The manapua truck

[beowabbit]

Since I’ve gotten here, every morning I’ve heard the tinkly, music-box-like music with varying tempo that I associate with ice cream trucks. The first morning I heard it, I wanted to go out and see if I could get an ice-cream cone, but I didn’t have a key to the house and I wasn’t quite dressed.

It's not an ice-cream truck. It’s a manapua truck.

Manapua are big round steamed buns filled (usually) with barbecued pork, very similar to, but not completely identical with, the ones you get at dim-sum. They’re yummy (although I have it on good authority that the ones from this particular manapua truck aren’t quite so yummy), and you find them at little kiosks and carts — and trucks — in Hawai‘i the way you find hot dogs and Jamaican patties in Boston.

In other local-kine food news, I have (somewhat surprisingly) not yet had anything with spam in it this trip. Spam is the national food of Hawai‘i. My favourite Hawai‘ian spam dish (so far) is spam-and-egg musubi -- basically spam sushi: spam and scrambled egg, wrapped in rice, wrapped in seaweed (and usually quite a bit bigger than a typical sushi maki). There were a couple spam dishes on the menu at Zippy’s last night, but I was more interested in the kimchee fried rice.

Comments

[angelovernh.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I think I'd like manapua a lot ;)
I don't remember spam being that popular when I used to go so frequently.. maybe it was and I just didn't have it because my parents didn't like it.