HawaU isn’t in Manassas’ charming Old Town. It’s not in one of the city’s high-traffic international markets either. Snuggled into a corner of an industrial park on Liberia Avenue, the truth is, a prospective diner must have the destination in mind to find it. And lovers of Hawaiian food have done just that.
The Kim family has never lived in Hawaii, though they have relatives there. But patriarch Peter Kim, once a chef in Korea, realized that his native fare and that of the American archipelago isn’t so different. “There’s nothing like it here in Northern Virginia,” says Joy Kim, his daughter-in-law. “We saw the similarity of Hawaiian and Korean dishes and decided to bring the best of both worlds.”
Loco Moco is the counter service restaurant’s top seller. The patties are made of beef and pork that’s ground in house, then bathed in a rich gravy. It’s buried in a pineapple ring and an over-easy egg and accompanied by tangy coleslaw and creamy pasta salad — a classic Hawaiian plate lunch.
Other popular dishes include a deeply savory spam musubi — drizzled in squiggles of eel sauce and spicy mayo — and more plate lunches featuring fried chicken with homemade sauces, and Korean bulgogi.
The restaurant, packed into a former deli that Joy Kim describes as having previously resembled “a doctor’s office,” has attracted a social media following that belies its humble location. “After someone posted a Facebook post about us, people were coming in and showing us the post. It went really viral,” she says, referring to a series of posts in the Northern Virginia Foodies Facebook group.
That has been followed by Instagrammers attracted by Joy Kim’s photo wall. Faux greenery and a neon sign with the words “Let’s get Loco!” has been all the advertisement that HawaU has needed.
“It’s been really weird. Here we are in the middle of nowhere and people are coming from far away like Woodbridge, Arlington, and Alexandria,” says Joy Kim. A near-perfect four-and-a-half stars on Yelp! has also drawn customers to the family-run restaurant, all proving that a small menu of consistent home cooking is enough to get a family noticed. 9089 Liberia Ave., Manassas
Feature photo by Mike Ramm
This story originally ran in our May issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
