Soul Food in Paradise

We have a lot of cooks on "Sunrise," and I've never felt compelled to blog about any of them before, even though some of the food on the set has been incredibly good. For a segment we're doing on Juneteenth (June 19 is the anniversary of emancipation in Texas, and it's an increasingly popular celebratory holiday, like a St. Patrick's Day for African Americans) we brought in "The Answer," a funk band (well, sort of, they go beyond funk) and Mom's Soul Food Restaurant. And I just realized the guy who did the cooking doesn't have his own name on the card he gave me. Darn. Okay, I'll just describe the food. Hawaii has a spectrum of great food, but not so much soul food as this haole got used to in Washington, D.C. You can get ribs but rarely dry ribs (Memphis style) and it's hard to get cabbage the Southern way because we do it the Korean way. In D.C., both were available. So anyway, we were served breaded and fried catfish and snapper -- I finished my work too late to taste the catfish but the snapper was super -- smooth, tasty cabbage -- sweet cornbread -- and a sauce the guy made himself that was hot during chewing but smooth going down. I never did figure out how he did that. If you're intrigued, Mom's Soul Food Restaurant is at 94-226 Leoku St. in Waipahu.