Visit any Hawaiian island and you're sure to walk away knowing one thing: Hawaiians love them some carbs. Most meals are piled high with macaroni salad (just "mac salad" to an islander), rice and often potato salad, along with the meat of choice. It's a carb-y phenomenon that non-islanders might puzzle about...but if you're a true Hawaiian, it just seems right.
If you've been looking for "grinds" like your Hawaiian ohana (the Hawaiian word for "family") used to make, Local Grindz is it. The snazzy new food truck, decked out in bright red and green with surfboards on the side, is located in the parking lot of the Habitat for Humanity ReStore at 224 NE Thurston Avenue in Bend.
Classic Hawaiian dishes include Kalua Pig—the shredded pork dish traditionally buried in the ground and cooked for days. Here, it's oven-cooked for seven hours to let the flavors and juices mingle and make a salty, crave-worthy main dish served on a bed of thin-sliced cabbage. Also worth checking out are the teriyaki plates, served up with a homemade teriyaki sauce the cart's owners, Helene and Brian Yamamoto, have been perfecting for about 50 years. It doesn't get any more authentic than that.
The Yamamotos also make their own homemade Korean BBQ marinade for their Kalbi BBQ, served with either top sirloin or chicken. And to round out the Hawaiian tradition of mingling Asian cultures, the cart also offers Pork Tonkatsu—a pork cutlet that's soaked in egg and breaded with Japanese panko flour before deep-frying.
Now here's the part that's most Hawaiian: All the above-named dishes are served not just with a ball of rice, but also with macaroni AND potato salad, mixed together. If you're Hawaiian or you're entertaining Hawaiian guests, they're going to toss up a big shaka for this one.
Local Grindz
224 NE Thurston Ave., Bend
Monday-Saturday, 10:30am-3pm
541-610-3494
