Marianas Grinds is a local restaurant that serves Hawaiian cuisine. It was formerly located at the flea market and recently relocated to the Winn Dixie plaza at St Johns and Beach. It's a nice little restaurant, they had some reggae music playing and had an overall island feel. I went during lunch on a week day and it was a little busy. They usually close at 2pm on weekdays and 8pm on Fri, Sat, and Sun.
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| Chamorro style Empanada, Lumpia, and Spam Masubi |
Hawaiian food has evolved over the centuries with the influence of the different cultures that were brought or immigrated there. There are influences from everyone including the indigeneous polynesians, Koreans, Chineses, Japanese, Filipinos, Portuguese, Vietnamese and Puerto Ricans. For example the famous Hawaiian Rolls are actually based on the Portuguese sweet rolls. Marianas Grinds also features food from the Chamorro people of the Marianas Islands which includes Guam.
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| Ginisan Katne |
I decided I wanted to try several things, for appetizers I ordered the Empanada Chamorro style which I believe features cream of rice as the main filling, the veggie Lumpia, and the Spam Masubi. Spam Masubi is the Hawaiian version of the Japanese Onigiri which is rice balls wrapped in seaweed. Only this has grilled spam on it. For my main dish I had the pork Ginisan Katne. This features stir-fried pork, bok choy, onions and eggplant in a very tasty sauce. It also came with macaroni salad and red rice. All the food was very tasty and I would highly recommend it. And you've got to try the Spam Masubi, it is actually really good.
