Chefs Michael Carranza and John Gocong have a long history together, working at Uchi and the much-mourned She’s Not Here, but it was cooking meals for Minamoto Foods’ initiative to feed struggling service industry personnel last year that laid the groundwork for their new restaurant. Located inside Hana World Market, Salty Cargo taps into the synergy they harnessed in 2020 by drawing on both of the chefs’ backgrounds—Carranza is from South Texas, and Gocong is of Hawaiian descent. Here, they break down how they’re putting their own twist on one of the Big Island’s most famous dishes: Loco Moco.
- To build maximum umami in their gravy, the chefs use a char siu-flavored mother braise with dried Chinese peppers, fermented red bean curd, and charred brown sugar fish caramel.
- A fried local farm egg is draped over the top of the meat, which is cured, braised, and then grilled to ensure fall-off-the-bone tenderness.
- Instead of a typical ground beef patty, Carranza opted for bone-in beef short rib as a nod to Texas barbecue. “Our onigiri is stuffed with burnt ends; all our food has those little nuances of what we grew up eating,” he says.
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