Bob's Okazuya in Gardena

When we first moved here in 2001, I was all into Mexican food, burger joints and everything else abundant in Southern CA. It was different, it was pretty good, but it took me a whole year to realize what I had been really missing: home style local Hawaiian food. Back then I was too busy working like a slave, was super duper broke, and barely had any time to go out anyway.





So after a year of living in CA, I found this place and what I'm about to post won't do this place justice. It's by far the best Hawaiian food joint in all of Southern California. But Nelson, have you eaten at Bruddah's? How about King's Restaurant or the Local Place? How about uh, L&L? Big Island BBQ? The Loft Hawaii? Yes, yes, yes, yes. I ate at all of them and more. I know local Hawaiian food better than other foods. And, as you all know, I'm kind of a foodie when it comes to back street cuisine.




Getting to the point: Bob's Okazuya in Gardena, CA. After having lived in CA for our first year, I finally found this place. At the time it was a 45 minute drive for us but we checked it out. Been hooked ever since.



Not only am I hooked, my friends are hooked up.

HANA PA'A!

When my friends go to this place dozens of times even without me, I know I've done a good thing. As I've mentioned previous posts, local Hawaiian foods is a mixture many nationalities. Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Puerto Rican, I could go on. But that's pretty much it, with the base being traditional Hawaiian.





All different kinds of people immigrated to Hawaii, worked in the cane or pineapple fields and got together and made food with what they had. Traded recipes, added a few things, etc. You can practically get a flavor of all that at Bob's.

The Hater was in town from San "Juan" Diego and CantStayJose was ready to roll. Where was my favorite Hawaiian from Catalina, Dustin aka The Nator? He was sleeping on his couch with his nice lady on his shoulder, as our annual Sinners Xmas Party was the night before:
Okay, okay. Let's get to it. Shoyu Chicken. This one has been my favorite off-and-on since I was a kid. Chicken simmered for a while basically in soy sauce and brown sugar. Always comes with two scoops of rice and one scoop of The Mac Daddy aka macaroni salad. You always have to get a side here, my side was chow fun.
CantStayJose got the kid's saimin (soup noodle, it's like a Hawaiian style ramen which always includes char-siu pork) and everyone's favorite Loco Moco, which is rice topped with two hamburger patties, brown gravy all over with a fried egg on top. Loco Moco is the dish I use to break-in my haole friends but its still a Old Faithful.
I get a kick out of seeing what The Hater of San Juan Diego orders because he doesn't ever get "the usual". He always mixes it up. This time he got the sashimi plate (slices of raw Ahi/yellow fin tuna) which includes rice and The Mac Daddy. He got a side of the regular sized saimin too.
The people at Bob's know us. We always order big. We love Bob's. My favorite used to be the Oxtail Soup... and the Pork Lau Lau before that. You'll be seeing Bob's for Off Topic Sunday again, that's for sure.