It's well known that Las Vegas has a huge community of expat Hawaiians, as evidenced by the staggering number of places for Spam musubi, a subject ably tackled in a recent issue of our sister publication, Las Vegas Life, by Kate Silver.
Better her than me. Spam musubi, for those unfamiliar with this icon of the Aloha State, is a clump of vinegared rice and a hunk of fried luncheon meat, with a nori seaweed wrapper. One taste and you'll understand why Honolulu will never be a Major League Baseball town. (Not that a hot dog's credentials are any nobler.)
Still, Hawaiians love Spam musubi, and among places for them, count Aloha Kitchen, L&L Hawaiian Barbecue and Huli's. Now there is one more, Maui Rose, which is all things to all people, in an Asian-fusion sort of way.
Like so many small storefront restaurants from the Big Island to Kaua'i, it is owned by ethnic Koreans, who along with Filipinos and Japanese, bring their own take on Hawaiian dishes to the table, along with dishes from their country of origin. Décor is minimalist, though compared to the places in Hawaii, most of which are found next to laundromats or inside gas stations, it is almost gaudy in here.
Walls are painted sky-blue, with one lone photo of a palm tree on a deserted beach over the cash register, and the tables have Formica tops. Many of the customers were speaking Korean when I ate here, and so were the girls behind the counter. English is minimalist but the cooking is excellent and quite international.
Considering how small it is, Maui Rose has an enormous menu, made larger by several creative combination plates and bento lunch boxes. You might want to start off with salad or sushi, both of which are faultless. Cabbage almond salad is a delicious sort of coleslaw, and mango avocado salad succeeds because of the ripeness of the components.
Sushi rolls are the best deal here, about twice the size of those in Japanese restaurants that charge twice. Crunch roll has panko bread crumbs on the outside, shrimp tempura, crabmeat, avocado and cucumber inside. An extra $3 and it morphs into the Jessica roll, with salmon, tuna and avocado substituting for panko on the outside.
Most of the meats are found in the menu section titled Maui Rose Specials, and they stand up to any in town, with one or two exceptions. The top choice here is kalbi, or Korean-style short ribs, fabulous meat on the bone redolent of ginger, garlic and sesame, and served sizzling hot.
Chicken katsu cutlet is fine, too: breaded, pan-fried chicken that manages to be almost greaseless—a rare feat. Plain barbecued chicken comes properly blackened, but is a sweet bird, if you will, probably because of a generous amount of sugar in the marinade. Kalua pork, though, could use a little work. Matted together, short on flavor and the color of an old mop, it is the least appetizing thing on Maui Rose's menu.
Whatever meat you order, it is almost de rigueur to eat it with a small heap of steamed rice, a salad consisting of iceberg lettuce, a tomato you couldn't spear with a fork, and the side dish of your choice, usually macaroni salad or steamed vegetables.
The Hawaiian fare doesn't end there. Loco Moco isn't for the faint of heart. It's really a hamburger and a couple of fried eggs, drenched in a primordial ooze that Hawaiians insist is a form of gravy, and served on top of a mound of steamed white rice. Breakfast, anyone?
There is also miso soup, another dish Hawaiians eat for breakfast, and dare I say it, the macaroni salad is delicious, creamy, sweet and almost al dente.
The owners have managed to sneak in a few Korean and Japanese dishes—for the hard-core Hawaiians among us. Yes, there is Japanese curry, a thick, brown sludge that has sustained the student population of Japan since the Edo period, eaten over white rice.
Special noodle turns out to be the slippery Korean mung bean noodle called jap chae, which is terrific when fried with a few vegetables and some beef, as here. Spicy Korean chicken soup, a.k.a. yuk gae jang, will sear the roof of your mouth without mercy unless you cut it with plenty of rice.
A better choice would be bibimbap, a rice bowl stocked with a variety of colorful raw and cooked vegetables, plus minced beef and hot red-bean paste. The dish is also available with kalbi, those delicious short ribs.
Shucks, I forgot to taste the Spam musubi. I'll just have to take a rain check.