Our coconuts are bigger than yours: Toronto’s Hawaiian and Polynesian restaurants

By | 1st April, 2016

As long as you don’t put too much stock into the annual Spam festival (amazingly, Hawaii seems to be singlehandedly keeping Spam in business after all these years), the fact is that Hawaiian food is incredible. Sweet, tangy and laden with pork and pineapple, it’s not Toronto’s most popular cuisine, but is definitely worth a mention for those of us living in TO. If you’re not here yet, come join us! This list alone should be enough to convince the toughest crowd.

Thanks to a few restaurants repping the tropics, there’s some pretty fab Hawaiian grub to be had in our city. With that, here are three Hawaiian restaurants in Toronto worth scoping out.

dessert from shameful tiki room

Big & beautiful.

The Shameful Tiki Room

Spam incorporated within rice balls: appetizer of champions. The Shameful Tiki Room in Parkdale makes food that’s far different from what other TO restos are serving up, and it’s pretty good, especially alongside their drink menu. Just try to order the humuhumunukunukuapua tacos. Just try.

skewers on grill from Liko's hawaiian barbeque

All of them. In your stomach. Right now.

Liko’s Hawaiian BBQ

There’s nothing more stereotypically Hawaiian than a pig on a spit at a luao, and that’s the inspo for Liko’s Hawaiian BBQ – a pop-up food stand that’s a favourite at festivals and events around the GTA. They will send their chef to your event to roast a pig a la huli huli. At their food stand, you’re going to want the pork on a bun, the musubi (think Spam sushi) or the traditional plate lunch with kalua pork.

pineapple meal at miss thing's

The only acceptable bowl is a pineapple bowl.

Miss Thing’s

Whether you go for the food or the tropical-themed cocktails, Miss Thing’s may be a tad pricey, but the food is classy and good. Not that you’d normally call Spam classy (Miss Thing’s serves Spam pintxos), but this place on West Queen West makes canned meat taste pretty delectable.

Check out some more cultural eats:

 

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Born on the Prairies, Erin Cardone grew up knowing there was more to life than canola fields and AAA Alberta Angus. So she escaped, living in Europe and Australia, white-knuckling it through plates of calf brains and raw horse meat, and learning languages she can't remember anymore. After a stint as a jaded, skeptical journalist, she changed tack and began writing rather awesome blogs and showing businesses that advertising is dead, so long live social media, with her businesses Legendary Social Media. She now splits her time between various Canadian cities, Costa Rica and wherever else the wind blows.

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