The Local Bite & Tropic Hunger Food Truck — Restaurant in Kennewick

Hawaii born and raised here. So exited to see a Hawaiian foods plate lunch truck here. Having to drive to Spokane or Seattle to get my Hawaiian plate lunch fix is to say the least an inconvenience. But when you're missing home food what can one do? I ordered the regular Shoyu Chicken, keiki (child) kalua pork plate and the Big Kahuna Chicken Katsu plate. If you're looking for the true Hawaiian/Japanese katsu this is not it. By a long shot. Katsu breading is light and crisp, this was heavily breaded and not tasty and it was 'severely' over fried. Katsu is delicate to the taste buds. Lightly crispy and chews easily. They drizzled the "Katsu" sauce over it which is never done in Hawaii, instead it's on the side for dipping. They give a dipping sauce but it doesn't go nor compliment any of the foods served. I'm not really sure why it's included. Katsu sauce yes. Should be included or offered. Pass on the Katsu when you can have fried chicken practically anywhere. Kalua pork was good, not authentic, but good enough and the rice is good, sticky rice but not too much. The rice I got was older as it had hard dry rice in every so many bites. Kalua pork should be served with raw thick slices of onion or at least offered. Kalua pork and pork or chicken laulau is always accompanied with raw onion. But over all kalua pork was very satisfying. The winner here is the shoyu chicken. As we say in Hawaii, "broke da mout" "ono"licious. "Dats da one", meaning BEST of all in that meal. It's is so tasty and perfectly cooked. We sliced up an onion and our taste buds were completely home with the shoyu and kalua w/the raw onion and sticky rice and Mac salad. So ono. Even though the mac salad was not traditional taste it was still a good recipe and went very well with the meal. We love our mac salad. They also offer spam musubi but we don't eat spam anymore so passed on it. Was interested to taste it tho because it's the marinade that makes musubi so delicious. Teri chicken can also be made into musubi. Owner did say that eventually they'll add laulau. This I cannot hardly wait for as it is the ultimate missed food for us. Pork or chicken, with a slice of salmon steamed in ti leaves woowhee it's so so awesome. Pair it w/chicken long rice, haupia, lomilomi hopefully a few pieces of pipikaula and hot rice and raw onion let me tell ya, you'll feel like a glutton but well worth the guilt. Overall I like this place. Was so disappointed in the katsu but they well made up for with the other items. So happy to finally have a place to get some good kalua and shoyu with a nice tasty mac salad and 'sticky' rice. In Hawaii we don't eat dry, flaky rice that falls off the fork when you try to get it to your mouth. The owners did good at understanding that. I do hope eventually they'll offer Teri burgers. Please go give them a try. Lots of parking too. The person who took my order super friendly. This place is a winner. Will still drive into Seattle for manapua and dishes that can't be found even in Spokane. Kauai Family Restaurant is my choice if you're ever near their area of Georgetown. They also have a bakery connected that makes Hawaii desserts. Hawaiian food is so comforting. Mahalo nui loa The Local Bite for offering Hawaii...

i grew up in honolulu, hawaii, so i was excited to see a business offering local hawaiian cuisine.

when i approached the food truck, i ordered a plate lunch and two spam musubis. while waiting, i made small talk with the woman taking my order and asked if she was from hawaii or had ever lived there. her immediate response was, “oh god no,” followed by an explanation that their food was “hawaiian-inspired” rather than authentic. she went on to say, “we don’t cook pigs in the ground or anything—we use a slow cooker.”

i didn’t know how to respond. how can a business with “tropic hunger” in its name serve hawaiian plate lunches and then have such a dismissive reaction to a simple question about ties to the culture? she didn’t even mention having visited hawaii.

her comment about not cooking pigs in the ground was especially baffling. does she think people in hawaii don’t use slow cookers or have modern appliances? this stereotype felt outdated and offensive. it left me wondering how someone with such little understanding of hawaiian culture could serve food inspired by it.

as for the food itself—it was disappointing. the mac salad, in particular, was one of the worst things i’ve ever tasted. overall, the experience was frustrating and...

Keep getting asked to review this place by Maps and since I'm tired of getting the notification I'm doing it! 3 stars because I can't get any more neutral of a rating than that.

Not a clue as to how the food was as we never got the chance to eat here. We picked it as a lunch spot since we were in the Tri Cities area while on a road trip. We pulled up to its location at 11:30am on Friday. Not open, at all. So we left and had lunch elsewhere. The only review I can reasonably leave is a suggestion call the number to make sure they're open before driving there to discover they're not, we were disappointed, but understand that with local food trucks/trailers like this hours can change at the drop of a hat, or workers can call in with no one left to cover. If we're in the area again we'll probably give it another try as all the reviews (who got food) rave about...