Spam Soft-Serve and Build-Your-Own Musubi Bar Are Coming to L.A.
This Spam-tastic L.A. pop-up isn’t just madness. It’s Musubi Madness.
Spam, the legendary canned meat that turned 80 in 2017, will be showcased during an over-the-top Foodbeast-presented event at Hollywood’s Lono tiki bar on September 7, 14, and 21. Highlights will include Spam corn dogs, Spam soft-serve sundaes, and a build-your-own musubi bar, which makes us wonder: How is a build-your-own musubi bar not already a thriving fast-casual concept with locations slinging rice balls around the world?
At Lono, guests will be able to order globally inspired Spam musubis like a Mexican chile verde musubi with queso fresco and Spanish rice, a Filipino lumpia musubi with Spam tocino and garlic rice, a Korean kimchi fried rice musubi, and a Vietnamese spring roll musubi with nuoc cham. Or you can go for a riff on an all-American hamburger that features Spam, “secret sauce,” grilled onions, and American cheese.
Lono executive chef David Lespron will make Spam-and-shrimp corn dogs, which will be in a togarashi batter and topped with banana ketchup. Lespron’s build-your-own Spam-infused soft-serve sundae will have topping options like furikake, teriyaki caramel, rum caramel, and vanilla-braised pineapple. There will be a special tiki cocktail with rum, pineapple, Cara Cara orange, and coconut cream, served over crushed ice. That drink will come in a Spam can, of course.
The first batch of tickets for this free pop-up were quickly reserved, but additional tickets will be released next week at foodbeast.com/spam.
And if you want more Spam musubi, there’s always the rice balls at Mama Musubi, a popular vendor at L.A. farmers' markets and Smorgasburg. Mama Musubi recently opened an outpost at Pasadena’s Kitchen United for to-go and delivery orders that could also include Spam fried rice, Berkshire pork belly musubi, sweet beef musubi, miso chicken musubi, and spicy tuna musubi. This is starting to feel like L.A.’s musubi moment.
