As many long time readers of my blog may know, my hubs is Native Hawaiian. Many years ago he introduced me to the delights that are his culture's cuisine, and I must say I really love it when he rolls his eyes at me when I squeak in delight over the tasty wonder that is purple wallpaper paste (poi, and seriously, if you have never had it you should try it, it's amazing!).
Lau laus, sticky rice, katsu chicken, poke, haupia, and the list goes on, there are so many yummy culinary delights in the Hawaiian food corral, and one of my favorites is Kalua pork.
Salty, smoky, and oh so tender! There is nothing better than a big ol scoop of slow roasted Kalua pork plopped onto a ball of sticky white rice. Okay, mixing all that together with Hawaiian macaroni salad and some slightly fermented poi is sublime!
So, when we heard there was a new Hawaiian restaurant in Coeur d'Alene, a town we have to spend a couple days a week in due to my husband's shooting sports team coaching duties, we of course had to try it!
The Hula Pot is located right downtown CDA, on the corner of 4th and Sherman streets. It's right in the touristy section of town, close to the CDA Resort and all its for the visitors delights. I honestly enjoy a foray into the downtown sector once in a while, mainly to see what new restaurants and businesses we have to enjoy. This time I got especially ecstatic as the town now has a "Men's Haberdashery and Tailor." Heavens! CDA is definitely not a small mining and logging town anymore!
The hubs and I entered The Hula Pot with nary a high expectation in mind. In fact, we were hoping for perhaps a good old-fashioned plate lunch, the ambiance that greeted us instead was definitely more upscale Cali bistro Hawaiian fusion.
Island Reggae music flitted through my ears as I took in the small but aesthetically pleasing dining room. My eyes quickly zoomed in on the tables, all of which had hot pot burners built into them and switches that ignited said pots on the sides of the table. It was one in the afternoon and still there were a fair bit of patrons enjoying heavenly smelling comestibles.
We both sat down after being greeted by a most amiable waiter and perused the menu. Since I can't eat gluten now, I went into the restaurant with a bit of a sad, as I love Hawaiian macaroni salad and chicken katsu over rice. However, I decided to make the best of it all and a smile of resilience broke out on my mug as I saw the words GF next to a lot of menu items.
Both the hubs and I ordered the kalua pork, as it's kinda a staple in Hawaiian cuisine and we both wanted to see how The Hula Pot would treat the dish.
They treated it might fine!
The pork was perfectly tender, smokey, and briny like it is supposed to be, with pieces of perfectly cooked cabbage interspersed amongst it. The rice was gloriously sticky, and the mac salad had an Asian cucumber salad like twist on it according to the hubs since I had to give him mine.
The hubs also shocked me and ordered an appetizer, Manapua. Now, he rarely orders apps, and this deviation about ended me because steamed bbq pork buns are one of my all time favorite foods. They looked so freaking good, and they came with a made from scratch dipping sauce that was delightfully garlic infused. I even tasted a tiny bit of the bbq pork inside the bun, and it was awesome!
So, after a very restful noshing, we both agreed we will make a return visit to The Hula Pot because it's very tasty and I want to try out their hot pot tables with the fam馃槉
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's probably still slightly coated in shoyu iPhone.
