Honolulu seems to be the epicenter of interesting dining in the Hawaiian islands - crazily ambitious projects like Vintage Cave, refined tasting menus like Chef Mavro, pop-ups like The Pig and the Lady. That's not a surprise, given that it's the most populated city. But for non-culinary reasons, we elected to skip Oahu entirely in favor of Maui and Big Island.
The good news was that locavorism seems to run strong on all the islands. It ought to: Hawaii has ready access to a fantastic variety of fresh fish straight from the ocean, as well as great locally grown fruits and vegetables. And over the past couple decades, there's been an increasingly concerted push to incorporate those ingredients into the restaurant repertoire, instead of relying on flown-in products.
Still, there's a huge gulf between the resort restaurants catering to the "haole" (foreigners), and the local joints with their loco moco and spam musubi (which we ate, and which was good, but there's only so much of that my Crestor can handle), and it's not always so easy to find the middle. But that's what we were looking for; here's what we found:
1. Fried Saimin at Star Noodle (Lahaina). Star Noodle was exactly the kind of place we were seeking out. Located in a business park well off the main drag, it felt more like a locals' hangout than a tourist trap. The menu, from Chef Sheldon Simeon (yes, the guy who was always wearing the "Where's Waldo?" hat on last season's Top Chef, and who also was a 2011 James Beard semi-finalist for Rising Star Chef and Best New Restaurant) was a happy hodge-podge of pan-Asian noodle dishes and other items, done with some contemporary flair.
From what I've read, saimin is arguably the "national dish of Hawaii" - ramen-style wheat noodles, either in a broth or pan-fried, often coupled with that other Hawaiian staple, Spam, as the main protein. Star Noodle's Fried Saimin hewed pretty close to tradition, the chewy noodles tossed with slices of Spam and kamoboko (fish cake), thin ribbons of cooked egg, bean sprouts and green onions. They were the best of the noodle dishes we tried there.[1] An assortment of pickled vegetables, seaweed salad, kimchi, and Momofuku-style pork buns rounded out the meal.
Star Noodle
286 Kupuohi St., Lahaina Maui
808.667.5400
2. Ahi Poke Shoyu at Safeway (Lahaina). Safeway? Really? Yes. As unlikely as it sounds, a Chowhound thread tipped me off that the Safeway in downtown Lahaina has a remarkably good selection of pokes. And sure enough, in the seafood market they had about a dozen different varieties of the Hawaiian marinated fish dish. Though most were made with frozen, thawed fish or octopus, a couple were made with fresh ahi tuna, including this one laced with soy sauce and sesame oil, chiles, onions, scallions and masago.
3. Reuben Sandwich at Leoda's Kitchen and Pie Shop (Lahaina). Maybe it was that we'd just spent the morning kayaking and snorkeling off the coast in Olowalu Village, and were starving. But in the moment, anyway, I've found few sandwiches as satisfying as the Reuben I had at Leoda's Kitchen, another place opened by Sheldon Simeon. Layers of shaved corned beef, oozy Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and thousand island dressing piled onto thickly sliced, griddled rye bread - what's not to like? The single-serve macnut-chocolate praline pie was a winner too.
Leoda's Kitchen and Pie Shop
820 Olowalu Village Road, Lahaina Maui
808.662.3600
4. Shave Ice at Ululani's Hawaiian Shave Ice (Lahaina). You can get shave ice all over the islands - and we did - but the best we had was at Ululani's Shave Ice in downtown Lahaina. Unlike the typical, treacly day-glo syrups that look and taste like nothing from the natural world, Ululani's flavors its powdery, freshly shaved ice with all natural syrups made in-house, many from the plethora of tropical fruits that are available locally. Little Miss F opted here for green tea and lychee. I was partial to mango with li hing mui powder (salted dried plum), which became something of an obsession for me during our time in Hawaii.[2]
Ululani's Hawaiian Shave Ice
790 Front St., Lahaina Maui
360.606.2745
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