Food trucks in Hawaii

Food trucks seem a big deal in Hawaii, or at least on the island of Oahu.

We made our first sightings at a street festival on Kalakaua Bvd the Friday after we arrived. The police had closed the road to traffic and the trucks and stalls arrived. They prepared and served everything from shrimps and fish tacos to chicken and ribs.

Shrimps and fish tacos also seem a very big deal on Oahu. We discovered this for ourselves when we stopped at Mikes in Kalkua on the North Shore.

My garlic shrimps swam in a lake of oil, with cabbage somewhere at the bottom. The oil seemed designed to soak into the big balls of rice that accompanied them. The locals tucked in heartily, as we gathered that they did regularly. I approached with somewhat more caution.

The shrimps tasted delicious, but unfortunately I had considerably more oil lapping around the rice islands than I could manage.

Some trucks move and some obviously sit unmoving wherever they have landed. Mike’s contained both kinds, and I saw a whole carpark of permanent trucks in the “historic town of Haleiwa”, all offering shrimp or chicken or tacos.

Finally, just as we left, I saw my final food truck: an unmoving three wheeler by gate C3 at the airport, selling several different kinds of hot dogs.