Course | Main course |
---|---|
Place of origin | United States |
Region or state | Hawaii |
Serving temperature | Hot |
Main ingredients | White rice, topped with a hamburger steak, a fried sunny side egg, and brown gravy |
Loco moco is a dish featured in contemporary Hawaii cuisine. The traditional loco moco consists of white rice, topped with a hamburger patty and brown gravy, and finally a sunny-side up fried egg. These ingredients must exist in the dish to be named loco moco. No other egg variations are considered traditional and the stacking of the dish must be in the aforementioned order to be considered traditional. [1] Variations to egg style, meats, and stacking alters the naming of the dish. Modern (non-traditional) presentations of the dish may include other toppings and side dishes such as grilled onions and macaroni or potato salad.
The dish was reportedly created at the Lincoln Grill restaurants in Hilo, Hawaii, in 1949 by its proprietors, Richard Inouye and his wife, Nancy, at the request of teenagers from the Lincoln Wreckers Sports club seeking something that differed from a sandwich, was inexpensive, and yet could be quickly prepared and served. [2] They asked Nancy to put some rice in a bowl, a hamburger patty over the rice, and then top it with brown gravy. The egg came later. The teenagers named the dish Loco Moco after one of their members, George Okimoto, whose nickname was "Crazy” because of his crazy antics. George Takahashi, who was studying Spanish at Hilo High School, suggested using Loco, which is Spanish for crazy. They tacked on "moco" which "rhymed with loco and sounded good". [3] [4] [5]
This dish was featured on the "Taste of Hawai'i" episode of Girl Meets Hawai'i, a Travel Channel show hosted by Samantha Brown. The episode features the dish being served at the popular restaurant, Hawaiian Style Cafe, in Waimea together with the plate lunch, another Hawaiian specialty dish.
The loco moco was also featured on a Honolulu-based episode of the Travel Channel show Man v. Food (this episode aired in the show's second season). The host, Adam Richman, tried the dish at the Hukilau Café, located in nearby Laie. Richman also tried an off-the-menu loco moco at a San Francisco eatery called Namu Gaji on his 2014 show, Man Finds Food . In 2018, on a different episode of the revived Man v. Food, host Casey Webb tried a loaded version of the loco moco at Da Kitchen in Maui.
Variations may include bacon, ham, Spam, tofu, kalua pork, Portuguese sausage, teriyaki beef, teriyaki chicken, mahi-mahi, shrimp, oysters, and other meats. However the traditional name designation of loco moco applies to hamburger patties only. When the protein changes, the name is also changed, i.e. spam loco, kalua loco, shrimp loco etc.
Donburi is a Japanese "rice-bowl dish" consisting of fish, meat, vegetables or other ingredients simmered together and served over rice. Donburi meals are usually served in oversized rice bowls which are also called donburi. If one needs to distinguish, the bowl is called donburi-bachi and the food is called donburi-mono.
Fried rice is a dish of cooked rice that has been stir-fried in a wok or a frying pan and is usually mixed with other ingredients such as eggs, vegetables, seafood, or meat. It is often eaten by itself or as an accompaniment to another dish. Fried rice is a popular component of East Asian, Southeast Asian and certain South Asian cuisines, as well as a staple national dish of Indonesia. As a homemade dish, fried rice is typically made with ingredients left over from other dishes, leading to countless variations. Fried rice first developed during the Sui dynasty in China.
The plate lunch is a quintessentially Hawaiian meal, roughly analogous to the Southern U.S. meat-and-three or Japanese bento box. The combination of Polynesian, North American and East Asian cuisine arose naturally in Hawaii, and has spread beyond it.
Toast Hawaii is an open sandwich consisting of a slice of toast with ham and cheese, and a maraschino cherry in the middle of a pineapple slice, baked so that the cheese starts to melt. It was made popular by the West German TV cook Clemens Wilmenrod in the 1950s. It is likely that it was adapted from the "Grilled Spamwich" found in a 1939 Spam cookbook and brought to West Germany by American G.I.s. Spam was not available in Germany's grocery stores so Wilmenrod replaced it with a slice of cooked ham.
The cuisine of Hawaii incorporates five distinct styles of food, reflecting the diverse food history of settlement and immigration in the Hawaiian Islands, primarily originating from Polynesian, North American and East Asian cuisines.[a]
Mee siam is a dish of thin rice vermicelli of hot, sweet and sour flavours, originated in Penang but popular among the Malay and Peranakan communities throughout Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, although the dish is called "Siamese noodle" in Malay and thus appears to be inspired or adapted from Thai flavours when Thailand was formerly known as Siam. Mee siam is related to kerabu bee hoon although there is a significant difference in the recipe.
Spam musubi is a snack and lunch food composed of a slice of grilled Spam sandwiched either in between or on top of a block of rice, wrapped together with nori in the tradition of Japanese onigiri.
A slinger is an American Midwest diner specialty typically consisting of two eggs, hash browns, and a ground beef patty, all covered in chili con carne and generously topped with cheese and onions. The eggs can be any style. Hot sauce is usually served on the side. The slinger is considered to be a St. Louis late-night culinary original. It is described as "a hometown culinary invention" of a mishmash of meat, hash-fried potatoes, eggs, and chili, sided with a choice of ham, sausage, bacon, hamburger patties, or an entire T-bone steak.
Hamburg steak is a patty of ground beef. Made popular worldwide by migrating Germans, it became a mainstream dish around the start of the 19th century. It is related to Salisbury steaks, which also use ground beef. It is considered the origin of the hamburger, when, in the early 20th century, vendors began selling the Hamburg steak as a sandwich between bread.
Huli-huli chicken is a grilled chicken dish in Hawaiian cuisine, prepared by barbecuing a chicken over mesquite wood, and basting it with a sweet huli-huli sauce.
Economy rice or economic rice is a type of food or food stall serving many dishes accompanied by rice, commonly found in hawker centres, street vendors or food courts in Malaysia and Singapore. Specifically in Singapore, it is commonly known as cai png, from the Hokkien 菜饭; cài fàn; chhài-pn̄g. In recent times, due to COVID-19 restrictions and its associated economic impact, this concept has also become popular in Hong Kong.
A meatball is ground meat (mince) rolled into a ball, sometimes along with other ingredients, such as bread crumbs, minced onion, eggs, butter, and seasoning. Meatballs are cooked by frying, baking, steaming, or braising in sauce. There are many types of meatballs using different types of meats and spices. The term is sometimes extended to meatless versions based on legumes, vegetables, mushrooms, fish or other seafood.
Okazuya or okazu-ya are a Japanese-style delicatessen common in Hawaii. Unlike western delicatessens found in North America or Europe, an okazuya is an establishment that sells readymade Japanese-styled food. "Okazu" refers to a side dish to accompany rice, while "ya" refers to a retail establishment.