Tropix Hawaiian BBQ

Friday, August 3, 2018

Dale, Brenda, and I went to Tropix Hawaiian BBQ for lunch. We all started with the egg drop soup and spring rolls.

Brenda had a small plate of the crispy shrimp. Dale had the white fish, and I had shrimp pad thai.

All of it was quite tasty. After we ate I ordered a pineapple coconut smoothie to go. Yum.

I'm not sure what exactly constitutes Hawaiian cuisine although I found a bit of information on Wikipedia. My understanding is that in the pre-contact period of ancient Hawaii (300 AD - 1778 AD) the inhabitants of the islands ate plants and animals brought by the Polynesian voyagers. "After first contact in 1778 European and American cuisine arrived."

Immigrant groups from China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico arrived on the Islands between 1850 and 1930 to work the sugarcane and pineapple plantations. They introduced their own cuisines which influenced the area. 

Spam has been popular on the Islands for decades and today I learned why. It seems fishing was prohibited around the Islands during WWII and Spam became popular to natives as a source of protein. It was brought to the Islands by American servicemen as part of their rations. 

Spam musubi is a slice of fried Spam on rice and wrapped in a strip of nori (edible seaweed). It was on the menu at Tropix. I may have to try it next time. But maybe not. I'm not sure how I feel about Spam.

Tropix Hawaiian BBQ

Tropix Hawaiian BBQ

Tropix Hawaiian BBQ