I love Hawaii and Hawaiian food. Give me a big ol' plate lunch with two scoop and mac salad anytime. Based on a comment on Neon Epiphany (a blogger who commented on my Chinese restaurant recommendations), I took the family and met our friend Fukiko to Hawaiian Breeze in Wallingford (a neighborhood north of downtown Seattle.)

The place is pretty simple with a broad Hawaiian menu - plate lunches, saimin, katsu of different varieties, and so on. I was glad they didn't have kalua pork on the menu; while I love kalua pork, it's doubtful they could produce a really good rendition in a kitchen in Wallingford, so I'm glad they didn't try.

I got off to a nice start with some lilikoi (passionfruit) juice; I love the stuff and have a hard time finding it in Seattle (except mixed with other juices).

Fukiko and I both love Spam musubi (which is really what motivated the trip) so we each had one. Spam musubi is a slice of cooked Spam (yes, the canned meat product) on a dollop of rice and wrapped in nori; in short, it's Spam sushi. Yum. (I have to say, though, that I like the Spam musubi at the Newcastle Golf Club snack bar more. It has a little more oomph.)

For my dinner, I had a big plate of loco moco - a hamburger patty topped with brown gravy and a fried egg all on top of a mound of rice. The loco moco was really only OK. The patty was generous but kind of tough, the gravy was a bit thin and wimpy tasting, and the egg was fried hard. I had hoped for something a little more sublime.

I also stole Michelle's macaroni salad (aka "mac" salad) and doused it with soy sauce. Mmm. I did taste Michael's chicken teriyaki saimin, which was also very good. Michelle and Fukiko seemed to like their katsu.

The highlight was probably the desserts though. We shared a homemade strawberry ice cream pie on a vanilla wafer crust as well as a massive coconut cake sitting in a pool of homemade chocolate sauce. Both were really great.

The staff was reallly friendly. Even though some of the dishes were only OK, I'd love to go back and try more of the menu, if only to get more mac salad and lilikoi juice.

Note, the restaurant can be a bit hard to find. It's kitty corner across 45th from the Wallingford QFC.