Hawaii’s Alan Wong is one of President Obama’s favorite chefs — and ours too

We’ve been fans of Hawaiian regional cuisine for many years. We have cookbooks from Sam Choy, Roy Yamaguchi and Alan Wong, among others.

We’ve owned Alan Wong’s New Wave Luau cookbook since it came out in 1999. (Ten Speed Press, one of our favorites, is the publisher). In Hawaii over the years, we’ve eaten at both of Alan Wong’s restaurants, The Pineapple Room at Ala Moana Center and Alan Wong’s King Street.

Once we carted Alan’s New Wave Luau to a rented place on Maui (not far from Mama’s Fish House) and cooked many of the recipes there.

It was a highly contemporary kitchen, with a Wolf range, but as we learned later, it was merely connected to hose that ran outdoors to a small propane tank (like the ones for your BBQ). We cooked up a storm and we emptied the tank — much to the owner’s surprise. (Wong’s kalua pork recipe cooks for four hours alone).

With President Obama vacationing in Hawaii, we noticed articles that Alan Wong is one of the President’s favorite chefs. He and the First Lady have eaten at Alan Wong’s and his favorite dish is Wong’s Twice Cooked Soy Braised Short Ribs with Korean chili.

The recipe is here.

In 2009, the Obama White House turned its first congressional picnic into a Hawaiian luau, in celebration of the president’s home state. And Wong prepared traditional luau foods like kalua pig and lomi lomi salmon.

Wong’s luau for Congress included a dunking booth: