Loco Moco, How You Blew My Mind

I won't say that I never try anything different. Cause I do. It's just really hard for me to move out of my comfort element in restaurants, though I do blame most of that on my frugalness. I just hate the idea of ordering something new, not liking it and still having to pay for it although I leave hungry. But I digress.

The boy and I like to watch a little show on the Travel channel called Man vs. Food. The host, Adam Richmond, runs around to different places in the US with one major goal: to attempt to win a food challenge in a restaurant in the town of the week. Now people, I have seen this man attempt to eat a 7 pound breakfast burrito, 6 "nuclear" chicken wings, a 72 ounce steak, and just last night a 5 pound cheesesteak sandwich (to make it relevant, there was enough meat on that thing to make SIX regular sized cheesesteak sandwiches). Granted, a perk to his job is he gets to visit other great eateries around the city while he's there and share some of their awesomeness with us (to tempt us. To eat food late at night. I'm just sayin').

A few weeks ago Mr. Richmond visited Hawaii and introduced us to a local dish called Loco Moco. We'll just say that Justin was drooling and I was a bit hesitant, but nonetheless, when he asked if we could try and make it at some point I agreed. And last night was the innagural taste test. I introduce you to:

Loco Moco

(unfortunately not my picture, but I had to show you!)

And no, your eyes don't deceive. This dish is made with a bed of white rice, a hamburger patty topped with a fried egg and covered with brown gravy. Kinda gross you say? I thought it would be too. And even as I topped my plate with gravy last night, I was still having second thoughts. But after the first bite, both Justin and I were sold. This is one of the best comfort food dishes I've eaten in a long time. All the flavors and textures blend so well together. And I only made one change to how we saw it made- the egg is usually cooked as over easy or over medium, but we went with over well so there wouldn't be any runny yolk. And surprisingly enough, as I was describing the dish to my boss this morning, she said that she used to eat rice and brown gravy all the time. Huh, who would have thought?

Now I'm hungry again...