Loco Moco

Hawaii has several unusual foods that could have become popular anywhere, but seem mostly to have caught on only here. First, there is that weird use of Spam. This stuff comes from Minnesota. I guess it became a staple during WWII and stills shows up here in sushi, omelets, and spam fried rice.

Loco moco is another example of “it could have happened anywhere”, but it happened here. The Loco moco is a bed of rice, topped with a hamburger and egg, and embellished with brown gravy. No pineapple, lilikoi, poi, coconut, or even avocado. Wikipedia has an account of how the logo moco came to be. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loco_moco

The waitress asked me how I wanted the hamburger. I said medium. She asked about the egg. I said scrambled. She looked at me a little bemused. I don’t like runny yolks, but I learned from Wikipedia that you are to mix the yolk with the rice. Maybe for breakfast. This was lunch.