The state of Hawaii in the US is often described as a huge melting pot of diverse culture and ethnicity. That's why a lot of what Hawaii residents call "local food" are influenced by many different cuisine all over the world such as Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Portugese, Polynesian, and of course, the native Hawaiian, among others.

One of the reasons why I felt very "at home" when we lived there, despite being so far away from my home country, was that I could find a lot of my favorite Filipino food in the local market.

In this post, I want to share a few of my favorite local food in Hawaii.


Hawaiian Plate

_{In this plate, you'll find a mixture of the most popular native Hawaiian dishes. (From the top left: macaroni salad, poi, chicken long rice soup, lau-lau, kalua pork and sticky jasmine rice, bottom dish from left - ahi poke, and lomi-lomi salmon)}

If you're thinking, that's a lot of food for one person. You're mostly right. I can probably eat this for 2 or 3 meals - but for one large Hawaiian guy, this is just about right for a single meal. 😂

Let me just explain some of the food in this plate that you may not be familiar with:


Poi
(top middle in plate pic)
This is steamed or baked taro root (here in the Philippines, we call this gabi).
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Once cooked, these are later mashed or pounded, and mixed with a bit of water to achieve the preferred consistency.

This mixture alone has a pretty bland taste. That's why poi is mostly eaten with other local food. Although I've seen many local moms give poi to their babies as soon as they're able to eat solid food, because this is packed with calories and easily digested.


Chicken Long Rice
(top right in plate pic)
This is basically chicken noodle soup, minus all the veggies that are in the typical version. The noodles used here is the clear rice noodle that we call sotanghon here in the Philippines.


Kalua Pork
(center, next to rice, in plate pic)
This is pulled pork. In this modern age, this can be cooked in a slow cooker or even stove top. But traditionally, the ancient Hawaiians would roast the entire pig underground.

Lau-lau
(middle, right, plate pic above)
This is another pork dish (with occasional mixture of fish or chicken), wrapped in taro leaves, then steamed. The result is oh so yummy!

Poke
Pronounced poh-kay is basically raw fish salad. The fish are cut into bite-sized cubes and marinated with soy sauce, sesame oil, and other seasoning. Avocdos are sometimes added in some varieties. Although fish is the most commonly served as the primary "meat" in poke, various shellfish are sometimes used, and even octopus.

This one below us called a poke bowl. Bowl is first filled with rice then topped with one or two of your choice of poke. Here, I had tako (octopus) kimchi, and some other one which I forgot.

In most any local supermarket, one will most likely find a poke bar, where you can purchase poke by the pound, or bowls. A poke bar is similar to this one here:

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Shave Ice
Another favorite, at least for my kids, is this local refreshment called shave ice. And that's pretty much what it is - shaved ice. Drizzled with your choice of flavored syrup. My kids often chooses the rainbow flavor because it's colorful.

_{My daughter (above pic) about to enjoy her rainbow flavored shave(d) ice when we visited Maui last year and a rare pic of her sharing with her brother (below pic).}

Spam Musubi
Lastly, and certainly not the least of my family's favorites, is this staple snack anywhere in Hawaii.

image source

Not the healthiest choice for a snack, obviously, but is just so good.😂 I might do another post in the future with how to make this. But it's basically just packed cooked rice topped with cooked spam, with some teriyaki sauce, then wrapped in dried seaweed.

I hope you enjoyed that list. Writing this actually made me crave some of these. I might try to make one of the dishes here this week. 😁