Obama's Go-To Hometown Meal Comes With A Heaping Helping Of Comfort

Although one might assume that a former president would gravitate toward fancy fine-dining establishments, that's not the case for former President Barack Obama, at least not when he visits his hometown of Honolulu. Back in 2009, upon arriving in Hawaii's capital, Obama told waiting reporters that his first stop would be to chow down on a plate lunch.

Despite the generic-sounding name, a plate lunch doesn't refer to just any old lunch platter. While its exact contents vary, the classic plate lunch consists of a scoop of macaroni salad, two scoops of rice, and a meaty entree (and it's this meat that's the variable part). It's roughly the Hawaiian version of a bento box or meat-and-threes. The flavors you'll find in plate lunches mirror Hawaii's cultural tapestry: Japanese-style chicken katsu, Korean kalbi (barbecue ribs), Chinese char siu pork, Filipino adobo, slow-cooked shredded kalua pork, or loco moco (a burger patty with gravy and egg).

The plate lunch goes back to Hawaii's plantation-era past. From the late 1800s onward, workers on sugar and pineapple plantations carried lunches packed in tin bento boxes — usually leftover meat dishes, padded out with rice. Around the 1930s, lunch wagons popped up to serve those workers, and they formalized the "plate" concept with the particular portioning that endures today with a compartmentalized plate or a takeout clamshell. While the plantation era (referring to the heavy control of the island's labor force by sugar companies) ended in the '40s, the lunches endured, now being served in settings like diners and fast food restaurants.

Honolulu-born Barack Obama has named several restaurants as his favorite plate lunch spots, including Rainbow Drive-In and Zippy's. Zippy's is an established chain with locations on Oahu, Hilo, and Kahului that have a diner vibe but a menu that embodies the fusion style of Hawaiian food. Rainbow Drive-In is a long-standing drive-thru eatery, with three locations around the Honolulu area.

At Rainbow Drive-In, you'll pay around $10 to $15 for a plate lunch, and there's no shortage of options. You can play it Hawaiian with moco loco or eggs and Spam (the processed meat is another iconic part of Hawaiian food), lean into American tastes with wieners or chili, or look to Japan with options like katsu-style fried chicken or teriyaki barbecue beef. There's also the option of subbing in fries for rice, and coleslaw for macaroni salad. Coleslaw aside, the one thing that unites all of the options is that there's barely a vegetable to be seen: Here and at many other restaurants serving plate lunches, the focus is meat and carbs.

The same goes at Zippy's, where the regular plate lunch menu is similar, also featuring teriyaki, loco moco, and chili, plus Korean fried chicken, with prices maybe a dollar or two more than Rainbow Drive-In. Those options are supplemented by an astonishingly broad set of rotating daily specials, which run the gamut from clam chowder to sweet and sour spare ribs or roast pork. Here and elsewhere, the plate lunch may not be glamorous, but it's almost certain to be filling.