Restaurant: L&L Hawaiian BBQ
City: Mountain View, CA

L&L is a Hawaiian fast-food chain based in Honolulu and is located all over California.

I went to the Mountain View location with my coworkers for lunch and had the Loco Moco, a dish very popular in Hawaii. It’s essentially a beef patty with gravy and egg served over rice. The dish came with a macaroni salad and extra rice on the side.

Here’s some info about the dish, from Wikipedia:

Loco moco is a meal in the contemporary cuisine of Hawaii. There are many variations, but the essential loco moco consists of white rice, topped with a hamburger patty, a fried egg, and brown gravy.

The dish is rumored to have been created at either the Lincoln Grill or May’s Fountain, two restaurants in Hilo, Hawaii, in the 1940s. The most probable origin of the name is that “loco” is a variation of “local”, while “moco” was added simply because it rhymed.

The dish is widely popular in Hawaii and now on the menu at many Hawaiian restaurants in the mainland. In keeping with the standards of Japanese cuisine, rice is used as a staple starch, finished off with the hamburger, gravy, and fried eggs to create a dish that does not require the preparation time of bento. Loco moco can be found in various forms on many Pacific islands from Hawaii to Samoa to Guam and Saipan, and is also popular in Japan.

And more info, from What’s Cooking America:

Loco Moco (loh-koo moh-koo) is Hawaii’s original homemade fast food and can be found at just about any fast food joint, roadside diner, mom and pop restaurant or lunch wagon in the Islands. It is truly unique to Hawaii, and it is a comfort food, or “local grind,” of the Hawaiian Islands. Local food is not the cuisine that is served in upscale hotels and restaurants of Hawaii. It is a basic structure was established soon after World War II – the best fast food or mixture of cuisines from many Pacific rim countries, with a special Hawaiian twist.

Loco Moco is a mountainous meal consisting of a heap of white rice topped with a hamburger patty and a Sunnyside-up egg, and then smothered in gravy. This dish is popular for breakfast, lunch, or dinner and is a candidate for the Cholesterol Hall of Fame. As you eat, break the egg – then blend the burger, egg, rice, and gravy on your fork for each bite for a real taste of paradise.

There are many people who claim to have invented Loco Moco, but it is generally agreed that around 1949, either the Cafe 100 or the Lincoln Grill (both in Hilo, Hawaii) originated the first dish of Loco Moco. According to the story, the dish was created for teenagers who wanted something different from typical American sandwiches and less time-consuming than Asian food to eat for breakfast. The nickname of the first boy to eat this concoction was Loco (“crazy” in Portuguese and Hawaiian pidgin). Moco rhymed with loco and sounded great, so Loco Moco became the name of the dish.