Hawaiian food in Palo Alto

Hawaiian food on the Peninsula comes in two forms. The first is poke, the cubed raw fish dish that spread from Hawaii across the mainland in the 2010s. Palo Alto has two poke counters of its own. The second is the plate lunch, the rice and macaroni salad meal that locals in Hawaii eat every day. For that you head a few miles to Mountain View or Redwood City, where L&L Hawaiian Barbecue runs franchise restaurants.

This guide covers places within about 15 miles of downtown Palo Alto. Each was confirmed in 2026 through its own website, its company location page or a verified page in our business directory. Menus come from those sources and vary by location, so treat dishes and hours as a guide.

What Hawaiian food is

The food people call Hawaiian is really local food of Hawaii. It mixes Native Hawaiian cooking with the dishes of the Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Filipino and Korean workers who came to the sugar and pineapple plantations. American military and ranching history added beef, gravy and canned meat. The result is a cuisine of big portions, rice with everything and sweet, salty sauces.

• Plate lunch. A main dish with two scoops of rice and a scoop of macaroni salad.
• Poke. Cubed raw fish, usually ahi tuna, dressed with soy sauce, sesame oil, onion and seaweed.
• Loco moco. Rice topped with a hamburger patty, brown gravy and a fried egg.
• Spam musubi. A slab of grilled Spam on a block of rice, wrapped in a strip of nori seaweed.
• Kalua pork. Smoky shredded pork, traditionally cooked in an underground oven called an imu.
• Lau lau. Pork wrapped in taro leaves and ti leaves, then steamed until tender.
• Chicken katsu. Breaded, fried chicken cutlet with a sweet and tangy katsu sauce, borrowed from Japan.
• Saimin. A light noodle soup with fishcake and green onion, a plantation-era mix of Chinese and Japanese ideas.
• Shave ice. Finely shaved ice soaked in fruit syrup.
• Haupia. A firm coconut milk pudding.

Poke in Palo Alto

Go Fish Poke Bar, Stanford Shopping Center

Go Fish Poke Bar is a counter in Suite 244B at Stanford Shopping Center. The company describes its food as Hawaiian-inspired poke and its co-founder and chef, Jerome Ito, trained as a sushi chef. You build a bowl on sushi rice, brown rice, greens or chilled yam noodles, then choose fish such as ahi tuna, salmon or seared albacore and add sauces like ponzu or ginger soy. Hand rolls are the other half of the menu. Hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Saturday and to 7 p.m. on Sunday. Go Fish has a second Peninsula counter at 823 Hamilton Street in Redwood City.

Poké House, Town & Country Village

Poké House is at 855 El Camino Real, Suite 9, in Town & Country Village across from Stanford. It is part of a small chain that began in San Jose in 2016 and says it aims to capture California's spirit through its own take on Hawaiian poke. The House Salmon Bowl, with salmon, masago, edamame, cucumber and citrus ponzu, is the company's longtime favorite. Two chicken bowls cover diners who skip raw fish.

Both counters are quick, casual and priced like a fast lunch. Our poke guide compares them in more detail.

L&L Hawaiian Barbecue

L&L started in Honolulu and now has more than 200 locations, according to the company. Each restaurant is individually owned and operated, so prices and promotions vary. The menu centers on what the chain calls "Hawaii's plate lunch." Four restaurants fall inside this guide's radius. The L&L location list gives addresses and hours for each.

Mountain View, 2430 East Charleston Road

The closest L&L is at 2430 East Charleston Road in Mountain View, near the Google offices north of Highway 101. It is about 4 miles from downtown Palo Alto and an easy stop for anyone working in the Shoreline area. Its location page lists hours of 10:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. every day, with delivery through the usual apps.

Redwood City, 324 Walnut Street

The Redwood City restaurant is at 324 Walnut Street, east of El Camino Real, about 5 miles north of downtown Palo Alto. It lists hours of 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Our Redwood City food guide covers the downtown blocks nearby.

Santa Clara and San Mateo

Two more sit farther out. The Santa Clara restaurant is at 3580 Homestead Road, about 12 miles away, open 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. The San Mateo restaurant is at 94 East 3rd Avenue downtown, about 12 miles north. It keeps shorter hours, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and noon to 8 p.m. on Saturday. It is closed on Sundays.

What to order at L&L

The company's menu lists barbecue chicken in a Hawaii-style sauce, a BBQ mix of beef, chicken and short ribs and chicken katsu, which it calls a best seller. There is loco moco with two fried eggs and a lau lau combo that pairs the taro-wrapped pork with kalua pork and cabbage. Garlic shrimp, fried shrimp and a half-and-half combo of any two meats round out the plates. Spam musubi and Spam saimin are the snacks. The company says every plate lunch is big enough to share. Prices are budget level for the Peninsula.

At a glance

How to order a plate lunch

1. Pick one main or a mixed plate. First-timers often choose barbecue chicken or chicken katsu.
2. Keep the macaroni salad. It is part of the meal, not a side you skip.
3. Add a Spam musubi to try the most Hawaiian snack of all.
4. Share. Plates are large, so two people can split one plate and a couple of musubi.

Plate lunches travel well, which makes them a good choice for a picnic. Our cheap eats guide lists more filling meals under about $20 in Palo Alto.

Dietary notes

• Raw fish. Poke is raw. Both Palo Alto counters offer cooked chicken bowls.
• Vegetarian. Plate lunch is meat-heavy. Poke counters offer tofu or vegetable options.
• Gluten and soy. Teriyaki-style sauces, katsu breading and shoyu dressings usually contain wheat and soy.
• Mayonnaise. Macaroni salad and some poke sauces are mayonnaise based.

Other Hawaiian touches

Shave ice and malasadas, the Portuguese doughnuts that Hawaii adopted, are harder to find on the Peninsula than plate lunch. We could not confirm a dedicated Hawaiian shave ice stand or malasada bakery within this guide's radius in late 2026. For poke at a sit-down table, Pacific Catch at Stanford Shopping Center serves several versions, including a classic ahi poke with sesame and soy.

Frequently asked questions