summit and agreed this was the best solution. We apologized to the KFC staff for being so provincial, thanked them for thinking outside the bucket, and hauled our legs, thighs, and breasts out of there.
I could look on the bright side and say that everything turned out okay, but really, the damage was irreparable. Ken now gleefully trots out this incident (I think he's having leaflets printed) to counter any claim I make about being easy to please when it comes to food. It's been a turning point in our relationship... ironically, I now have to make up preferences in order to maintain credibility. What can I say? Maybe it's this strategic give-and-take that makes the friendship interesting and allows it to endure... or maybe it's just that Ken always pays for the chicken.
The Hilton Waikoloa Resort Luau
Although this doesn't technically qualify as a restaurant, it wouldn't be right for me not to include it as one of our Hawaiian dining adventures.
I think the Hawaiian legislature has mandated 3 things that visitors to their state must do:
- wear shirts with flowers on them;
- accept necklaces made of flowers within 60 seconds of setting foot in the state; and
- attend a luau.
A luau is a traditional Hawaiian feast. According to someone on the internet, it was started around 1819 by King Kamehameha II, when he broke with religious custom by allowing women to dine with the men at the royal feasts. Soon the women were making a big fuss, setting up seating charts, telling the men which hand to use to eat their salad with, and generally turning the occasion into a regular production.
Originally, the feast had one of those Hawaiian names consisting of all vowels and apostrophes, but later it became named after a dish that was always served at the occasion. Made of the beloved starchy tubers, chicken, and coconut milk, luau was a dish that someone kept bringing to the potluck but no one would touch. Eventually, the entire celebration came to be known by the only substance remaining at the end of the night.
Nowadays, a luau is expected to include not only a multi-course meal from soup to nuts (or, more accurately, from starchy tuber to pineapple flan), but also traditional entertainment like hula dancers; torch-tossers; and Don Ho channelers. Any self-respecting Hawaiian resort offers its guests the opportunity to attend a "luau."
I put that last in quotes, because I doubt if most of these resort offerings are shooting for authenticity. A genuine luau experience would probably involve sitting on the ground, staring into a shallow grave where the main course has been marinating, and seeing how much poi your finger can dip out of a bowl. Your average rube Hawaii tourist (like me) probably doesn't really want to experience a "real" luau, any more than your average Alcatraz visitor wants to spend a night in a cellblock.
So instead, the Hilton Waikoloa Village holds their luau in this venue:
It's basically a big concrete slab, covered with tables and headed by a stage where the Polynesian hi-jinks are kept at a safe distance. (That's the stage--- and the lovely and talented Susan--- to the left).
We were at one of the circular tables near the stage. The tables seat eight, and for the most part, the food is brought out in large portions and placed in the center of the table on a lazy susan, making the meal similar to an episode of Wheel Of Fortune. I'm told this is called serving a meal "family style", so, unless you're a group of eight, you find yourselves suddenly related to people who were complete strangers before you started eating.
Again, Ken found the food disappointing, and I have to admit it didn't leave much of an impression on me. When I think "luau" I have a picture of a roast pig with an apple in its mouth sitting at the center of the table; replacing that with a lazy susan containing some pulled pork and poi isn't exactly stepping up to the plate. If the entertainment was going to make up for the meal, they'd have to wheel a live volcano onto the stage.
No such luck. Instead we got what I understand is a typical luau show
that ostensibly shares the Hawaiian culture with the tourists, mostly
through the medium of grass skirts.
The host and emcee of the show was a guy whose name I can't remember...
something Hawaiian like Starchy Tuber.
When Starchy came out on the stage and started singing his first
number, at first I thought he was a Don Ho wannabe, before I realized
that Starchy was probably doing five shows a week while Mr. Ho was still
in diapers. He wasn't that good of a singer, but he seemed pleasant and
hospitable... sort of a Hawaiian Bert Parks.
Starchy sang a couple of songs and gave us a brief history of the
Polynesian Islands, then introduced a series of acts that all looked
pretty much like this:
What keeps people in their seats is that they know the guy with the
torch is coming. Our show
was no exception, and, because we were at one of the front tables, I got
a few close shots of the guy:
Although this last one looks like he set his hand on fire, I'm sure
it was part of the act, including the part where he plunged his hand
into that lady's water glass. He was very adept with the torch, and the fact that he still had
eyebrows attested to his professionalism. But I could see he had a few
scars on his torso, probably from his freshman year at Torch Academy. I guess there's
no way to put training wheels on a blazing branch.
I hope I haven't sounded too negative in my evaluation of Hawaiian cuisine. Everything I had on the trip was good; it's just that the stuff that was characterized as intrinsically Hawaiian didn't leave a lasting impression.
Except for the Spam loco moco, which was enough for me. I'll be searching for southern California eateries that offer it on their menu and aren't being picketed by the American Heart Association.
NEXT: THE WRAP-UP