You’re off to beautiful, tropical Kauai. Oh, the sites you’ll see. One site you might not have been expecting is a bounty of food trucks! Writer Carole Jacobs was surprised to discover it too, but thankfully, she has made our entrée (pun intended) into the scene easier with her guide to food trucks in Kauai. When we’re not eating, she also tells us what else we just can’t miss!

Save this article about the best food trucks in Kauai to Pinterest to help plan your trip. Graphic by RealFoodTraveler.com.

Kauai is Food Truck Heaven

Chiseled mountains, thundering waterfalls, dreamy beaches – I thought I knew all the age-old reasons for visiting Kauai. Yet on a recent trip, I discovered something new and surprising: Hold the luau! Kauai is food truck paradise!

Since the 2008 popularity of shows like The Great Food Truck Race, Kauai has given the food truck concept its own Aloha spin.  No shoes, no shirts, no reservations – just highly inventive cuisine revolving around fresh, local ingredients.  That ahi you just bit into was still swimming a few hours ago, while the arugula in your salad was just harvested from a local organic farm.

With 50 food trucks sprinkled from the North Shore to the West Side, you’re never far from a culinary cruiser. From pork belly burgers to spicy ahi shrimp tempura, tacos to steamed pork buns, watermelon-basil shave ice to toasted pine nut and wasabi-ginger ice cream, your biggest challenge will be deciding where to eat first.

Work up an appetite for your next food truck meal by hiking Waimea Canyon, “The Grand Canyon of the Pacific”. Photo courtesy Anthology Group public relations.

Here’s a few of the best food trucks in Kauai, plus what to see/do in the ‘hood when you simply can’t take another bite.

Kauai Food Trucks: North Shore

Snapshot: The Kauai of Hollywood movies, with blinding white beaches, mighty cascades and the fluted cliffs of the Napali Coast, is also home to old-world Hawaii, a long-ago landscape of working taro farms, one-lane bridges and tiny farming and fishing communities lost in time.

Can’t-miss food trucks:

• Hanalei Taro & Juice Company: Cook/owner Brad Nakayama tucks taro, an ancient Hawaiian staple, into everything on the menu: 16 types of taro smoothies, taro hummus and Okinawan pork belly sliders with Asian slaw on taro buns. Both the pork and taro are local. In fact, wife Lynsey’s six-generation family farm nestled in the fertile Hanalei Valley grows the taro, and has done so since 700 AD.
• Trucking Delicious: Owner/culinary school grad Chloe creates grilled cheese sandwiches that combine sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami into one gooey, delectable bite. Try the Angry Goat, a combo of goat cheese, salty prosciutto ham, sweet mango and spicy Hawaiian chili peppers that Chloe grows in her own garden.
• North Shore General Store: Fuel up at this funky-looking gas station, which serves killer cuisine. Pair an organic espresso made with Lavazza Super Crema with the Loco Moto: a hot mess of rice, two eggs, and homemade gravy topped with a grass-fed burger. “It has no antibiotics, steroids, or hormones, and it comes from right down the street,” says owner/chef Darron White.
  

  A fixture in Hanalei for more than 14 years, Aloha Juice Bar serves cold pressed juices and smoothies made with organic ingredients from local farms. Photo courtesy of Best Kauai Food Trucks.

Can’t eat another bite?

• Meet the local growers/farmers at the Hanalei Farmers Market on Saturdays from 9:30 am–noon. Nearly every major town in Kauai hosts a farmer’s market.
• Take a raft tour of the Napoli Coast to see glittering sea caves, crashing waterfalls, and untouched beaches.
• Visit the Farmacy, an organic farm/medicinal garden set beneath a sacred mountain. The farm is owned by former Connecticut corporate execs Doug and Genna Wolkon, who fled the rat race and moved to Kauai to regain their health and sanity. Using their own medicinal herbs, teas, and fresh veggies, they lost weight, de-stressed and became living proof that Mother Nature knows best.

When you can’t take another bite, head to the Napali Coast for a kayaking tour through breathtaking sea caves. Photo courtesy Anthology Group public relations.

Food Trucks in Kauai: East Side

Snapshot: Called the Royal Coconut Coast for the groves of coconut palms that line resort areas, the East Side hosts the lesser-known organic farms, misty hillsides, and one of Kauai’s highest waterfall.

Can’t-miss food trucks (all in Kapaa Town):

• Wailua Shave Ice: Local boys John Tamaoka and Brandon Baptise, formerly a chef at trendy New York Per Se, created a healthier version of shave ice by replacing the artificial dyes, flavors and high-fructose corn syrup with all-natural ingredients. The Lilikoi Cream, the island version of a creamsicle, is made with fresh passion fruit, vanilla bean, and milk. The truck’s piece de resistance, The Lava Flow, is a mound of ice soaked in pineapple juice and topped with strawberry puree and clouds of coconut foam.
• Heart & Soul Again: Serving authentic Creole/Cajun food, owner Sean Hartigan was trained as a chef in New Orleans and has more than 40 years of culinary experience. All of his offerings are made from scratch with locally-sourced ingredients except crawfish which comes from Louisiana.

Can’t eat another bite?

• Visit Lydgate Farms, an organic chocolate and vanilla grower in the shadow of the Sleeping Giant (NouNou Mountain).
• Hike the Sleeping Giant on a two-mile trail that spirals up through a shaded forest of ironwood, guava and silk oak to the panoramic summit.
• Drive to Opaekaa Falls Lookout to watch the thundering cascade plunge hundreds of feet into a pool.

Best Food Trucks Kauai: Central

Snapshot: Beyond the official government buildings are fascinating museums, historic plantations, and hidden beaches.

Can’t-miss food trucks (all in Lihue):

• Ally’s Cocina: Owner/chef Alejandra Gamero, a native of Venezuela, has introduced Kauai to arepas. Try the King Kong, a hulking combo of pork, black beans, avocado, a fried egg, and crumbled feta slathered with a cilantro garlic sauce and piled in a griddled masa bun.

Can’t eat another bite?

• Hike the steep trail down to Ninini Beach, a pocket cove where a lighthouse has been operating since 1897.
• Visit Kilohana, a historic plantation estate with gardens, a plantation railroad, the Koloa Rum Company and the most iconic luau on Kauai.

Local fisherman Johnny, owner of the Johnny Got Crab food truck, turns his morning’s catch into delectable sandwiches like the Soft Shell Blue Crab Po’ Boy. Photo courtesy of Best Kauai Food Trucks.

Food Trucks in Kauai: South Shore

Snapshot:  With its nonstop sun, sandy beaches, swanky beachfront resorts and Waimea Canyon — Kauai’s response to the Grand Canyon, the South Shore is the Kauai of travel posters.

 Can’t-miss food trucks (all in Old Koloa Town)

• Kickshaws: Using sous vide cooking and other avant garde cooking techniques, chef Seth Peterson creates exotic gourmet diner fare. Dare you to try the alligator burgers, topped with kimchee apples and Chinese cabbage!
• Kauai Food Truck: One of Kauai’s first food trucks specializes in Island comfort dishes like garlic chili pepper shrimp and teriyaki butterfish tacos.

Can’t eat another bite?

• Bring a beach umbrella and stake your claim on Shipwreck Beach, a long, crescent-shaped strand backed by soaring sea cliffs.
• Go snorkeling at Beach House Beach, a small slip of sand with a rocky bottom where you can spy on fish and honu, the Hawaiian green sea turtle.

One of Kauai’s first food trucks, the Kauai Food Truck in Old Koloa Town serves island-style comfort food like slow-roasted kalua pork smothered in gravy and grilled fish, garlic shrimp and kalua pork tacos.

Hungry for more? Here are Kauai restaurants serving fresh seafood.

Food Trucks in Kauai: West Side

Snapshot: This hot, dry region of haunting beauty and stark contrasts is Kauai at its most rural and traditional. Dark sand beaches overlook the remote isle of Niihau where Hawaiian is still spoken, sugar and taro cling for life in fertile river valleys where locals hunt and fish for food, and the Navy launches rockets at Mana as part of its “Star Wars” missile defense system.The West Side is also home to Waimea Canyon, Kauai’s response to the Grand Canyon.

Can’t-miss food trucks (all in Hanapepe)

• Little Fish Coffee: a sea-blue stand surrounded by strutting chickens, serves organic espresso, plantation teas, and scrumptious smoothie like The Spartan: a blend of almond milk, spinach, bananas, dates, almond butter, cinnamon, and spinach that’s fit for Popeye.

Can’t eat another bite?

• Wander around Hanapepe, a storybook town whose rusty bridges and homemade mailboxes inspired the 2002 animated film Lilo and Stitch.
• Art galleries, boutiques and cafes occupy wooden, tin-roofed buildings dusted red by volcanic dirt. The sleepy main drag comes alive on Friday nights with barefoot musicians, food trucks and galleries staying open until 9 p.m. – the wee hours by Hanapepe standards.
• Drive to nearby Spouting Horn, Kauai’s version of Old Faithful.
• Explore Waimea Canyon, the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific”. The Canyon Trail descends through a green canopy of trees and wildflowers to Waipo’o Falls, a breathtaking 800-foot cascade that’s an idyllic place to cool your heels.

Look familiar? Hanapepe was the inspiration for the movie Lilo and Stitch, and the location for The Thorn Birds.

Where to sleep: North Shore Hanalei Bay Resort, Princeville; East Side  Plantation Hale Suites, Kapaa; Central Marriot’s Kauai Beach Club, Kalapaki Beach; South Shore O’Luina, Kalaheo; West Side Waimea Plantation Cottages, Waimea,

To learn more about Kauai, head to their Official Travel Site, here.

Hungry for more? Carole took us on a long weekend to Detroit, Michigan for a culinary adventure.