Kiki Aranita of Poi Dog launches a new Hawaiian-inspired sauce

Kiki Aranita has been doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that since her restaurant, Poi Dog Philly, closed in 2020 after three years of bringing Hawaiian traditions to a Center City storefront, and for four years before that, as a food cart on Temple University’s campus.

There’s been fiber art, and there’s her writing, which brought her a James Beard nomination last year for her essay “How It Feels to Close Your Restaurant for Good,” which appeared in Food & Wine.

Her main gig nowadays is a line of bottled sauces under the Poi Dog brand, including the gingery Chili Peppah Water that Inquirer critic Craig LaBan said could “warm a dish of pulled pork or rice like a splash of sunshine,” as well as Guava Katsu sauce. On Saturday at the Cherry Bombe Jubilee in New York, the annual conference celebrating women and creatives in the world of food and drink, she will officially release Huli Huli, a pineapple-based sauce and marinade.

Since Aranita is a writer, I’ll let her explain the Huli Huli backstory: “I grew up in Hawaii Kai, a suburb of Honolulu. It was an idyllic place to spend one’s childhood — a couple miles away from Hanauma Bay, where my sister and I would swim in calm waters while fish nibbled at our toes. There is a Foodland at the halfway point between home and the road up the mountain to Hanauma Bay and on weekends, the perfume of smoke and roasting chickens would nearly reach our house. Huli Huli smoke was a siren call for us to line up — in the Foodland parking lot, but also the backroads of Kaneohe and the edges of the Swap Meet at Aloha Stadium — knowing that our fingers would soon be oil-slicked and blackened, tearing into chicken flesh, seasoned with soy, maybe some pineapple, and a lot of smoke.”

She says Huli Huli goes best with chicken or mushrooms.

Aranita hopes this sauce (suggested retail: $17-$18) will join the lineup of Poi Dog’s other sauces distributed via Lancaster Farm Fresh to smaller groceries and specialty markets from New York to Virginia, including such Philadelphia shops as Herman’s Coffee, Rowhouse Grocery, and Riverwards Produce Market.

Initially, Huli Huli will be available mainly in 64-ounce food-service sizes. Which brings up an odd coincidence.

Her food-service redistributor is Ari Miller of C.W. Dunnet in South Philadelphia, formerly of 1732 Meats.

Aranita’s husband is also named Ari Miller, the former chef-owner of Musi in South Philadelphia and now chef de cuisine at Ivan Ramen in New York.

Miller the food distributor is in her phone as “Ariyeh Miller,” while her husband is in there as “Ari Miller Lite” — an inside joke because she has been lobbying him to create a beer with that name.