Reel in great seafood and sushi at Malama Pono in Sherman Oaks

Let’s make this clear from the get-go: Malama Pono is not a cliché tourist cuisine Hawaiian restaurant, the sort of place you go to for dishes like loco moco, teriyaki chicken, chicken katsu, plate lunch — and if you’re livin’ large, Spam musubi, so you can tell the neighbors back in Dubuque about how they make sushi with Spam. And, of course, a luau. Which can all be pretty good chow.

Don’t get me wrong; I like kalua pork as much as the next guy in baggy shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. But this is not what Malama Pono is about.

Malama Pono — the name means “Take good care of yourself” in one translation, but also “to live with a conscious decision to do what is morally right in terms of self, others and the land…” — describes itself as “a seafood-inspired restaurant…featuring regional fusion cuisine with a Pacific influence…” Which is to say, the stuff a lot of us have been eating here in SoCal for a long time, dating back to great destinations like Roy’s and even, on one level, the old Trader Vic’s. We’re on the edge of the Pacific. The culinary influences are many. And they make eating here a lot of fun.

And so, at Malama Pono, which is a casual café on Ventura Boulevard, a distance from the sushi-heavy restaurant row of Studio City, you will find loco moco. But it’s not the mess on a plate that it is at most Hawaiian-themed eateries. In this case, it’s built around a very tasty, richly herbed and spiced house-made pork patty, topped with unexpectedly edible porcini mushroom gravy — and, of course, the inevitable fried egg.

There’s a “mix plate.” But it’s not the usual mishmash — the mix here is of mochiko chicken in a ponzu shoyu and tomato ginger sauce, with filet mignon, fish, Spam as good as it ever gets, and a “local-style” mac salad, made with cheese that’s worth eating. Even if it does mess up your cholesterol. Also, there are kalua pork lettuce wraps, made unique with pickled red cabbage and maple-scented Japanese mustard.

But then…what’s this? In the midst of this reimagined Hawaiiana, we find grilled shrimp and parmesan grits — a dish with roots more in the American South than the South Pacific. The house-made garlic naan caprese is a unique mix of Indian and Italian foods. The Chinese prawn salad is made with frisée and our own much-loved (for the moment), fiber-heavy green, baby kale. And the duck confit with green papaya slaw, cashews and Thai dressing owes its existence to Southeast Asia.