Aloha Hawaiian Grill - Tukwila

If we were in doubt as to the authenticity of Aloha Hawaiian Grill, that doubt disappeared when we read the hand-written sign on the front door announcing that management was going to Hawaii for a family reunion for a couple of weeks! It must be nice! For the record, I believe that anyone can open any kind of restaurant that they want as long as they cook tasty food. The advantage of Hawaiin folks cooking Hawaiin food (or any other example you can think of) is that there just might be some secret family recipes and home cooking involved!

AHG is a casual place bordering on fast food but not quite. The evening we were there, it was a one-man show with the proprietor taking orders and manning the grill and doing a decent job of it. We started with Musubi, one piece of spam and one piece of katsu chicken on rice wrapped in nori to form a sushi-like tasty bite. Unfortunately, I screwed up the photo so if you want to see what musubi looks like, you'll have to Google it!

Marie had the Shrimp Combo which came with 3 or 4 big tasty deep-fried shrimp and choice of a second meat (in this case Kahlua pork), rice, some shaved cabbage, and macaroni salad. Everything was great including the pork which was tender but meaty.

I chose the Pork Lau Lau Combo which is pork steamed in taro leaves with smoked pork on the side, and rice. Maybe this is one of those family recipes as it reminded me of something a Mom would make for her family. The pork was fall-apart tender and the leaves were reminiscent of southern greens. Excellent and highly recommended.

I feel like you can't really go wrong here. Comforting and rich, tasty food at seriously reasonable prices.

For what it's worth, we give Aloha Hawaiian Grill 4 1/2 out of 5.