L&L Hawaiian BBQ

I’ve gotten over my shock at the enormous portions of fat, starch and sugar-laden food and am slowly honing down the menu to a few key items.

However, with each new visit, I do try something new and each time I am still horrified by the portion and gluttony of it all.

2nd visit: I learned this time that it’s best to share the mixed bbq combination, so I ordered this for two people. But then I thought it would be a good idea to sample the misubi, and there was a combination misubi plate, so I ordered that, too.

I was under the misguided impression that an item like spam misubi would be somewhere between the size of nigiri sushi and the size of one slice of spam from the can. WRONG. The rice billowed out far beyond the spam, barely contained by a wrapper of nori.
The misubi sampler came with five different toppings: spam, bbq chicken, portuguese sausage, hawaiian hot dog and chicken katsu.
And each was bundled with at least one cup of rice. Five misubi = 5 cups of rice. Really ridiculous portions. See photo (provided by Ted Mills).

Here’s how we dealt with it all: cut all the misubi in half, so there’s one half for each of us. Poke out half to two-thirds of the rice, and eat the remainder.

We only ate about half of the bbq plate as well. This was 3-4 kinds of sweet bbq’d meats, two scoops of rice and one scoop of macaroni salad. I took home the bbq leftovers, which then provided two more meals. My lunch buddy took home all the surplus rice and made fried rice for two additional meals.
That’s how much food you get. I fear for anyone who can actually eat these portions in one sitting.

3rd visit: our cholesterol has dropped to normal levels again, and a couple friends admit to being oddly drawn to the misubi. Lessons learned: this time we only order two misubi to share between us. The chicken katsu and bbq chicken is the way to go. They effectively are little burritos of chicken and rice, wrapped in nori. A nice compact meal.

But THEN I think I should sample something new, and those 10 malasadas for $3.99 seem innocent enough. Like doughnut holes, right? WRONG! They’re bigger, and hot, and fresh and completely drenched in sugar with sugar on the side.  They completely filled a large styrofoam takeaway box. Who orders this stuff for just one person?! One order should feed a satisfactory portion to, like, five people.

So I’m trying to manage expectations here. By the third visit I should have learned that anything I order will not *ever* have a sensible portion. In the future I will eat here with maybe a group of four, to help ensure we can share a variety of items without having our guts busted.

Chicken katsu misubi ftw.

Past words on the matter:
23 December 2008

L&L Hawaiian BBQ
7127 Hollister Ave, Suite 21
Goleta, CA 93117