Officially known as the Wednesday Night Ho’olaule’a Market, it’s a big tent — literally and figuratively — with a wide ethnic mix of Hawaiian-style food vendors, a few craft booths, and a stage where you can hear live music while you sip a cold beer.
On a recent Wednesday, I wandered beneath the tent, sniffing the aroma of good foods, and faced a tough choice for dinner. Among options:
— Mom & Pop’s Kau Kau Corner, with rib-eye steak and garlic shrimp, $19.
— Big Island Flatbread, with $8 gyros.
— Stickman Hawaii, with vegan black bean soup, $4 a bowl.
— A no-name lumpia stand, offering the Filipino crispy roll filled with beef, pork, banana or sweet potato, three for $5.
— Healani’s Kitchen, offering Broke da Mouth Hawaiian Pastele Stew, made with pork and banana dumplings, $10.
— Bananarama Bakery, with Lilikoi (Hawaiian passion fruit) Cream Pie, $5.
I popped for Aloha Lehua Cafe’s Hawaiian Nacho Plate, $10, with kalua pig, tomato-laden lomi-lomi salmon, and slatherings of a secret sauce (which seemed a lot like mayonnaise with lemon and horseradish) piled high on homemade tortilla chips. Rich and salty, probably horribly unhealthful — and really delicious when washed down with a Big Wave golden ale from Kona Brewing.
It was the perfect thing to gobble while listening to local musicians calling themselves “The Kingdom of Hawaii” — three guitarists, a ukulele player and a drummer, on a stage draped with green, red and yellow flags of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.
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IF YOU GO
5-9 p.m. every Wednesday, at the south end of Highway 137 in Kaimu, on the big island of Hawaii.
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