Fire & Hops goes whole hog with luau
Fire & Hops to host a luau featuring all the island favorites — including the centerpiece roast
It’s hard to find good poi in this town. Poi, a strangely purple, oddly textured Hawaiian dish that looks more like something you put on your face, is something you’re likely to find only in Polynesia. And while Santa Fe has a lot of cuisines to choose from, Hawaiian food is unfortunately not one of them.
Except for one day, next week. On June 17, you’ll be able to take a little virtual vacation to the islands via local gastropub Fire & Hops. Normally, Fire & Hops features a varied menu of items ranging from ribs to ramen, but that Saturday, owners Josh Johns and Joel Coleman will be throwing a Hawaiian luau, and everybody (who buys a ticket) is invited.
Coleman has had this luau on his mind for years, and finally, he and Johns decided that 2017 was the year, a little early party in honor of the restaurant’s three-year anniversary in August.
Most restaurant luaus are heavy on the tiki and low on authenticity, but Coleman grew up in Hawaii, and his menu will reflect the reality of Hawaiian cuisine, as eaten by actual residents of Hawaii, as a melting pot of cultures and sometimes surprising dishes.
“I lived in Hawaii from age 9 to 23, so literally all of my formative years,” Coleman says. “That’s where the love of cooking started, that’s where I grew up. Although New Mexico is home at this point, Hawaii for me had a huge influence on who I am as a person, cooking, and for a while, I considered that home.”
The centerpiece of any luau is, of course, the roasted pig. Traditionally, a whole pig would be roasted in a pit dug into the ground, wrapped in banana leaves and covered in hot coals.
“It’s an ordeal,” Coleman says. “If it’s someone’s family in the backyard, the lead-up is a party in itself — you dig a hole, the preparation, the drinking. Sometimes you go to sleep for a little bit — there’s a point where you can let it be for a while, but essentially you let it cook overnight underground. It comes out and it’s super tender.”
Fire & Hops has a patio in its backyard, so Coleman is going to roast the pig (procured locally) in an aboveground box made for the purpose, a sort of lifted, bathtub-like case made of steel and wood designed for Cajunstyle barbacoa, in which a flayed pig is essentially suspended underneath the hot coals.
“A few people volunteered their yards to dig up, but I decided it would be easier roasting it and having it there at the restaurant,” Coleman says.
And then, of course, there are the side dishes, a bewildering melting pot of Portuguese, Japanese, Filipino, American and traditional Hawaiian foods. “You always have access to amazing fish, so I grew up with very high standards on fish,” Coleman says. “That melt- ing pot of all things Asian was always a huge influence in high school and after. I think a lot of people see the Asian stuff [on the menu at Fire & Hops] and think it’s trendy, but that’s how I cook.”
Fish, of course, will feature heavily. Coleman plans to make at least three kinds of poke (po-kay), or diced raw fish, possibly including tuna, tako (octopus) and lomi-lomi salmon, a dish that, like many others, came to Hawaii via American sailors.
“Lomi-lomi is funny because salmon isn’t anywhere nearby,” Coleman says. “It’s nothing from Hawaii — it involves salmon, tomatoes and green onions. It’s all about using good fish.”
“Lomi-lomi” means “to massage” and references the method of massaging the salt into the minced fish.
Hawaii also has an inextinguishable appetite for Spam, as does almost every Asian island, country or area that ever hosted the U.S. Navy. Spam features heavily in Hawaiian cuisine as it does in Filipino cuisine and even Balinese cuisine, and before you turn up your nose or ask why the notoriously choosy Coleman would deign to allow such a thing cross the threshold of his restaurant, in the right hands, it is surprisingly tasty. As is Hawaiian macaroni salad made with mayonnaise and carrots, another decidedly untraditional “traditional” food.
“That’s really popular over there,” says Coleman. “Any plate lunch is going to be two scoops of rice, protein and macaroni salad or potato salad.”
The luau also will feature a few other supporting-cast proteins, like huli-huli chicken, Hawaiian barbecued chicken marinated with an Asian-ish, American-ish sauce made variously of garlic, soy, sherry, pineapple juice, sesame oil, ketchup and/or Worcestershire sauce. “Huli” means “turn” and refers to the cooking method of turning the chicken constantly while basting it in the aforesaid sauce.
“I have these memories of a truck like an ice cream truck driving around the island with a loudspeaker calling out, ‘Get your huli-huli chicken,’ ” Coleman says.
There will also be pipikaula, thinly sliced, brined, dried beef that comes out like soft jerky, a Mexican-influenced dish developed when cattle ranching was brought to the islands in the 19th century.
The most traditional of traditional Polynesian dishes is, of course, poi, a creamy purple goo made of the mashed underground root of the taro plant. Poi is an acquired taste, meant to accompany dishes rather than stand on its own, and takes a long time — and a lot of elbow grease — to mash to the desired consistency, which is measured in terms of fingers: One-finger poi, which you can eat with just one finger, is the thickest, with two-finger poi being more liquid and three-finger poi wetter still.
“I’ve tried to make poi before; it’s not fun, it’s super labor intensive,” Coleman says. “And it never comes out the same. My plan was to order some from a place in Hawaii and just have some available. Most people honestly don’t like poi, but I like it, I think it should be there.”
Fire & Hops will be partnering with Kona Brewing out of Hawaii for a tap takeover, a friend of Coleman’s will be playing Hawaiian guitar, there will be leis, and people will be encouraged to bring their party faces.
“A few people I’ve talked to have been excited to bust out their Hawaiian shirts,” Coleman adds.