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2008-06-19  Food
 | Ono Kine Grinds
Go Home, Cook Rice
How Pukalani Superette does all that and more for the culinary-challenged
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| | by Starr Begley |
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June 19, 2008
I used to cook. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming to have cooked well, but I used to actually try to prepare at least one cool and tasty meal a day.
My culinary disasters have included almond crusted pork loin–I had no idea roasting almonds was so darn tedious. They burn before the pork cooks. What's up with that? And once I made a squash stew that I found in the Martha Stewart magazine that was totally inedible, which was a bummer because squash is expensive on Maui.
A few things, besides my lack of cooking flare, has led me to stop cooking altogether. First off, we canceled our cable so that the kids wouldn't rot their brains watching Nick Jr. and Disney Playhouse all day. That and we're too cheap to hook it back up. This means that I no longer can watch Food TV and pretend I'm on the Bobby Flay show while I'm in the kitchen.
Cooking's just not as much fun without Bobby Flay. The other thing as that last year we moved to a house that's within walking distance to Pukalani Superette.
Puk Sup (pronounced Pook Soup) has been solving cooking problems for years. In fact, I'm pretty sure that there are many housewives out there that have passed off hot food from this Upcountry local food source as their own throughout their whole marriages.I can't blame them really–the food is easilytransferred to a casserole dish and can be placed in the oven right before your family walks in the door. Or a pan. My family falls for the pan-on-the-stovetop trick all the time.
In fact, I have a friend that "makes" the best potato mac salad. Every barbecue that we've ever attended together, everyone always raves about how good so-and-so's salad is. Come to find out he's been buying it at Puk Sup...for years. I'd like to cry foul, but that would be the pot calling the kettle black.
There are just so many choices for good, local hot food at Puk Sup. Classics are the roast pork which is roasted fresh every day. I've heard that they go through 70 pounds of it daily. It's tender,flavorful and smothered in rich gravy. The chow fun is excellent–classic taste with just enough ground pork and green onion and the dry mein is one of my favorites on the island–nice and peppery.
The also sell breaded mahi, which is good and I don't even like fish sticks. Their chili chicken is something to savor- Korean style chicken thighs with a sweet and spicy crust. My husband loves this chicken so much that while we were dating I used it as a make-up device every time we fought. All I needed to do was show up with a container of chili chicken and the fight would be long forgotten.
Puk Sup makes awesome lau lau- pork or beef. I've tried a lot of lau lau in my life and am pretty sure that Puk Sup's is my favorite. It's salty and the chunks of meat are usually fair. When it comes to lau lau, you usually never know what you're going to get when you open it–bite sized morsel or an actual meal. One week we went back three nights in a row for the lau lau.
Other yummies that you can get hot and fresh at Puk Sup are eggrolls, shoyu chicken, wontons, kalbi, chicken hekka, lumpia, spam musubi, fried shrimp, meat loaf, regular fried chicken and a whole lot more. You can buy the dishes alacarte or often times as bentos with a side of corn and rice. You can also buy hot sticky rice which is a lifesaver if you're like me and always forget to put a pot on in time for dinner. MTW
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