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Hawaiian culinary specialties, closer to home

Did you see Betty Shimabukuro’s recent article “10 Hawaiian culinary specialties to sample“? Her descriptions of guava chiffon cake, Kona coffees, and even Spam musubi just about made me want to jump on the next plane to the Hawaii. Then I remembered that some of these tastes luckily can be found closer to home.

Deal: There are dozens of Hawaiian restaurants in California, let alone the rest of the mainland. You can track them down through online directories like AlohaWorld. A personal favorite in Los Angeles is Rutt’s Hawaiian Café, where spam-and-eggs and saimin are on the menu. In the San Francisco Bay area, the Hukilau restaurants are fun hangouts for bowls of poke (marinated, raw fish), plates of kalua pig with macaroni salad and “two-scoop” rice, and occasionally live slack-key guitar performances.

If it’s just Hawaiian chocolates, coffees, and other made-in-the-islands snacks you’re after, the Hawaii discount convenience chain ABC Stores has six mainland locations, all in Las Vegas. The most convenient outlets are downtown on Fremont Street and inside the Fashion Show Mall and the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood on the Strip.

Which other Hawaiian restaurants do you like to eat at in California? Let us know.

Contact: Rutt’s Hawaiian Cafe, (310) 398-6326, 12114 Washington Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90066
Hukilau, (415) 921-6242, 5 Masonic Ave., San Francisco, CA 94118
ABC Stores, (888) 703-4222

—Sara Benson

Photo: Betty Shimabukuro / Los Angeles Times

This entry was posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 at 7:54 am by Sara Benson and is filed under Gourmet, Hawaii, Islands & Beaches, Los Angeles, Oahu, San Francisco. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.