Frommer's Kauai - Jeanette Foster [102]
3416 Rice St., Nawiliwili. 80 8/246-4422.www.jjsbroiler.com. Reservations recommended for dinner. Lunch sandwiches $12–$16; dinner main courses $25–$33. DISC, MC, V. Daily 11am–10pm.
Plate Lunch Palaces
If you haven’t yet come face-to-face with the local phenomenon called plate lunch, Kauai is a good place to start. Like saimin, the plate lunch is more than a gastronomic experience—it’s part of the local culture. Lihue is peppered with affordable plate-lunch counters that serve this basic dish: two scoops of rice, potato or macaroni salad, and a beef, chicken, fish, or pork entree—all on a single plate. Although heavy gravies are usually de rigueur, some of the less traditional purveyors have streamlined their offerings to include healthier touches, such as lean grilled fresh fish. Pork cutlets and chicken or beef soaked in teriyaki sauce, however, remain staples, as does the breaded and crisply fried method called katsu, as in chicken katsu. Most of the time, fried is the operative word; that’s why it’s best to be ravenously hungry when you approach a plate lunch, or it can overpower you. At its best, a plate lunch can be a marvel of flavors, a saving grace after a long hike; at its worst, it’s a plate-size grease bomb.
The following are the best plate-lunch counters on Kauai. How fortunate that each is in a different part of the island!
The Koloa Fish Market , 5482 Koloa Rd. ( 80 8/742-6199), is in southern Kauai on Koloa’s main street. A tiny corner stand with plate lunches, prepared foods, and two stools on a closet-size veranda, it sells excellent fresh fish poke, Hawaiian-food specials, and seared ahi to go. It’s gourmet fare masquerading as takeout. Daily specials may include sautéed ahi or fresh opakapaka with capers, one of life’s consummate pleasures. For a picnic or outing on the south shore, this is a good place to start.
On the Hanamaulu side of Lihue, across the street from Wal-Mart, look for the prim, gray building that reads Fish Express , 3343 Kuhio Hwy. ( 80 8/245-9918). It’s astonishing what you’ll find here for the price of a movie: Cajun-style grilled ahi with guava basil, fresh fish grilled in a passion-orange-tarragon sauce, fresh fish tacos in garlic and herbs, and many other delectables, all served with rice, salad, and vegetables. The Hawaiian plate lunch (laulau or kalua pork, lomi salmon, ahi poke, rice, or poi) is a top seller, as are the several varieties of smoked fish, everything from ahi to swordfish. The owners marinate the fish in soy sauce, sugar, ginger, and garlic (no preservatives) and smoke it with kiawe wood. The fresh fish specials, at $8.95, come in six preparations and are flavored to perfection. At the chilled counter you can choose freshly sliced sashimi and many styles of poke, from scallop, ahi, and octopus to exotic marinated crab. This is a potluck bonanza that engages even newcomers, who point and order while regulars pick up sweeping assortments of seafood appetizers on large platters. They’re all fresh and at good prices, especially for Friday-afternoon pau hana (after-work) parties.
In east Kauai’s Kapaa town, the indispensable Pono Market, 4–1300 Kuhio Hwy. ( 80 8/822-4581), has similarly enticing counters of sashimi, poke, Hawaiian food, sushi, and a diverse assortment of takeout fare. It’s known for its flaky manju (sweet potato and other fillings in baked crust), apple turnovers, sandwiches, excellent boiled peanuts, pork and chicken laulau, and plate lunches—shoyu