L&L Hawaiian Barbecue

L&L has been on my to-try list for ages, but let’s face it – if there’s anything you should have realized about me & this blog by now, it’s that restaurants get put on that list and stay there practically forever unless a friend wants to eat there.  (This is mostly because despite what people may think… I really don’t go out to eat often at all, and I don’t spend a lot of my paycheck, especially on eating out.  Yeah, I know!  I just don’t.)  Most of the places I visit are with friends – eating is a social activity – nay, the social activity in which I engage on a regular basis.  Anyway, because I recently sort of stopped bentoing (and my wallet FEELS it badly…) – school was kicking my butt and whatnot – I found myself Tweeting for lunch recommendations in the Financial District.  (I know, I said I wouldn’t give into the trend, but you know what? So many food-media-moguls/respected icons Tweet, it’s like, I just want to follow them so I know what they’re eating!)  Luckily, hebrewschool responded “What about L&L?” and that was it for me.  Hawaiian food, which is still relatively new to me, in Manhattan?  ‘k! 

(My first and only experience with this type of Hawaiian food before)

I had to order spam musubi just to see how good it was!

Freshly made, which was a nice touch, but the rice seemed a bit too hot as it was hard to hold and was quickly softening the seaweed.  So I ate it fast.  It was good!!! a teensy bit too much rice (because I’m not keen on rice, though), but the spam was nicely fried and had a good amount of sauce to flavor everything.  Mmm, I could go for another one of these right now.  (I think this was $1.30?)

Next up, my plate lunch of kalua pork ($7.99) with two scoops of rice, a scoop of mac salad (see next pic), and salad.  I overheard someone after me asking for two scoops of mac salad instead of two scoops of rice, and wished I’d thought to ask the same.  Except… well, once I started eating this deliciously soft meat, I realized that delicious and soft it was, but a touch too salty… even for me.  (I tend to like things salty/aggressively seasoned.)  It was yummy, but I found myself eating way more rice than I normally do. 

There’s the mac salad!  It was really good.  Mmm, yummy mac goodness.  But look at all that food!  There’s no way I could finish it all, that’s a monster pile of meat (yes, that’s all meat, there wasn’t anything buoying it up or anything).  So I ate all the salads (green and mac), a little less than half the rice, maybe 1/4 of the meat? 1/3? and packed it all into the container the spam musubi came in – I could barely close it, that’s how much I still had.  Pretty ridiculous for like $8something (including tax).  I went up to the counter to get a plastic bag, and I didn’t even have to ask, she saw me and knew.  That was really cool and psychic of her. 

(Also, I wound up taking the leftovers, heating them up in a skillet, adding some frozen corn [because that’s what I had, I would have added mixed veggies if I hadn’t just finished them] and scrambling some eggs into the middle, for a kalua-pork-fried-rice.  It was delicious and I even put it into bento.  I think this stretched to three meals for me, and I’m not exactly a light eater.)

Yvo says: I’m really glad this is a bit of a walk for me from work, else I would find myself here all the time, pigging out on the deliciously soft kalua pork, adding on some spam musubis and chowing down.  The prices are extremely reasonable, even more so given the quantity of food they give you.  Yeah, it was a lil salty, but the rice fixes that up, and I’m totally eager to go back and try other things on the menu. 
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