Headed to Hawaii for FNCE? Use this handy guide to good eating in The Islands of Aloha.

It’s so close you can almost taste it. The American Dietetic Association Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo (FNCE) is taking you to Hawaii on September 16. If you close your eyes, you can almost see the brilliant blue sea, hear the crash of the waves, feel the balmy air on your skin, and taste fresh pineapple on your lips. Hawaii is definitely an indulgence for the senses.

But it wasn’t so long ago that dining in Hawaii wasn’t something to write home about on a postcard. Many restaurants served mundane fare such as frozen fish and canned goods from the mainland. “The joke used to be that the best food in Hawaii was on the plane ride over,” says Alan Wong, chef, restaurant owner, author, and speaker at FNCE.

Hawaii Regional Cuisine Is Born
Cuisine has virtually blossomed on the islands during the past two decades. Thanks to the likes of local star chefs, the Hawaii regional cuisine movement has taken root and flourished. “Hawaii regional cuisine is a contemporary style of cooking in Hawaii today. It borrows from all ethnic influences that you find,” says Wong, who believes this culinary style can be traced back to the geography of the island, the climate, and the food history and culture of its people. Wong says Hawaii regional cuisine first started when 12 chefs got together with the goal of putting Hawaii on the culinary map. They created a cookbook and started traveling the world, guest chefing and spreading the good news about Hawaii regional cuisine.

“Hawaii regional cuisine is the thing that holds it all together. There is a movement to use fresh, locally grown ingredients,” says Matthew Gray, owner of Hawaii Food Tours, a business that offers three guided restaurant tours, including a Gourmet Trilogy Tour taking people into some of Honolulu’s finest establishments. Not only is this culinary style steeped in Hawaii’s rich food traditions, but it also includes a loyalty to fresh, locally grown products from Hawaii’s rich, volcanic soil and its bountiful sea.

Local chefs scour farmers’ markets and organic farms for fresh ingredients and handpick seafood from local fisherman, developing personal relationships with them to bring the best of Hawaii’s land and sea to the dining table. These chefs are tossing local delicacies such as Puna goat cheese and Waimanalo salad greens with traditional European and Asian culinary techniques and making it their own. The resulting cuisine is a reflection of the diverse people who call Hawaii home.

Look no further than the happening restaurant, Hiroshi Eurasian Tapas (500 Ala Moana Boulevard, 808-533-4476). It doesn’t get more infused with culture than a tapas plate of Portuguese Sausage Potstickers with wilted Nalo tatsoi, sweet corn, garlic chili foam, and truffled ponzu sauce.

With tourism accounting for more than one third of the state’s income, it’s about time dining made a big splash on the islands. Scores of award-winning restaurants in Honolulu can hold their heads high when compared with restaurants in cosmopolitan cities such as New York and Los Angeles. Now, Hawaii boasts three James Beard Award Winners: Roy Yamaguchi, Alan Wong, and George Mavrothalassitis. Chef Mavro Restaurant recently received the prestigious honor of being one of the “Top 10 Restaurants in the World” Fodor’s 2006. Hawaiian regional cuisine has even transcended the islands’ shores to the mainland with famed chefs such as Yamaguchi opening up shop in the continental United States and popular cookbooks such as Alan Wong’s New Wave Luau: Recipes from Honolulu’s Award-Winning Chef (Ten Speed Press, 1999) hitting bookstores.

Off the Beaten Path
While you may want to splurge on a special dining experience worth remembering (highlighted in the “Honolulu Restaurants in the Spotlight” section of this article) during your stay, save the rest of your food dollars to dine the way the locals do. For the adventurous epicurean, a world of eclectic, ethnic, mom-and-pop restaurants await discovery in the lesser-known byways of the city. Gray offers a Hole-in-the-Wall food tour through Hawaii Food Tours (www.hawaiifoodtours.com) that takes tenacious gourmands into the back streets of the city to sample local fixings.

One local tradition that shouldn’t be missed is the plate lunch, the island equivalent of the southern U.S. “meat and three” plate. The Hawaiian version is a derivation of local comfort food with shades of Asian and mainland inspiration. The plate lunch includes an offering of entrees such as teriyaki beef or chicken, char siu, or hamburger patties with two scoops of white rice and one scoop of Hawaiian-style macaroni salad. You may note a penchant for Spam in these parts—a nod to the military’s presence during World War II. Spam Musubi, a form of makizushi made with sushi, rice, Spam, and nori seawood, is a popular choice on the plate lunch menu. Zippy’s (www.zippys.com), known as the “Denny’s of Hawaii” and winner of the 2005 `Ilima Award (an award bestowed upon restaurants by The Honolulu Advertiser based on people’s choice ballot) for Best Family Restaurant, offers an assortment of plate lunches.

The city is teeming with a range of acclaimed ethnic restaurants. Side Street Inn (1225 Hopaka Street, 805-591-0253) is a funky favorite among chefs looking for Euro-Asian local food. Mekong Thai (1295 South Beretania Street, 808-591-8841) is a favorite hangout for locals hungry for fresh Thai food.

The Vietnamese restaurant Pho Nam (725 Kapiolani Boulevard, 808-593-2009) offers 25 versions of pho, the traditional Vietnamese beef noodle soup. Zaffron (69 North King Street, 808-533-6635), a favorite haunt of former Mayor Jeremy Harris, dishes up fine Indian cuisine. Mei Sum Chinese Dim Sum Restaurant (65 North Pauahi, 808-531-3268) serves dim sum from morning until night. Well Bento (2570 South Beretania Street #204, 808-941-5261) offers macrobiotic fusion take-out. Try the legendary coco puffs at Liliha Bakery and Coffee Shop (515 North Kuakini Street, 808-531-1651), which won the 2004 `Ilima Award for Best Bakery.

Asiaggo (1450 Ala Moana Boulevard, 808-942-3446) is a wildly popular local Italian restaurant group known for their pasta and seafood specials. Try Kyo-ya (2057 Kalakaua Avenue, 808-947-3911) for an award-winning, refined Japanese experience for lunch or dinner. You can even hunker up to enchiladas and fish tacos at the local Mexican haunt, Compadres Bar & Grill (1200 Ala Moana Boulevard, 808-591-8307).

To round out your exotic taste experience, make a pit stop in Honolulu’s Chinatown for a sampling of noodle shops, dim sum parlors, roasted meat stalls, and bakeries. Guided culinary walking tours of Chinatown are available through Glenn Grant’s Chinatown Tour (www.chinatownhi.com/gwt.asp).

What trip to Hawaii would be complete without a luau? Locals recommend the Polynesian Cultural Center (www.polynesia.com), Paradise Cove Luau (www.hawaiianluau.org), or Germaine’s Luau (www.germainesluau.com) as the top three luau hot spots.

If your taste buds need a reprieve, don’t worry. Honolulu has its share of everyday food, too. For a simple food fix, explore nearby shopping centers such as Victoria Ward Centers (across from Ala Moana Beach Park) with 23 restaurants from which to choose. You can even find Starbucks on plenty of street corners for a quick java pick-me-up.

Get up close and personal with Hawaiian food by checking out a local farmers’ market (www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/states/Hawaii.htm#E). Kapiolani Community College Campus in Honolulu hosts a farmers’ market every Saturday from 8 am to 12 pm where shoppers can find a bounty of locally grown produce, fruits, and interesting foods.

Honolulu Restaurants in the Spotlight
Looking for a meal worth remembering during your sojourn in Honolulu? We’ve selected three restaurants recommended by the dining gods for your pleasure.

Chef Mavro
“What we are doing is Hawaii regional cuisine, which means we are cooking from the local market, specifically from Hawaiian ingredients,” says Chef George Mavrothalassitis (better known as Chef Mavro) in his thick French accent. Chef and proprietor of his namesake restaurant, Mavro has racked up quite a few notable credits such as the James Beard Foundation Award and the “Top 10 Restaurants in the World” Fodor’s 2006. Gourmet recently reported on Chef Mavro’s restaurant: “Where we would dine if we had only one night in Honolulu.”

So what makes Chef Mavro worthy of such good press? “We have creative cuisine with local ingredients with an Asian influence. I change the menu every season. Every single dish is our creation,” says Mavro, who was born in Marseilles, France, but has called Hawaii home since 1988. Mavro has developed relationships with local farmers and fisherman who supply him with the highest-quality ingredients.

Chef Mavro also hosts Food Network-style cooking classes, offering a hands-on opportunity to learn from his culinary team. Afterward, participants are seated in the restaurant’s art-filled dining room with Chef Mavro to enjoy a three-course gourmet lunch with wine pairings.

Chef Mavro offers only one sitting per night, allowing diners hours to linger over their courses, which are offered with wine pairings for each selection. There is plenty of time to fall in love with first courses such as Marbled Tako, a finely sliced octopus, ponzu sauce, salmon roe, and green papaya salad before moving on to the Day-Boat Catch Bourride, a glazed upcountry vegetable blend with garlic emulsion and fried garlic with a selected poached fillet. And why not top it all off with a decadent dessert like Chilled Chocolate Banania, a banana chocolate cream, pistachio cappuccino, and Hawaiian vanilla waffle? Viva la difference.

Chef Mavro
1969 South King Street
Honolulu
808-944-4714
www.chefmavro.com
Dinner entrees: $36 to $44

The Bistro at Century Center
The Bistro at Century Center may not have legendary, romantic ocean views or dozens of reviews in food magazines, but local gourmets around town tend to call this restaurant their favorite in Honolulu. Perhaps it’s because once you walk through the doors, you may think you’ve slipped into a wormhole and found yourself sitting in one of New York’s finest. “We are fine, continental French dining. It’s an old world restaurant with classic foods. We are not Pacific Rim cuisine at all. I don’t think you get this old world dining anymore here,” says Jackie Takeshita, owner of The Bistro, which took home a 2005 `Ilima Award for Best Fine Dining.

Patrons come for fine food and famous tableside dining, to taste impressive wine selections, and to listen to silvery tunes from the restaurant’s Limited Edition Steinway Piano. The atmosphere blends in nicely with an appetizer like Eggplant and Goat Cheese Souffle, a combination of chevre, gruyere, and parmesan cheeses surrounded by an oven-roasted tomato fondue. The Australian Rack of Lamb carved tableside is a house favorite, completed with dauphine potatoes and presented with a pomegranate au jus. And the piece de resistance is one of several flambe desserts prepared tableside such as Cherries Jubilee and Bananas Flambe. After dessert, the evening’s still not over. Linger over late-night jazz with a glass of champagne.

The Bistro at Century City
1750 Kalakaua Avenue, Third Floor
Honolulu
808-943-6500
Dinner entrees: $24 to $55

Alan Wong’s Restaurant
“I take the old and make it new. I utilize as much local products as possible so that when a guest comes to my restaurant, they eat a true slice of Hawaii. They eat what we grow, catch, and produce in this area. They eat what the local people eat, but I elevate it to make it contemporary,” says Chef Alan Wong about his culinary style that won him a 1996 James Beard Award for Best Chef of the Pacific Northwest. His restaurant continues to garner prestigious awards year after year. Recently, Alan Wong’s Restaurant was selected by Honolulu Magazine Hale `Aina Awards as 2006 Restaurant of the Year.

Wong marries his dedication to local products with his fascination for Hawaii’s food culture into each dish. Although Wong reinvents his dishes regularly, his patrons frequently scream for their favorites; thus, he created a “classics” menu. The flavors of Hawaii shine through in creations such as the appetizer dish Nori Wrapped Tempura Bigeye Ahi with Tomato Ginger Relish and Soy Mustard Sauce. Signature dishes include the HR Caesar Salad in Cheese Basket featuring chopped romaine, creamy anchovy dressing, kalua pig, and Lomi tomato relish and the Kiawe Wood Grilled Mahi-Mahi served with wasabi sauce and stir-fried vegetables.

Diners rave about the Chocolate Crunch Bars, a dessert fashioned out of layers of milk chocolate macadamia nut crunch and bittersweet chocolate mousse. The coffee menu features locally grown coffees as robustly described as a wine list. What better way to celebrate the end of a great meal than to sip a cup of freshly brewed, hand-picked, sun-dried coffee grown at the base of the Ha’upu mountain range?

Alan Wong’s Restaurant
1857 South King Street, Third Floor
Honolulu
808-949-2526
www.alanwongs.com
Dinner entrees: $26 to $38

— Sharon Palmer, RD, is a contributing editor at Today’s Dietitian and a freelance food and nutrition writer in southern California.

Must-Taste Local Foods
• Poke: a traditional Hawaiian dish featuring sliced raw fish or seafood mixed with seaweed, salt, chile pepper, and roasted, salted, ground kukua nuts.
• Loco Moco: Hawaii’s original comfort food found in roadside diners and mom-and-pop restaurants throughout the islands. This artery-clogging dish is a perfect example of cultures melding on one plate with its mound of white rice topped with a hamburger patty, sunny-side-up egg, and gravy.

— SP

Luau Lingo
If you find yourself seated at a luau, here’s a lexicon for traditional luau foods you may encounter along with a fragrant lei and a sunset beach view.

• Banana or mango bread

• Char Siu: a Chinese red sparerib

• Chicken adobo: Filipino chicken stew

• Chicken Katsu: Japanese-style fried chicken

• Chicken long rice: a side dish made with chicken, long rice, vermicelli, or bean strands

• Chicken Lu`au: chicken cooked with taro leaves and coconut milk

• Corn chowder

• Fried rice: a Chinese-inspired fried rice

• Haupia: Hawaiian coconut, puddinglike dessert

• Huli-Huli chicken: Hawaiian barbequed chicken with Hawaiian brown sugar cane, soy sauce, and fresh ginger

• Kalua pig: the main feature, the pig is slow cooked whole in an imu (underground oven) for hours

• Kim Chee: Korean-style cabbage, chili peppers, ginger, and garlic

• Kulolo: Hawaiian taro, brown sugar, and coconut milk pudding

• Lau Lau: salted butterfish, beef, chicken, or pork wrapped in taro or ti leaves and steamed

• Lomi Lomi: salted salmon

• Lu`au: taro leaves baked with coconut cream, chicken, or octopus

• Macaroni salad: A local version of a mainland classic

• Mahi-Mahi: white fish prepared in various fashions, such as sauteed, crusted, or baked

• Pineapple: What’s a luau without sweet, ripe pineapple?

• Pipikaula: beef jerky a la Hawaiian

• Poi: thick, purple paste made of taro and served as a side dish

• Poke: chunked, marinated raw fish typically made from fresh ahi

• Portuguese bean soup: made of cabbage, kidney beans, and Portuguese sausage

• Pupu: Hawaiian appetizers

• Sweet potatoes: typical side dish

• Taro: may be eaten as a vegetable or wrapped around fish and meats

• Teriyaki beef: Japanese-style marinated beef

• Ti leaves: often wrapped around foods

• Tropical cakes: typically made with banana, coconut, or guava

• Tropical drinks: from Mai Tai to Blue Hawaii

— SP

Honolulu Dining Resource Guide
Check out the following sources for tasting the best Hawaii has to offer:

• Alternative Hawaii

• Hawaii Food Tours

• Hawaii’s Best Restaurants

• Hawaii’s Farmers’ Markets

• Honolulu Dining Guide

• Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Food for Thought

• Honolulu’s Chinatown

• Ono Kine Grindz.com (Food Blog on Hawaii Dining)

• Wine and Dine Hawaii

— SP

A Lesson in Hawaii’s Culinary Culture
It takes many ingredients to create the exotic flavors found in Hawaii today—from the verdant, lush environs ripe with plant foods and the bountiful sea to the waves of immigrants who forged ashore over the centuries, each bringing their own plants, animals, and traditions to throw into the culinary mix. The Hawaiian palate has evolved to embrace an eclectic blend of cultures that continues to grow and develop every year.

Cultural Melting Pot
The first Polynesians began arriving on the islands from the Marquesas in roughly 600 or 700 AD. Another migration came from the Society Islands in roughly 1100 AD. These early inhabitants brought ingredients that weren’t originally found on the islands. Much of the cuisine in their early diet was dependent on the sea.

The ancient Hawaiians were strong, hard-working people who farmed, hunted, and gathered a variety of foods. They planted and irrigated taro patches; cultivated crops such as yams, arrowroot, and breadfruit; hunted birds and pigs; gathered vines, ferns, herbs, and medicinal plants from the forest; practiced net and deep sea fishing; and collected shrimp, seaweed, and shellfish.

Protein foods were primarily fish, seafood, chicken, and birds. Fruits and vegetables included bananas, coconuts, raspberries, strawberries, mountain apples, sugar cane, taro tops, tree fern, and fan palm. Poi, a gelatinous purple paste made from pounded taro root, was a nutritious staple starch for the islanders. They held a holistic view of the universe in which all phenomena possessed physical and psychological properties. They were intimately connected to nature as nourishment for the physical body, as well as for the spiritual and emotional body.

When Captain James Cook and the first European visitors arrived in 1778, there were approximately 1 million Native Hawaiians living on the islands. Missionaries arrived in 1850. After 100 years of Western contact, 90% of the Hawaiian population was decimated, largely because of new disease and lifestyle change.

“The missionaries brought food stuff with them, as well as disease. They created the sugar cane plantations, but much of the native Hawaiian population was killed. They needed labor, so they contracted with Chinese workers to work on the sugar cane plantations. Each wave of immigrants brought with them their cultural food,” says Alan Wong, chef and owner of Alan Wong’s Restaurant in Honolulu.

As wave after wave of immigrants arrived—be they Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Puerto Rican, Samoan, Thai, or Vietnamese—they each brought elements of their culinary style that left a permanent impression on Hawaii’s cuisine. Workers from various ethnic backgrounds began sharing lunches on the plantations, and soon interracial marriages became the impetus for melding recipes. Traditional ingredients in Hawaii borrowed from other cultures included five spice, char siu, wasabi, tofu, patis and bagoong fish sauces, sushi, sashimi, jicama, Spam, and melons. Cultural dishes such as bao ji (stuffed, steamed, or baked buns), dim sum, and gau (sticky, sweet rice cakes) were comingled.

The Western world further influenced the diet in Hawaii. A high U.S. military presence existed during World War II and in 1959, Hawaii was ushered in as the 50th state. “Local food has been strongly influenced by the high military residency in World War II when canned and shelf-stable foods like Spam and potted meats were introduced to the culture by the military. A favorite dish for kids after soccer practice is Musubi, which is a slice of Spam molded together with sticky, local white rice and wrapped in seaweed,” says Daryl Smith-Oswald, RD, a nutrition therapy consultant in private practice in Kailua, Oahu.

The Native Hawaiian culture found itself discriminated against and lands were overtaken; thus, the people suffered from poverty. Many Native Hawaiian values became shameful or devalued. While once the islanders ate food that was mostly available free of charge from the land and sea, these foods became inaccessible and expensive. Imported foods became highly advertised. Native Hawaiians were gradually forced to rely on cheap, convenient foods.

Native Hawaiian Nutrition Today
Before Western contact, the traditional Hawaiian diet was low in saturated fat and cholesterol and high in complex carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins, and minerals. The diet contained 75% to 78% carbohydrate, 12% to 15% protein, and less than 10% fat. The Westerners introduced high-calorie, high-saturated fat, high-cholesterol, high-sodium, low-complex carbohydrate, and low-fiber foods. The Native Hawaiian diet began to fade away.

“The diet of Native Hawaiians today, like other ethnic groups in Hawaii, has become more modern and includes fast foods, mayonnaise, and Spam. It is high in saturated fat, protein, and high in simple carbohydrates,” says Rachel Novotny, PhD, professor of nutrition, director of the Nutritional Assessment of the Population Program, and principal investigator of a recent research report in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association on “Ethnicity and Nutrition of Adolescent Girls in Hawaii.”

“I think there are three diets in Hawaii: the native, which is mostly gone—that would be the ancient Hawaiian diet of fish, taro, poi, breadfruit, tropical fruits, and yams; one sort of local diet, which is expensive and more time consuming to prepare than a diet of fast and convenience food; and another sort of local diet, which is a mixture of ethnic foods like Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, fast foods, and local foods, which would include items like loco moco,” says Smith-Oswald. “Transplants from the mainland are often economically able to consume a diet of [healthfully] prepared fish dishes, as well as lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, occasionally brown rice, and a mixture of Euro-Asian influence foods like sushi and Thai dishes.”

Now, Native Hawaiian mortality rates are the highest and life expectancy is the lowest compared with the four other major ethnic groups residing in Hawaii. The top five causes of death (heart disease, cancer, strokes, accidents, and diabetes) for Native Hawaiians are the same as for the overall total population, but their rates are much higher. This is partially attributed to the loss and abandonment of the traditional Hawaiian values of diet, lifestyle, alternative medicine, spirituality, and religion that were once practiced to maintain health and well-being. Ethnic minorities at high risk for obesity in Hawaii include 61% of Pacific Islanders (including Native Hawaiians and Samoans) compared with 14% of whites and 11% of Asians. Of special concern is obesity among Pacific Islander youths.1

A Renaissance for the Native Hawaiian Diet
In recent years, health experts have recognized the significance of the Native Hawaiian diet and have tried to breathe new life into it within the Native Hawaiian population. The Waianae Diet Program developed at the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center was a community-based intervention strategy that used a pre-Western contact Hawaiian diet to reduce chronic disease risk factors in Native Hawaiians. While the participants were encouraged to eat to satiety, the average intake fell from 2,594 to 1,569 calories per day with an average weight loss of 7.8 kilograms, average serum cholesterol decrease of 0.81 millimoles per liter, and average blood pressure decrease of 11.5 millimeters of mercury systolic and 8.9 millimeters of mercury diastolic.2 Terry Shintani, director of integrative medicine at Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center and author of the book Dr. Shintani’s Hawaii Diet (Atria, 1999), has focused his career on bringing a healthy lifestyle back to Native Hawaiians through the ancient diet and lifestyle.

Sharon Ka`iulani Odom, MPH, RD (a speaker at the American Dietetic Association Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo), is a Native Hawaiian dietitian working in the Health, Wellness and Family Education Department Extension Education Division of the Kamehameha Schools. Odom focuses on the use of traditional cultural knowledge to do food- and agricultural-related projects to support Native Hawaiian health. “I’ve been working for the past 15 years with traditional foods. We support Native Hawaiian foods in agriculture and incorporate them into community and school programs, including a pilot project with school lunches,” says Odom.

According to Novotny, pilot programs and special efforts within government programs have been designed to serve and reach Native Hawaiians, often drawing on traditional practices. Odom notes that when she first started work using traditional foods in Native Hawaiian programs, there was a lot of skepticism that diet alone couldn’t do the trick for chronic risk factors. “We proved that it did. Their blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose were lowered and they had renewed energy. We are helping the community use knowledge of traditional foods and lifestyle, where people gave respect to food from the ground to the body.”

— SP

Hawaiian Food Resources
Get into the Hawaiian spirit and curl up with a book on Hawaiian foods and culture.

• Dr. Shintani’s Hawaii Diet by Terry Shintani (Atria, 1999)

• Entertaining Hawaiian Style by Patricia L. Fry (Island Heritage Publishing, 2000)

• The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii’s Culinary Heritage by Rachel Laudan (University of Hawaii Press, 1996)

• Hawaii Dietetic Association, Hawaii Health Food Guide, Hawaii Diet Manual, www.nutritionhawaii.org

References
1. Rodriquez B. Dietary studies in the multi-ethnic Hawaiian population. J Am Diet Assoc. 2006;106(2):209-210.

2. Shintani TT, Hughes CK, Beckham S, et al. Obesity and cardiovascular risk intervention through the ad libitum feeding of traditional Hawaiian diet. Am J Clin Nutr. 1991;53(6 Suppl):1647S-1651S.