The best Hawaii dishes and food are easy and plentiful to find on island. That’s one of my favorite parts about going home for winter and summer breaks – the food. I try to get a little bit of everything each time I go home and stock up on some of my favorites that I can’t get on the mainland. Some popular dishes are poke bowls from Foodland, chicken katsu, shrimp fried rice, katsu curry and chicken lau lau.  

Poke bowls

Poke bowls (pictured above) are the ultimate best. They consist of rice and poke. Poke, if you’re unaware of it, is marinated raw fish and it tastes awesome. Poke is unique to Hawaii but it’s branching out to the West Coast and I’ve seen some poke stores pop up in California. I haven’t tried any of those, because for right now I only trust poke from Hawaii. The best poke bowls are from foodland. It costs 8 bucks for a bowl and such a great snack to pick up on the way to the beach or coming home from the beach! I highly recommend adding furikake seasoning to this as well – just to make this awesome combo even better.

Chicken katsu and rice is another awesome combo, highly recommend. Chicken katsu and rice is another awesome combo, highly recommend.
Chicken katsu from Kamameshi House by BrokenSphere is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Image may have been resized or cropped from original.

Chicken katsu

Chicken katsu is also a local favorite. I love chicken katsu and pretty much any place I’ve gone to has given me an excellent plate of katsu. Some popular places to get this dish are L&L and Zippy’s but you can easily find small, Asian family-owned restaurants that have awesome chicken katsu. The good thing about this dish is that it’s easy to cook so it would be difficult for someone to overcook or ruin this plate. In other words, any place you go to in Hawaii will give you good chicken katsu.

There are so many different options of fried rice to make that they are all so yummy! Image is in public domain.

Shrimp fried rice & katsu curry

Shrimp fried rice and katsu curry are two of my favorite plates from Ramen-Ya in Hawaii Kai. Ramen Ya is one of the best restaurants ever because their prices are so cheap for such large amounts of food. One plate from them is good for 3 meals for myself. Their shrimp fried rice is a huge heap of fried rice with shrimp in it, and that will also last you a couple meals. I love going to Ramen Ya because the service there is exceptional, fast and sit-down dining so you essentially get the speed of a fast food experience with the quality of casual dining. It’s really great, and I highly recommend it.

Chicken Lau Lau

Chicken Lau Lau is a popular local favorite, a traditional Hawaiian dish and something present at most baby’s first luaus and family gatherings. Ono Hawaiian Foods in Kaimuki, commonly known as just “Ono’s” is a great place to get some chicken lau lau. Ono’s has been around for quite some time and my friends always stopped by there to get food after school back when we were in high school. It’s a locally trusted favorite, and a place that I would highly recommend!

The food in Hawaii is some of the best in the entire world that you’ll never find anywhere else, so take advantage of it while you’re here!