World record: Crew makes 1,126-pound loco moco

HONOLULU — A group is claiming a world record for a popular Hawaii dish, after putting together a massive bowl of rice, hamburger, eggs and gravy.

Chef Hideaki Miyoshi of Tokkuri Tei restaurant and volunteers at Sunday’s Fifth Annual Rice Festival assembled a bowl of loco moco that weighed 1,126 pounds.

Loco moco was invented in the late 1940s in Hilo. There are varieties, but the basic dish consists of hot white rice, a hamburger patty, an over-easy fried egg and brown gravy.

Guinness World Records said the dish would have to weigh at least 1,100 pounds for consideration.

Miyoshi and his crew used more than 600 pounds of rice, 200 pounds of ground beef, 300 scrambled eggs and 200 pounds of gravy. They used donated rice and borrowed kitchen space at Ward Centers.

The festival holds the Guinness World Record for making a 286-pound Spam musubi in 2011, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.

The big loco moco took 3½ hours to prepare and then was donated to charity to feed the homeless, organizer Lincoln Jacobe said.

Some loco-moco purists were critical of the use of scrambled eggs instead of over-easy eggs.

“If you order at a restaurant, they ask you how you want your egg,” Cesar Panocillo said. “So I guess it’s a preference. Some people might like it scrambled.”

The event also featured a Spam-musubi eating contest. Randy Javelosa beat four-time champion Ron Lee by eating seven of the canned meat, dried seaweed and rice snack in two minutes.

“I just tried to scarf it down and keep it down,” said Javelosa, whose price was a year’s worth of free rice.

“I’ll be back next year,” Lee vowed.