Shawn Raecke/sraecke@idahostates Kana Girl's Hawaiian BBQ in Meridian offers authentic family-style Hawaiian food.
When Kana Girl’s Hawai’ian BBQ owner Keoni Tyler wanted to tinker with one of his family recipes, he had to ask his mom in Hawaii for permission.
“I’m 53 years old,” Tyler says, “and if my mom walked in here and saw that the food wasn’t prepared appropriately or the portions weren’t of family size, I would be in trouble. And I’m afraid of my mom.”
Tyler was chosen by his maternal Hawaiian grandparents – as his mom was chosen by hers – to be the cook and keeper of family recipes. It’s an honor, Tyler says, passed down to one family member in each generation.
“So I called my mom and she said, ‘Well, send me the ingredients and the changes that you want to make, and I’ll get back to you in a couple of days.’”
After cooking the recipe herself, Mrs. Tyler (maiden name Ka’anapu) gave Keoni permission. That’s why, when you order a plate lunch at this tiny restaurant in a nondescript mini-mall near Meridian, you’re not getting some tourist-adjusted, island-hybrid; you’re getting an authentic Ka’anapu family recipe.
For those unfamiliar with family-style Hawaiian food, a bit of culinary back story might be in order. In times past, the classic plate lunch side of sticky rice and macaroni salad was a carb-on-carb combo that made perfect sense to hungry plantation workers. To modern mainlanders, though, it may look like too literal of a translation of the phrase “white on rice” (especially when served in the white styrofoam container that everything here comes in). It’s a pale, starchy pairing that accompanies many Kana Girl’s entrees and something Tyler frequently feels a need to explain.
“I’ve actually gone out into the dining area and I’ll say, ‘So here’s kind of how I grew up doing this. Take a little bit of Kalua pig and cabbage (for example), put a little bit of rice on the fork and then a little bit of macaroni salad and then eat that all in one bite.’”
Shawn Raecke/sraecke@idahostates
Tyler’s advice works. The Kalua pig and cabbage ($6.95), all mushed together with rice and mayonnaise-laden mac salad, is strangely delicious. It helps that he and wife, Kana Tyler, slow-roast pork shoulder in a smoker out back for a solid 14 hours. The pork comes out all lu’au soft, smoky and succulent – with or without those sides.
Another typical, if similarly counterintuitive, dish that works is the Spam Musubi ($3.95). Essentially two super-sized-nigiri-sushi-like-blocks (1/4-inch slabs of fried Spam tied to rectangles of rice by black bands of nori seaweed), they’re comfort food for the processed pork set. (Polynesians embraced Spam when soldiers brought it over during World War II; now Hawaii is the second-largest consumer of Spam in the world.)
Less canned but equally good is the Huli Huli chicken ($6.95). A whole leg and thigh slow-smoked in a sweet and savory island-style barbecue sauce tops cabbage slaw and rice. Lau Lau ($9.95) is pork wrapped in ti leaves, an island plant that gives the meat an intriguing, tea-infused flavor. Also tasty are the taro fries, noodle soups, pork-stuffed buns and an addictive Portuguese fried dough dessert called malassadas. And that’s not to mention the separate vegetarian and gluten-free menus.
Kana Girl’s is also stuffed with island doodads and maps densely flagged with the places customers once lived on the islands. The Tylers, too, are well-tagged by their Hawaiian past: Among other tattoos, Keoni has a rather handsome can of Spam inked to his right leg.
If you’re looking for polished Polynesian on real plates, I’d recommend Ono’s Hawaiian Grille in Boise. But if you’re in the mood for the soulful fare you’d find in tourist-free neighborhoods of Honolulu or Hilo, check out Kana Girl’s Hawai’ian BBQ. You’ll likely hear Keoni singing an island song while he cooks – and surely that’s something his mom would approve.
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Guy Hand is a writer, public radio producer and photographer specializing in food and agriculture. |
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I MUST try the Spam Musubi. A friend from Hawaii makes Spam sushi and I can’t get enough of it. I made a pilgrimage to eat the southernmost Spam and Wonder bread sandwich in the US: the snack bar at the ball field across from the Panaluu Bake Shop in Na’alehu.
Some of my Philistine friends have No Spam rules when we go camping.