Congratulations! You’ve officially made us hungry.

Seriously hungry.

We’ve just finished tallying all of your votes from our most recent HAWAII Magazine Facebook Ohana Poll question: “What’s your favorite Hawaii plate lunch menu item?”

Before revealing the Top 5 food favorites, we’ll just say this: HAWAII Magazine readers know their Hawaii plate lunches, and what they like on ‘em!  Though we asked for just your favorite plate lunch menu items many of you voluntarily took your answers to the next level. 

Lupi Cameron Heinz, for example, strongly recommended ordering meat jun—her Hawaii plate lunch favorite—with kimchee cucumber, potatoes and macaroni salad sides. Dustin Froyum suggested bringing your own bottle of chili pepper water when visiting Giovanni’s Aloha Shrimp Truck on Oahu's North Shore for his favorite: shrimp scampi. When shoyu chicken is on the daily specials menu at Oahu’s Zippy’s restaurants, Bonnie Wood says it’s a must-have. And if you ever find yourself driving though Moscow, Idaho, Sarah Werner stands behind LocoGrinz Hawaiian Style Plate Lunch’s kal-bi short ribs, rice and macaroni salad plate.

We now also know that our Facebook ohana loves a scoop of Hawaii-style macaroni salad with just about any kind of food on a plate lunch menu. Seriously.

A big mahalo from all of us at HAWAII Magazine for all of the extra details! We’re sure your fellow HAWAII Magazine Facebook ohana members appreciate the advice, too.

If you’d like to join in on our next poll and vote along with our growing Facebook fan page ohana, click here. Become a HAWAII Magazine Facebook fan and you’ll get our “Hawaii favorite” poll questions as soon as we post them, and also get instant updates on your Facebook wall when we post all of our daily HawaiiMagazine.com stories and features.

We'll be posting our next Ohana Poll question on HAWAII Magazine's Facebook fan page in the days ahead, so make to sure to join soon.

Now let's grab some lunch! Here’s the Top 5 countdown of our Facebook ohana’s favorite Hawaii plate lunch menu items:



Barbecue sauce in Hawaii is not the same as the thick, smoky-spicy-tangy reddish-brown variety commonly used in Mainland U.S grilling. Our Hawaii-style barbecue chicken gets its sweet-and-tangy flavor from a marinade of shoyu, sugar, and fresh garlic and ginger. The chicken pieces—deboned and butterflied thighs work best—are marinated overnight to soak in flavor until just before grilling. Two scoops of rice and macaroni salad are all but required by Hawaii law on every barbecue chicken plate lunch, to soak up any extra sauce after grilling.




It’s not all that difficult to figure out why laulau has endured as a favorite Hawaii dish since ancient times. Besides its savory, uniquely Hawaiian taste, it’s also, arguably, Hawaii’s first real mixed plate. Laulau is a complete meal—pork, chicken or beef, salted butterfish and taro leaves wrapped in ti leaves and steamed. (In ancient times, it was cooked in an imu, a Hawaiian undeground oven) Served piping hot when every ingredient within the ti leaves is cooked to tender, salt-kissed perfection, laulau done right is Hawaiian food nirvana.




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Your Top 5 favorite Hawaii snacks: Our HAWAII Magazine Facebook poll results
Top 5 favorite must-have Hawaii foods: HAWAII Magazine Facebook poll results
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