By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

The reason you've probably never eaten at the Hula Moon Cafe is that you have to go all the way to Rockport, Mass., to do so.

A similar problem applies at the Go Fish Restaurant that serves excellent sushi, Hawaiian poke and miso soup. It's in Mystic, Conn.

I stumbled onto the Go Fish last month during a trip to the East Coast. The owner is John Kodama, with his brother Jerry Kodama running the sushi bar.

As for the Hula Moon Cafe, I heard about it from Pat Bigold on Hihiwai Street, who said: "It's owned by two people from Honolulu, Kevin and Sally Takekawa.

"The shop is on Rockport Harbor with a view out of the back window of their Hawaiian gift shop. The Takekawas serve Hawaiian food for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

"They even have a shave ice machine. Shave ice has become pretty popular with the locals in Rockport since the Takekawas opened the Hula Moon."

Palouse in Washington state is another hotbed of Hawaiiana.

According to Dennis Anderson, retired sports writer in Kailua, Hawaiian music has become very big in Palouse, a community near Moscow, not too far from Lewiston.

He sent a clipping about it from the Moscow Pullman Daily News.

The headline reads, "Makin Island Music Has a Corner on the Palouse Hawaiian Scene."

It turns out that a guitar strummer of Island tunes named Harold Makin and his wife used to play when the supermarket had a Hawaiian Days sale.

He got paid in dog food for his hunting hound. Then Nani Johnson, another Hawaiian musician, joined the band.

"Now we've got the Hawaiian music market cornered in Palouse," said Makin. "There's nobody else who does it.

"Over in Seattle, there's all sorts of musicians who play our style, but we're it around here."

That's why Hawaiian music reverberates on barbecue night, in the Moose Lodge and Elks Club and at the Farmers Market.

The management once asked Makin to cut out the hula show because it was too much of a distraction for shoppers.

Our final news about Hawai'i on the Mainland comes from Dave North at the University of Utah.

He gives some background on the Iosepa luau, which takes place every year on the site of a historic Hawaiian settlement in the Utah desert.

"Iosepa was named after Joseph F. Smith, the Church of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) president who had the temple built in La'ie," writes North.

"It was one of the first temples of the LDS church. He lived in Hawai'i four years as a teenager and returned at least twice."

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-0873.

Correction: David Kodama of Sansei Seafood Restaurant & Sushi Bar does not own a restaurant in Mystic, Conn. Also, the town of Palouse is in Washington state, not Idaho. Information in a previous version of this column was incorrect.