A few weeks ago, my colleague, Dave, came into the office with a weirdly happy expression on his face and a foam take-out box in hand.
He sat at his desk and flipped open the box’s lid and exclaimed: “Hawaiian barbecue!”
And I thought, “Well, there’s something I haven’t written about for Eats yet.”
So here we are.
Santa Maria’s got a couple of Hawaiian barbecue joints: D&A and Zoe’s. Since the genre of food was new to me, I thought I’d try both places and do a compare-and-contrast type thing—but as it turns out, that’s not such an easy feat.
Hawaiian barbecue is delicious but it’s heavy and it comes in fatally huge portions. I ate it for lunch two days in a row and now I have to replace all my pants. So, consider yourself warned.
I started with Zoe’s and opted for a combination plate with katsu chicken, teriyaki beef, and fried mahi-mahi, accompanied with two scoops of rice and one of macaroni salad. While waiting for my order, I soaked up the atmosphere of the place: Zoe’s definitely goes all-out with the island decor, sporting flowers, twinkly lights, surfboards, and framed Hawaiian phrases.
Have you ever been to Hawaii? I went to Maui about a year ago, and as summer approaches I keep finding myself drifting off into memories of warm ocean water and tropical greenery and sea turtles and colorful fish and mai tais … but then I usually have to snap out of it, because I’m at work or something.
But at Zoe’s I could drift into those memories for as long as I’d like, and the restaurant was totally conducive to that kind of distracted behavior, so if you like to think about Hawaii instead of all the crap you should be doing, then you know where to grab lunch.
Anyway. My food came in a take-out box even though I’d ordered “for here” because apparently, that’s just how the Hawaiian barbecue places do it. I started with the mahi-mahi. It was lightly fried, buttery, and hands-down amazing. Moving on to the chicken katsu, I was happy with it but not particularly impressed, and then came the teriyaki beef—and holy crap, oh my goodness, that stuff was so good I can’t even deal with it. It was just unreasonably packed with flavor.
I came nowhere near finishing my meal, but it was a pretty wonderful first Hawaiian barbecue experience. The next day I tried D&A.
When Dave came in all crazy about his Hawaiian barbecue lunch, he was eating D&A. So I was stoked to try it. I again ordered a combination plate, this one with fried shrimp, fish, and beef barbecue. The price ran about the same as Zoe’s, but at D&A my take-out box wouldn’t even close, it was stuffed with so much food. I’d say you can bet on more bang for your buck from D&A.
The barbecue beef was incredible. And greasy. But, ya know. The fish seemed more fried than it was at Zoe’s—buried beneath a thicker layer of crispy batter. I hadn’t tried Zoe’s shrimp, but I really enjoyed what I got from D&A.
D&A didn’t have the atmosphere Zoe’s did—it was more of a sit down, eat your food, and get out kind of place. It did, however, have a thoroughly entertaining “check-in” wall, where past customers left notes, reviews, and even receipts. My favorite note just said “I don’t like fish.” Ha.
So there ya go: Should you eat Hawaiian barbecue? Yes. Should you eat it two days in a row? Probably not. But if you’ve got a super stretchy wardrobe, I say go for it.
Brenna Swanston had to try really hard not to use any cliché Hawaiian phrases in this article. Congratulate her on her success at bswanston@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 9-16, 2016.