Jacinto opened the business in 2017, when her former employer at Hawaiian Grill Express in San Lorenzo asked if she would be interested in running her own restaurant as a part-owner. Since then, Jacinto has overseen iLava’s success, expanding into catering services and a food truck that circulates the entire Bay Area.
The business serves classic Hawaiian-style plate lunches that feature dishes like barbecue chicken, beef and short ribs, kalua pork, lau lau and garlic shrimp. There’s also a menu of fresh tropical smoothies like the “Hawaiian Sunrise,” a tangy blend of passionfruit and mango.
The one Yelp reviewer who says iLava is “not a true authentic Hawaiian place” because they don’t serve poi seems to miss the point about what the restaurant does do well: a Californian version of Pacific Island sustenance, served at reasonable prices, in a part of the city that otherwise lacks any major Polynesian presence.
In many ways, Hawaiian culinary history seems to be just that—a whirlpool of various, inexplicably linked ingredients from miscellaneous sources that can be cooked on the spot for anyone who’s hungry. Jacinto embodies this fusion in her own journey. After immigrating to the East Bay from the Philippines in 2009, Jacinto missed the flavors of her past. Though she isn’t Hawaiian by birth, many of her Filipino family members migrated to Hawaii in the 1990s. During yearly trips to the islands, she learned about the nuanced varieties of regional foods while helping her mother cook for relatives. According to Jacinto, the parallels between Hawaiians and Filipinos are unmistakable, highlighted by “a great sense of hospitality, an appreciation for tropical weather and a love of grilled meat.”
“My favorite Hawaiian dish is kalua pork,” she tells me. “It’s slow roasted, and it’s basically a lechón in the Philippines. It’s prepared slightly differently—lechón is crispier—but it’s almost the same.” (A Latina employee at iLava excitedly compared to the dish to carnitas.) Filipino ube (mashed purple yam) has a distinct purple hue, just like Hawaiian poi.
From a young age, Jacinto would cook skewered meats in the streets of her native country, grilling them over open flames and selling them to neighbors and passersby on their way to work. It was relatively inexpensive and convenient, she explains, to prepare food in this fashion. That’s where she gained an appreciation for barbecuing.
A Bay Area Classic
Of course, Hawaiian food is much more than grilled meats. But that particular style, commonly known as “Hawaiian BBQ,” is the one that’s the most widely available here in the Bay Area—especially the classic style of meal known as the plate lunch. Born from a working-class context of mixed leftover foods—scraps from previous night’s meals consisting of rice, macaroni and a protein, heaped in a to-go bento box—the plate lunch has become an indisputable California favorite.
“A plate lunch is just a mixture of things. We’re talking about Japanese, Korean, Hawaiian and more. We’re here in the Bay Area, and this is our taste profile, so that’s why it’s popping up everywhere,” says Patrick Landeza, a Hawaiian cook and musician who owns Landeza’s Island Poke & Catering in Hayward, and is a member of the Hawai’i Chamber of Commerce in Northern California.
Though Landeza believes most Hawaiian barbecue outlets lack “true aloha,” or a sense of soul and genuine service, he also admits that they are good at “doing what they do by serving comfort food.” Raised on the “island of Berkeley,” Landeza specializes in poke—bowls of diced raw fish and other ingredients—which is a certified Hawaiian staple. As a Bay Area Hawaiian OG, he acknowledges the importance and accessibility of mainstream Hawaiian barbecue among the non-Hawaiian population.
The cuisine’s origins on the mainland date back to 1999 when Johnson Kam and Eddie Flores, Jr. opened their first L&L Hawaiian BBQ outside of Hawaii. This was already three decades after the pair had successfully launched the original L&L Drive-In in 1976, in the Kalihi neighborhood of Oahu.
Their brand of quick, simple Hawaiian fare reached California’s shores when a former employee relocated to San Francisco and began to serve his own Hawaiian-style plate lunches as a side hustle, Landeza explains. That initial success eventually led to the commercialization of Hawaiian food services that have since proliferated under the L&L brand name. Nowadays, the chain boasts over 200 locations throughout the United States, including a recent opening of their first franchise as far east as Florida.
Like the plate lunches they serve, L&L’s take on “the state food of Hawaii” is a fusion of past traditions with modern business opportunities. They were able to offer ownership to anyone willing to invest in their franchise model—whether Hawaiian-heritaged or not. A wave of shops selling what we now know as “Hawaiian BBQ” emerged as a result, often owned by immigrants like Jacinto.
Through this article, we hope to help you understand Best hawaiian food bay area
Detail: 🔗
