Chapter 06 · Local food
Poi and laulau belong to Native Hawaiian food traditions. The broader term “local food” also includes dishes shaped by Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Portuguese, and other communities who made Hawaiʻi home.
You will find both on Oʻahu, sometimes on the same plate.
Kalo, its leaves, and the foods often served alongside poi.
Cooked kalo, or taro, pounded smooth with water. Poi has a thick, soft texture and a mild flavor that becomes tangier as it ferments.
Try a spoonful alongside salty foods such as kālua pig or lomi salmon. Poi is a staple of a meal, not a sweet pudding.
Taro is the plant used to make poi. Cooked pieces of the corm are starchy and firm enough to eat as a side. The leaves are also used in Hawaiian cooking.
Look for steamed kalo as well as poi. They come from the same plant but have quite different textures.
Breadfruit. Mature ʻulu is starchy and can be steamed, roasted, mashed, or fried. Fully ripe fruit becomes softer and sweeter.
An ʻulu dish might be fries, a mash, or a dessert. Ask how it is prepared.
A bundle of meat, often pork with a little fish, wrapped in kalo leaves and cooked until tender. The cooked inner leaves are part of the dish.
Remove any outer ti-leaf wrapping. Fillings vary, so check the menu for pork, chicken, fish, or vegetable versions.
Pork traditionally cooked in an imu, an underground oven, then pulled apart. Salt and smoke are the main flavors. Restaurant versions may use other cooking methods.
Kālua pork with cabbage is another common preparation. Ask about imu cooking if that is what you want to try.
A chilled mixture of salted salmon, diced tomatoes, and onions. It is juicy, salty, and usually served as a small side.
Have it with poi or rice. The salmon is salted, rather than grilled or smoked.
Kalo leaves cooked down with coconut milk and squid or chicken into a soft, rich dish. On this menu, lūʻau refers to the leaves and the dish made with them.
Expect tender greens with very little of their original leaf shape left. It is usually eaten with poi or rice.
Seasoned, dried beef. Some versions are chewy like jerky; others are cooked again before serving and have browned edges with a tender center.
Preparation varies substantially by restaurant. A pipikaula short rib will not look like a bag of dried beef strips.
Fish counters, lunch plates, and dishes shaped by generations of local cooks.
Bite-size pieces of seasoned fish, commonly ahi. Limu adds seaweed flavor; shoyu adds soy sauce. Spicy ahi often has a creamy sauce. Tako poke uses octopus.
A poke bowl comes over rice; counters also sell poke by weight. Ask about the fish and preparation before choosing a flavor.
You can find poke made with fresh, never-frozen fish here, alongside previously frozen options. Ask which fish is locally caught and whether it has been frozen. Those are separate questions.
“Made fresh” can describe when the poke was mixed. If never-frozen fish is what you want, ask for it specifically.
Cooke Street Market’s fresh-fish description · Foodland’s fresh and previously frozen selections
A main dish with rice and macaroni salad. Chicken katsu, kalbi, and hamburger steak are common choices. A mixed plate combines more than one main.
Check what comes with a regular or mini plate. Portions and side choices vary by shop.
A hamburger patty over rice, covered with gravy and topped with an egg. The yolk and gravy soak into the rice underneath.
You can usually choose how the egg is cooked. A hamburger steak plate is similar but may come without the egg.
A local noodle soup, often topped with char siu, kamaboko fish cake, and green onion. Broths and toppings differ between shops.
“Fried saimin” is a stir-fried noodle dish, so choose the soup version if you want a bowl of broth.
Chicken and translucent bean-thread noodles in a ginger-flavored broth. Despite the name, the noodles are not grains of rice.
It may be served as a small side with a Hawaiian plate rather than as a large soup.
Thin slices of marinated beef dipped in flour and egg, then pan-fried. The coating is soft and golden, with a savory-sweet flavor from the marinade.
Look for it on local Korean lunch menus. Dip a piece into the sauce served alongside it.
Korean-style beef short ribs, commonly cut thin across the bones and grilled after a savory-sweet marinade.
Expect small bones in each strip. Local Korean combination plates often pair kalbi with meat jun and vegetable sides.
Chicken coated in breadcrumbs, fried, and sliced into strips. Katsu sauce is usually served with it.
The crumb coating is different from mochiko chicken’s batter. Tonkatsu is the pork version.
Mochiko chicken (upper left), butterfish and rice.
Chicken marinated in a mixture that includes mochiko, sweet rice flour, then typically fried. The coating has a savory-sweet flavor and a light crispness.
Some kitchens add sauces and toppings. “Sweet rice flour” describes the rice flour, not a dessert filling.
Chicken simmered in a soy-sauce-based mixture, often with sugar, ginger, and garlic. The meat becomes tender and takes on the dark sauce.
It is a braised dish, usually served with rice to catch the sauce.
Chicken turned as it cooks over a grill, with a savory-sweet glaze. Huli means to turn in Hawaiian.
Look for browned skin and grill flavor. A roadside grill may sell a half chicken or a plate with sides.
A shrimp-truck plate usually served with rice and plenty of garlic butter. It is especially associated with stops around the North Shore.
Many versions come with the shells on. Check before ordering if you prefer peeled shrimp.
Rice, buns, and dumplings you can order individually.
A slice of cooked Spam on pressed rice, held together with nori. A shoyu-sugar glaze and furikake are common additions.
Egg versions make a convenient breakfast. Musubi can have other fillings, so read the label.
A filled bun related to Chinese bao. Char siu pork is a familiar filling; steamed and baked versions are both sold here.
Steamed buns have a pale, soft exterior. Baked buns have a browned top. Ask which fillings are available.
An open-topped steamed dumpling, usually filled with seasoned pork and often shrimp. It belongs to the same family as siu mai.
Order a few alongside manapua. The name refers to a dumpling, not a fried potato hash.
Sliced Portuguese-style sausage, browned and served with eggs and rice. The sausage is seasoned and sometimes sold in mild or hot versions.
A familiar local breakfast plate. Fried rice is another place you will find pieces of Portuguese sausage.
Finely shaved ice with flavored syrups. Ice cream or azuki beans may sit underneath, with condensed milk or mochi added on top.
Choose flavors first, then check which extras are included. Fruit-based syrups and sweeter bottled syrups taste different.
Portuguese-origin fried dough rolled in sugar. Hawaiʻi bakeries sell plain versions as well as ones filled with custard and other creams.
Try a plain one warm to taste the dough itself. Check the filling before biting into a filled malasada.
Bakery doughnuts made with poi. Color and texture vary by recipe, and a poi doughnut is different from a mochi doughnut.
We recommend the poi donuts at Kamehameha Bakery in Kalihi. Holey Grail’s taro doughnuts are another preparation to try.
A baked sweet made with mochiko, butter, and often coconut milk. The middle is chewy and dense, with a browned top and edges.
Usually cut into squares. It has a different texture from a soft piece of filled Japanese mochi.
Soft, chewy pieces of sweet rice-flour confection, often made with coconut milk and dusted with starch. Pink and white pieces are common.
These are usually small, unfilled bites. They do not have butter mochi’s browned crust.
Coconut milk thickened into a pudding, often firm enough to cut into white squares. It can also appear as a pie layer or pastry filling.
A square on a Hawaiian plate will be firmer than the cream inside a haupia-filled pastry.
Liliha Bakery’s small puffs with chocolate filling and Chantilly topping. The topping is a frosting, rather than a dusting of cocoa.
Order by the piece if you want to try one before choosing a box.
Guava appears in chiffon cakes, layered bakery cakes, and fillings. Its floral fruit flavor may be in the cake, the glaze, or both.
Look at the cut slice; a light chiffon loaf and a frosted layer cake are quite different orders.
Small, sweet, buttery rolls from the Filipino bakery tradition. They have soft bread inside and a light breadcrumb coating.
Nanding’s is on our list for these. Ask whether a warm batch is available.
Preserved-fruit snacks with sweet, salty, and sour flavors. Crack seed shops sell many varieties, including plums and preserved mango.
Start with a small portion. Some varieties have pits; the names and textures differ between jars.
Li hing powder is a salty, sweet-sour plum seasoning sprinkled on pineapple, mango, gummies, popcorn, and shave ice. Li hing mui are the whole preserved plums, eaten as a snack.
Try a light dusting on fresh pineapple first. You may also see li hing on a cocktail rim or mixed into a drink. Whole li hing mui usually have a pit; the powder and the plums are different things to order.
Ask what was grown here. A Hawaiʻi address on the label can also mean it was roasted or packed here.
Passion fruit, with fragrant, tart pulp around its seeds. You will see it in drinks, syrups, curds, and pastry fillings.
A lilikoʻi drink or dessert can be quite sweet even though the fruit itself is tart.
Papaya, pineapple, mango, lychee, and bananas are among the fruits grown in Hawaiʻi. Availability changes with the crop and season.
Ask a market vendor what is grown here and ready to eat today. Fruit sold on the island may also be imported.
Kona is a coffee-growing district on Hawaiʻi Island, not a name for all Hawaiian coffee. Other islands and districts also grow coffee.
Ask where the beans were grown. “Roasted in Hawaiʻi” does not establish where they were grown; check the origin and blend percentage on the bag.
A thick, cold açaí blend topped with fruit, granola, and other additions. Açaí comes from the Amazon region; the bowl is popular here but is not a Native Hawaiian dish.
Toppings vary. Check what is included when comparing bowls, especially honey, nut butters, and granola.