The words you’ll hear at any potluck, okazuya counter, or grandma’s kitchen — so the recipes make sense and you sound less like a tourist.
- Broke da mout
- The highest compliment food can receive. So delicious it 'broke the mouth.'
- Chicken skin
- Goosebumps. What good kanikapila music gives you — occasionally relevant to food stories.
- Choke
- A lot. 'Get choke mac salad at da potluck.'
- Da kine
- The all-purpose placeholder word. You know. Da kine.
- Furikake
- Japanese rice seasoning of nori, sesame, and salt. Lives on rice, popcorn, and Chex mix here.
- Grinds / grindz
- Food. 'Ono grinds' = delicious food. 'Let's go grind' = let's go eat.
- Hawaiian salt (paʻakai)
- Coarse sea salt, sometimes red from ʻalaea clay. The traditional seasoning of the islands.
- Imu
- The underground earth oven of hot stones and leaves used to cook kālua pig and more.
- Inamona
- Roasted, ground kukui (candlenut) relish. Essential to old-style poke.
- Kamaboko
- Steamed fish cake, usually with a pink rim. Standard saimin topping.
- Kanak attack
- The powerful sleepiness that follows a big plate lunch. Plan your afternoon around it.
- Kaukau
- Food, or to eat. Plantation-era pidgin still heard at grandma's table.
- Limu
- Edible seaweed. Limu kohu and ogo are the poke classics.
- Lūʻau
- A Hawaiian feast; also the taro leaves used in dishes like squid lūʻau.
- Mochiko
- Sweet glutinous rice flour. The soul of butter mochi and mochiko chicken.
- Okazuya
- A Japanese-style deli where you point at what you like and build a plate. A morning institution.
- Ono / ʻono
- Delicious. Also a fish (wahoo). Context tells you which.
- Pau
- Finished, done. 'Pau hana' = after work, the best time to eat.
- Poke
- To cut crosswise; the cubed seasoned fish dish. Rhymes with 'okay,' not with 'coke.'
- Pūpū
- Appetizers, snacks, anything on the table before (or instead of) dinner.
- Shoyu
- Soy sauce. Nobody in Hawai'i says 'soy sauce.'
- Talk story
- To chat, catch up, hang out. What kitchens are actually for.