The Loco Moco

Generally speaking, when I arrive to a particular place .. there's always a local-to-that-place dish which I want to eat on the first night. 

For Taiwan, it's braised pork rice (驢肉飯), in Japan it's Yoshinoya beef bowl (牛丼). In Hawaii, it's the LOCAL MOCO.

The LOCAL MOCO is a monstrocity of local Hawaiian Cuisine.

It composed of a rather UNHOLY mix of white rice, hamburger patty, egg cooked over medium/easy. The whole thing is then soaked in brown gravy.

According to legend (and Wikipedia), it was deveioped around 1949 in Hilo (on the Big Island)  when some local teenagers wanted something different. The basically asked for a hamburger patty to be placed on top of rice and doused it with brown gravy (yes the stuff you put on mashed potatoes). The egg on top seemed to come later to help soft of hamburger rice mix (as w/o the egg it was a big too dry).

Make no mistakes the dish, while delicious, is FAT CITY. A typical dish of this stuff usually runs you around 1000 calories. 

Typically after I eat this, I'll end up going running along the Ala Wai Canal to burn this mess off ..