Aloha Mixed Plate

In the early days of the sugar plantations, lunch was a simple affair. Plantation workers gathered in the fields for their mid-day meal. The Japanese laborers would bring teriyaki beef with rice and pickled vegetables. Seated next to them might be their Filipino neighbors with the traditional dish adobo or perhaps a pork or chicken stew. The Koreans had their kalbi or marinated ribs and the Chinese a rice noodle and vegetable dish called chow fun. Hawaiians were known for their kalua pig, roasted in an underground oven called an imu. It wasn’t long before they began to share their foods with one another and the “mixed plate” was born.

Today in Hawaii there are many restaurants that serve a Hawaiian Mixed Plate or, as it is sometimes called, A Hawaiian Plate Lunch. You can have a choice of beef/chicken/pork entrees or you can have the salmon/fish. Each platter consists of portions of two entrees and always two scoops of rice or macaroni salad.

So far one of the places we have had this “mixed plate” is at Aloha Mixed Plate in Lahaina. Aloha Mixed Plate is located right on the waterfront and is all open air dining. It is your typical tropical dining experience and feel.

I had the Coconut Prawns served with Pineapple Chutney and he 2 scoops or rice and 1 scoop of macaroni salad ($9.95). The prawns were cooked well and had lots of crusted coconut. The rice was moist and filling. The macaroni salad however, was a bit bland and tasted mainly of mayo.

My husband had the Hawaiian Plate ($ 8.95)- Kalua Pork & Cabbage, Lomi Lomi Salmon, Poi, Macaroni Salad, Rice and Haupia. Kalua Pork is traditionally done in an ium or underground oven. Lomi Lomi Salmon is prepared by mixing raw salted, diced salmon with tomatoes, sweet gentle Maui onions. Poi s produced by mashing the cooked corm (taro) to a highly viscous fluid. Haupia is a coconut milk based desert that is considered a pudding but the consistency is more like a gelatin desert. His meal was all very delicious and the pork was very moist. It was also very filling.

This place is a nice place to go to relax and watch the ocean roll by.