For cultural anthropologists, the Hawaiian “plate lunch” – two scoops of rice and a scoop of macaroni salad sidled up to a pile of meat or seafood – serves as the perfect metaphor for the ethnic swirl that is the Aloha State.
It’s a meal where Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Hawaiian and American culinary traditions mix it up in a friendly way. Barbecued chicken mingles with Hawaiian dry-smoked pork; fried shrimp gets along just fine with short ribs and curry. Spam is wrapped up sushi-style in rice and nori.
Lucky for us mainlanders, Oahu is generous with its exports and has sent a link of the ubiquitous – 40 locations on Oahu alone! – L&L Hawaiian Barbecue chain to Aurora.
It’s a tiny storefront in Aurora City Place, north of the former Aurora Mall, where owner Sai Yamagata serves huge plate-lunch combos infused with big island flavors: sweet, salt and soy, not the cloying pineapple-coconut combo you might expect.
Yamagata came to Colorado from Hawaii. He got his degree from the University of Northern Colorado, cut his restaurant chops at Old Chicago and two summers ago opened L&L. East Aurora was a natural location, he says. It’s close to Buckley Air Force Base and plenty of customers who learned to love Hawaiian barbecue while stationed at Hickham AFB on Oahu. His Colorado Springs store should open by year’s end.
Beginners and ordinary-
sized appetites should start with a mini plate lunch. You’ll pick from a dozen meat choices. Best bets are chicken katsu ($3.95), chicken tenders coated in panko and fried and served with a sweet house-
made brown sauce, and kalua pig with cabbage ($4.50), smoky shredded pork with a pile of stewed cabbage stirred in. Minis come with a scoop of steamed rice and a scoop of creamy mac salad.
Bring a friend and share the enormous BBQ Mix ($7.75). You’ll still have enough soy infused short ribs – bone in and sliced as thin as a coin – to take home for supper. Add a manapua roll ($1.75), a plump steamed bun housing sweet pink pork, and you’ll have some chicken and Hawaiian barbecue beef left over too.
The truly bold can try the Loco Moco ($3.95 mini, $5.95 regular), a bizarre combination of hamburger steak served over rice and topped with a slick of brown gravy and a fried egg. It’s reportedly an island favorite, but we couldn’t get past the fact that it looks painfully like a dressed-up cafeteria Salisbury steak.
Wash it all down with a can of Hawaiian Sun (89 cents). Little kalua pigs that we are, we tasted five flavors and determined the fizz-free Lilikoi Passion is the perfect tart foil to L&L’s laden plate lunches.
Staff writer Dana Coffield can be reached at 303-820-1954 or dcoffield@denverpost.com.
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L&L Hawaiian Barbecue
Hawaiian|14221 E. Cedar Ave., Unit C, Aurora; 303-340-8824|
89 cents-$10.75|Open 10 a.m.-9 p.m. daily. Visa, MC
Front burner: Savvy staffers are happy to help newbies navigate every corner of the menu, including the cooler jammed with Hawaiian sodas in unfamiliar flavors.
Back burner: There’s no room for a smoker in Aurora City Place, so L&L uses Liquid Smoke.
