Embrace the Islands at L&L Hawaiian Barbecue

In college, I was fortunate to have several friends who hailed from the Hawaiian Islands. Shares from their care packages introduced me to the likes of White Rabbit candy, rock salt plums, and even the taro-leaf wrapped pork known as lau lau. Their participation in the Hawaii Club’s annual luau further opened my palate to delights such as underground-cooked kalua pig and tender salt-massaged lomi-lomi salmon.

My love of Hawaiian food has not waned, and I’m always game to check out joints featuring food from the land of aloha. This predilection most recently led me to L&L Hawaiian Barbecue located in the Lynnwood Center shopping complex on Highway 99 at 196th Street SW.

L&L is a restaurant chain, the original venue born in Honolulu in 1976. Expansion in the late 1990s saw the Hawaiian-style eatery go global, with the company now boasting close to 200 locations. Only four of these are within the state of Washington, and the Lynnwood outpost is a mere stone’s throw from Edmonds.

With brightly-painted walls, predictable surf décor and a cute collection of framed company tee-shirts, L&L is cheery enough for dining in but also a fine choice for take-out. The casual strip mall restaurant’s pleasant counter staff was all smiles and the kitchen team quickly readied my food.

L&L offers burgers, saimin noodles and a few salads, as well as all-day Filipino-style breakfast ($7.99) featuring rice, eggs, lumpia and proteins such as fried milkfish and sweet sausages. The bulk of the menu, however, is built around the classic Hawaiian plate lunch: a meat and/or seafood main course + rice + macaroni salad. “Regular” sized plates include 2 scoops of rice and 1 scoop of mac salad; “mini” plates differ only in that they are short 1 rice portion (Regular $8.99-11.99; Mini $6.99-7.99). Combination plates ($10.99-11.99) offer a broader variety of meats and seafood.

According to L&L’s website, chicken katsu is one of the restaurant’s most popular dishes. Clearly I had to give it a spin. The katsu was presented as a cutlet breaded in panko crumbs and fried, paired with sweetly spiced tonkatsu sauce. Whereas , this katsu rendition struck me as a bit heavy-handed. Quite possibly the sheer volume of L&L’s katsu serving overpowered me. Although I chose the “mini” plate, even without the extra rice, the mountainous poultry portion made the meal for me slightly daunting.

More my speed was the seafood combination plate, a balance of fried fare and barbecued meat. Three panko-coated shrimp joined a piece of lightly battered fried mahi mahi along with my choice of chicken, beef or short ribs. I went with the beef, thin sheets of meat well-seasoned with a slightly sweet soy-based marinade. Though not remarkably tender, the barbecue beef was nevertheless able to be cut with a plastic knife. The mahi mahi proved to be moist, a hint of black pepper in its batter adding a touch of zest. The salty fish achieved good balance when paired with forkfuls of sticky white rice.

My barometer for Hawaiian restaurants has long been the kalua pork and cabbage plate lunch, and I didn’t leave L&L without sampling their version of the classic. Though I wished the smokiness of the pork had been bolder, I was pleased by the tenderness of the accompanying cabbage. Overall, the meat-and-vegetable medley yielded familiar, satisfying bites. Uber-creamy macaroni salad might have cried out for sodium if flying solo, but as it was, it paired beautifully with the saltiness of the pork.

Not to be overlooked are L&L’s musubi (pronounced moo-soo-bee). Bricks of rice topped with a chosen meat are wrapped in seaweed paper known as nori. A bite into one of the bundles produces a satisfying snap followed by the mingling of mineral-rich sea foliage, salty meat, and sticky rice. Despite all my better judgment around processed foods, I do recommend the Spam musubi ($2.39). It’s a Hawaiian classic, and it may just surprise the Spam-phobic.

I can’t say that L&L Hawaiian Barbecue was a particular revelation in my continuing quest for Hawaii's cuisine, but it is a solid local place to sample representations of some of the islands' classic fare. Portions are generous and the atmosphere alone is uplifting. Find your escape in salty, sweet flavors and a mound of macaroni salad.