The plate lunch is the obvious example: Its roots include the Japanese bento box, the compartmented metal kaukau tins that plantation workers carried to lunch, the cooks of various ethnic groups who prepared food for multi-ethnic bachelor quarters and for haole plantation managers, indigenous foods, maritime staples (i.e. salt fish and meat) and ethnic foods immigrants brought with them.

But who can say when and how, exactly, the formula (hot entree, two scoops rice, macaroni salad) was finalized? And change continues: Today, your plate lunch is just as likely to feature grilled tofu, brown rice and a fresh green salad as it is beef stew, white rice and mac-potato combo.

Hundreds of cooks in thousands of boarding houses, restaurants, lunch wagons, school cafeterias and employee dining rooms have added to the family of dishes loosely known as "local food": loco moco, hamburger curry, saltmeat and watercress, mochiko chicken, gravy burger, chili-rice, saimin with teri-sticks, Portuguese sausage with eggs and rice, and dozens of more idiosyncra-tic combinations.

Even Island food that we think of as closely associated with a particular culture has been so altered that those from the "old country" don't recognize it. Japanese nationals think Spam musubi is hilarious, but they don't think of it as Japanese. And there are no malasadas in Portugal — at least, not by that name, and not served from mobile bakery wagons.

So it is that many of the specialties you'll read about in this book are unique to the Islands and so beloved that they're memorialized on T-shirts and airlifted in care packages to homesick expatriates.

Many popular local dishes or combinations may sound bizarre to the visitor or newcomer. Portuguese have a saying for this: Mais fica — "more for me." Meaning, if you're not going to eat that, just slide it on over here, brah.

As the world has become smaller, food trends have leapt oceans, lending an increasing sophistication to the restaurant scene and discrimination to Isle diners. Health is of greater concern here, as in the rest of the U.S. Also important in the late 20th century was the influx of Southeast Asians (many of whom became restaurateurs and bakers), as well as Latinos, and the influence on the restaurant scene of Japanese and Korean nationals.

We're still awfully far away from the Mediterranean, the Middle East, South America and Africa. But even a few of these threads are woven into the pattern of Island eating today.

You'll see all of this — our history and our connections — reflected here.

WHAT'S A BEST?

Each year, as we decide which restaurants are included in this guide, we stir a complex soup:

• Winners of the year's 'Ilima Awards, based on ballots of Advertiser readers, are always included in their own chapter. High vote-getters in the balloting are given consideration for inclusion elsewhere in the book.

• Although most of the restaurants are in greater Honolulu, we strive for diversity in location, as well as in food style, ethnicity and ambience. Some restaurants are here because they're one of a kind (the tiki-kitsch of La Mariana Sailing Club), or because they are off the beaten path (Happy Day, offering dim sum outside of Chinatown). We also want to create a balance of white-tablecloth restaurants to everyday cheap eats. Because take-out is so much a part of modern life, we've included many such places.

• The dining experiences of our experts — food editor Wanda Adams and restaurant critic Helen Wu — are the deciding factor. Every restaurant has been visited by one of us, anonymously and on the The Advertiser's dime, in the recent past. We apply accepted standards, but we also admit dining is subjective. Even the two of us don't always agree (which we think is probably a healthy thing), so there are restaurants here that represent differing tastes. And there are even a few that neither of us consider favorites, but that we know readers love, based on 'Ilima ballots and on their longevity in the community.