An ode to the Hawaiian Plate Lunch

by Pam Mandel on

One of the finest meals I’ve ever eaten was on the island of Oahu at a fancy bistro called Chef Mavro. This place is expensive — It’s no problem to spend 100 dollars per person on dinner. But the beautifully sculpted little plates had melt in your mouth sashimi and delicately browned crab rolls in fine rice paper wrappers and, oh, truly, it was a memorable experience.

I can’t think of Chef Mavro’s pricey restaurant without, in the same moment, thinking of a meal I’d had not 24 hours earlier at a bright green diner in funky, hippie-crunchy Honoka’a on Hawaii’s Big Island. At CC Jon”s Snack and Shoppe I spent about 7 dollars on chicken katsu, rice, mac salad, and a huge Styrofoam cup of soda. And there, I fell in love with the plate lunch. For some reason, I mentioned this to our waiter at Chef Mavro. “You went to CCs!” exclaimed the self described Big Island boy. “I’m from Honoka’a, that place is da kine.”

Hawaii has remarkable food. Smack in the middle of the ocean, populated by Native Hawaiians, Europeans (predominantly Portuguese, at first), and people from around the Pacific Rim, it’s a melting pot of culinary cliches — fresh, fusion, Pacific Rim, organic, local…. There’s an abundance of tropical produce and the boats come in daily bearing fresh seafood. Hawaii Regional Cuisine — the combination of locally sourced ingredients combined with the chef’s own sensibilities — seems almost inevitable in a place where good ingredients are readily available.

But my heart and its hardened arteries belong to junkier offerings. Haupia malasadas: essentially, a donut filled with coconut pudding. Chicken long rice: Fried noodles with chicken and a passing acknowledgment to vegetables. Milkshakes from the Roselani counter in the International Marketplace, good lord, the butterfat. And all that takes back seat to the main course, the plate lunch.At its most basic, the plate lunch is two scoops of white rice, a scoop of macaroni salad, thick with mayonnaise, and a serving of meat. Fried, probably, though you can also get two grilled Portuguese sausage patties or a serving of garlic shrimp. Plate lunch typically comes on a flimsy paper or other throwaway plate, or in a Styrofoam container that you can carry across the street to that picnic bench that’s makai — ocean side — from the food truck. It generates a shocking amount of garbage, the containers, the napkins, the plastic forks and knives. The classic plate lunch is unhealthy, environmentally unfriendly, and awesome.

Historically, the plate lunch is attributed to plantation workers combining leftover rice with whatever meat or fish was available. It was the 1880s; sugar and pineapple magnates imported laborers from the Philippines, Portugal, Japan, China… they had to eat. The meal has evolved over time to include a green salad (probably with Thousand Island dressing) or brown rice in a nod towards taking the cholesterol count down a notch. On your plate lunch you can get fried chicken or teriyaki beef or kalua pork or any number of things. Can’t wait for lunch? There’s the breakfast plate lunch, loco moco. White rice, fried eggs, a burger patty, all smothered in gravy. I pass on that and go for either garlic shrimp or my favorite, poke — marinated raw tuna.

It’s easy to fall into metaphors that use the plate lunch as an analogy for life in Hawaii. A combination of cultures, all hanging out together and making something better for their merging. I don’t necessarily buy that happy idea. I think plate lunch is more of a delicious mess than a expression of cultural harmony. And wrapped up in that delicious mess is an experience that is quintessentially Hawaiian islands.

The wind picks up your napkins and hurls them down the beach, you have to run after them. Stuffed on rice, you bring your coffee milkshake the to car and leave it in the cup holder and then, in the mini-fridge in your room. Your fingers are sticky from peeling shrimp so you wash them in the surf and they are sticky from the ocean. You’re wracked with guilt over the staggering amount of mayo in the mac salad, and yet, you eat every last elbow shaped mayo coated piece of pasta. You swear that you will take a long walk to make up for the unbelievable amount of calories you consumed that afternoon, but when you get back to your rented condo or hotel, you are lulled into indolence by the evening light on the beautiful beach boys and girls. Somewhere, a kid who looks like a total bad-ass is playing the ukulele like an angel, the sweet sound of it floats on the breeze. Dinner time is coming and the L&L, Hawaii’s infamous takeout chain is right there.

“Plate lunch,” you think. “I could have that for dinner, right?”

Image: The Even More Legendary Giovanni’s #2 by Permanently Scattered via Flickr (Creative Commons)

On the road with Mauiva AirCruise: dispatches from the journey

by Kirsten Alana on

Along with two Australian couples and our Italian guide, I left New York before the sun had fully risen, prepared to visit over a six day period – Niagara Falls, Toronto, Hershey, Lancaster and Washington DC with Mauiva AirCruise.

Our flight from Westchester deposited us on the American side of Niagara Falls and we were shuttled in a private bus over the border into Canada to stay for two nights at the Sheraton on the Falls. Riding on the Maid of the Mist boat, straight into the heart of Horseshoe Falls towering mists and seeing a double rainbow generated by the mix of precipitation and sunshine that occurs there 365 days a year was my favorite experience. Though it seemed there was no activity involving Horseshoe, Bridal Veil or the American Falls that we did not do and by the time we departed Canada on our third day, I had had enough of water. During our brief jaunts away from the falls, to Toronto and Niagara-on-the-Lake, I enjoyed the view from the CN Tower and a wine tasting that involved many a sip of Ontario’s sweet and unique icewine.

After landing in Pennsylvania, we headed to the Hershey Factory, where we watched as personalized candy bars were made uniquely for each of us – toffee and pretzel bits in milk chocolate for me. Lunch was in quaint Lancaster where I found the colonial architecture more appealing than the fast food choices for lunch. Moving on to Amish country, we toured a homestead, schoolhouse, working farm, watched cows being milked and learned about Rumspringa by watching, “Jacob’s Choice”. I wondered internally at what my travel companions made of the Amish culture and over dinner at a traditional Amish restaurant we compared and contrasted the Amish and Native Americans with the Aboriginal people of the Australian outback.

That evening, our earliest check-in of the trip at the Double Tree Resort in Lancaster, I found the pool and hot tub still open and fully took advantage of the amenities. Before leaving Pennsylvania the next morning, we stopped in Harrisburg where I was surprised to find their unique green-domed state capitol building quite impressive.

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Our first day in Washington DC began with a visit to the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum near Dulles and though we had the least amount of time there, the AV geek inside me so enjoyed seeing the space shuttle, Concorde jet and Enola Gay. The balance of our time that day was spent at the Capitol Building and walking all of the major memorials in a driving rain. Walking around Paris when it is gray is somehow enjoyable in a way doing the same in Washington DC was not. I wondered if a portion of the trip couldn’t have been rearranged for weather. Checking in to the Washington Hilton, bags already waiting in my room, definitely helped to erase some of the effects of such an exhausting day.

The next morning, during a long boat ride down the Potomac to Mt. Vernon, I had time to reflect on what it meant to be in the capital. For the Australians, I suspected it was simply a chance to peek inside America from a political and historical perspective. For me, somewhat uneasy with everything going on in America right now, the experience was already vastly different from the one I had as an impressionable high school student so long ago. I felt my patriotism, even at Arlington National Cemetery, more in check than ever before. In the end, it was the Smithsonian Art Museums I felt most excited by and I was happy to find our visit coincided with the opening of an Andy Warhol exhibit at the Hirshhorn.

Perhaps most surprising about my experience with Mauiva AirCruise was the vast amount of activities we packed into a six day adventure. Because we flew privately between the major cities anchoring our trip and had our own coach for the drives between attractions, typical travel delays were almost non-existent. It’s an experience I would repeat again for even in the locations I’d visited before, I learned something new through the lens of the Mauiva AirCruise experience.

Video of the Day – On Assignment in Yosemite

by Stephen Greenwood on

We’ve all done it. Nestled up on a nice warm couch, leafing (or scrolling) through a National Geographic magazine, you suddenly notice a beautiful photograph and wonder “how did they get that shot?”. Then, without pause for a second thought, you turn the page and continue browsing – for the most part taking all of the hard work that went into producing those images for granted.

If you’ve ever wanted to see just what goes into getting some of the incredible shots that make it into magazines like National Geographic, today’s Video of the Day gives a thrilling inside look at one photographer’s assignment in Yosemite. Produced by Renan Ozturk, this 6-minute piece follows climber, skier, and photographer Jimmy Chin as he captures some of the most innovative climbing happening in Yosemite today.

Do you put everything on the line to capture amazing moments? The world wants to see it! Submit to our Flickr Pool or leave a link in the comments below and it could be Gadling’s next Photo/Video of the Day.

Exhibit at Austrian Cultural Forum in New York gives a new perspective on beauty

by Jessica Festa on

The Austrian Cultural Forum in New York is currently hosting Beauty Contest, an exhibit featuring 20 international artists focusing their work on their interpretation of beauty. Some of the artists call upon their own experiences being a gay/lesbian, transgendered, or exhibitionist living in eastern Europe, while others comment on beauty’s evolution in terms of society. Visitors can expect these visions to be presented through an array of mediums, including sculpture, video, photography, and painting.

The majority of the artists working on this exhibit live and work in Vienna, Austria, however, there are still some artists who grew up in Austria and moved to New York, and others who have been raised in various American cities. Artists you may recognize include Cindy Sherman, Matthias Herrmann, Kalup Linzy, and Evangelia Kranioti.

The exhibit runs until January 3, 2012, and on certain dates there will be special events held as part of the Beauty Contest program:

  • October 19- A panel discussion will be held at 6:30PM, moderated by Gia Kourlas, the dance editor at Time Out New York as well as a dance critic for the New York Times. Other members of the panel will include French historian, dancer, and choreographer François Chaignaud, American author of The Man in the Grey Flannel Skirt Jon-Jon Goulian, Austrian dancer and choreographer Silke Grabinger, and the curatorial advisor for the exhibition Beauty Contest, Salette Gressett. The discussion will focus on “how emancipatory artistic reflection and practice has fought to reveal the hidden structures of repression toward gender, race, and age and to shake off antiquated visual preconceptions”.
  • November 10- A performance by Austrian artist Maria Petschnig will take place at 7:30PM. It will consist of video clips and live action that suggests fantasies, transitioning from the sensual to the grotesque. The performance will question the difference between public and private as well as one’s actual self verses the staged self.
  • Every Wednesday- Private tours are led at 5PM by co-curator Andreas Stadler.

The gallery is located at 11 East 52nd St. New York, NY 10022 (between Madison and 5th Ave) and the exhibit is open daily from 10am – 6pm.

Eurochocolate: Italy’s biggest chocolate festival

by Melanie Renzulli on



Italy may not be synonymous with chocolate in the way that Switzerland is, but it does produce one of the world’s most recognizable brands: Perugina Baci. Wrapped in silver foil dotted with blue stars and lined with a love note, the chocolate and hazelnut morsels known as Baci are the fortune cookies of the chocolate world.

Perugina, the company that manufactures Baci and a handful of other chocolate brands, is named after and based in Perugia, capital of the Italian region of Umbria and the home of Italy’s biggest chocolate festival: Eurochocolate. Each October, more than 100 artisan chocolatiers and European chocolate companies, such as Lindt, Milka, and Toblerone, set up shop along Corso Vannucci, Perugia’s main street, for nine days of chocolate tasting, cooking demonstrations, and clever exhibitions and activities centered around chocolate. For example, with each edition Eurochocolate features sculptures carved from blocks of cacao, ranging from medieval statues to chocolate representations of Italy’s major landmarks. During Eurochocolate, visitors can sign up for all-chocolate spa days or visit participating local restaurants to indulge in entire meals made from chocolate.

Eurochocolate 2011 begins on October 14 and runs through October 23. If you’re unable to catch Eurochocolate in Perugia, both Rome and Turin present their own Eurochocolate festivals at other times of the year.

Photo © Eurochocolate Perugia