Plate Lunch appears as a signature dish in 1 United States cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Plate lunch · Honolulu
Two scoops of rice, one scoop of macaroni salad and a protein (kalbi, chicken katsu, kalua pig, mahi mahi). The canonical Hawaiian lunch born in the plantation cane fields and now sold from every drive-in window.
The plate lunch came out of the 1880s sugar plantation lunch bento; workers shared rice and protein at the field-edge break. The post-war 1950s and 1960s saw stationary drive-ins formalize it: Rainbow Drive-In in Kapahulu opened 1961 with the still-canonical mix plate. The Higa brothers built Zippy's as a 24-hour version starting 1966. L&L Hawaiian Barbecue exported the format to the mainland from 1976. The basic grammar (two scoops rice, mac salad, protein) hasn't changed in 80 years.
Where to eat in Honolulu:
- Rainbow Drive-In
- Zippy's Kapahulu
- Helena's Hawaiian Food
- Highway Inn Kakaako