Mana Bu's Masterful Musubis

The Shape of Snacks to Come

Mana Bu's musubis leave all other Hawaiian rice balls behind. Behold the perfect handheld lunch treat.

By Sandra Wu | Friday, 16 October 2009 | 14:41

Mana Bu's uses a traditional wood musubi mold.
Photos by Sandra Wu.

At 11 p.m., when most people are tucked comfortably in their beds, Manabu and Fumiyo Asaoka are just waking up. In one hour, they will be hard at work, starting to cook the first of 150 cups of rice. The husband-wife duo are the chef-owners of Mana Bu's, a specialty musubi shop in a Honolulu strip mall just two doors from the Baskin-Robbins where President Barack Obama scooped ice cream as a teenager. In this clean, minimalist space decorated with cheerful orange accents, the Asaokas transform rice from a overlooked accompaniment to the star of the show.

Musubi is the Japanese-Hawaiian term for rice balls (English) or onigiri (Japanese), simple handheld fare of plain or flavored rice that is pressed into a triangle shape, occasionally filled or topped, and sometimes wrapped in nori. The best-known local version is the Spam musubi, a nori-wrapped (often rectangular) pad of rice topped with a slice of pan-fried Spam that's sold everywhere in Hawaii -- fast-food joints, plate lunch windows, even 7-Elevens. Unlike the mass-produced versions, however, each of Mana Bu's 30 or so varieties is freshly made daily in small batches.

Starting with four premium-grade rices -- white, brown, sweet, and a custom-blended 10-grain -- the Asaokas create an awe-inspiring range of choices. Traditional flavors such as teri-Spam (teriyaki sauce-glazed Spam), tuna-mayo, unagi (eel), and ume (preserved plum) to more interesting varieties like shiso and wakame (a type of seaweed), spicy takuwan (pickled radish), and even a curried vegetable pilaf. They also sell homemade okazu (side dishes), including Okinawan sweet potato salad and tamagoyaki (rolled egg omelet) and desserts like strawberry mochi and custard pudding. The idea is to give customers lots of options to be able to build their own healthy, customized meals or snack.

"If I were a customer," said Manabu, "I wouldn't want to buy the same bento box every day. I'm very happy when some customers come in to buy just one piece."

Manabu Asaoka

A self-taught cook, Manabu is a warm, smiley-faced man who left a career as an insurance salesman in Japan to pursue his dream of starting a food business in Hawaii. Together with his wife Fumiyo, a former high school home economics teacher with a nutrition background, he opened Mana Bu's in May 2008.

From midnight until doors open at 9:30 a.m. every Tuesday through Saturday, the Asaokas painstakingly hand-form every piece of musubi and prepare many of the components used to flavor them. Everything from the baked salmon filling to the teriyaki, soy, and miso glazes that coat the outside of the baked musubis are made from scratch and nothing is left over for the next day. The rice, steamed in batches in 10-cup consumer-grade induction-heat rice cookers, is flavored and quickly shaped while still piping hot to ensure that the grains adhere and don't become watery, soggy or yellow.

To form the proper shape, the rice is placed into traditional musubi molds -- long, wooden blocks with triangular cutouts -- before being filled in the center with additional ingredients if necessary, and topped with another layer of rice. After removing the mold, the rice balls are gently shaped again with hands moist with sea-salt-water-moistened, then seasoned with Hawaiian sea salt before being loosely wrapped in cellophane. According to Manabu, when eating a good musubi you can distinctly taste the salty exterior, the flavorful filling, and the pure, clean flavor of the rice.

Mana Bu's

1618 S. King St., Honolulu, Hawaii
(808) 358-0287
www.hawaiimusubi.com
Open Tues.-Sat., 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

In the shop, each variety of musubi is labeled with a card listing its ingredients and corresponding brand or place or origin. In addition to informing customers who might have specific food allergies, these labels are also meant to show people that no crazy or special ingredients are used. (Maui cane sugar and Kirkland -- the Costco brand -- albacore tuna are listed one after another on the card for the miso yaki musubi.)

"Everyone can easily get these ingredients at a supermarket in Hawaii," said Manabu. "Making this kind of food is not difficult."

The Asaokas hope that by demystifying what goes into them, people will be inspired to eat more healthfully and perhaps even make their own musubis. But with Mana Bu's artisan creations costing $1.30 to $1.60 a piece, who would want to?

Mana Bu's musubi shop in Honolulu