What's the first stop when chef Alan Wong and his staff head to Hilo?

Cafe 100 for loco mocos — where else?

As refined as the food they serve in their restaurants may be, these folks don't look down on plain cooking. Food — plain or fancy — is judged on its merits. In two days on the road visiting Big Island farms and food producers, we ate not only loco moco but also convenience-store fried chicken and pork rinds with beer.

And when Wong presented the group with a "Quick Fire" challenge, it was one that took us down home: Assigning each of us a $20 budget, he sent us into the Waimea KTA to buy ingredients to make "something you ate when you were growing up." Then it was back to the Ahualoa bed and breakfast we stayed at — a dozen people crammed in the kitchen all cooking with one stove, one gas wok, two cutting boards and a sink.

And what did we eat? A feast of 17 dishes, among them seven-layer bean dip with chips, pork and beans with sausage and bacon, fried rice, yaki onigiri (grilled sushi), watercress salad, kinpira (gobo with shrimp), spicy chicken alfredo, meatloaf made with Stove Top stuffing and Lipton's onion soup mix, stuffed jalapeno peppers, soboro (minced beef and eggs with shoyu sauce), pork tofu with aburage and ebi, and lilingka (Filipino-style steamed fish).

Wong made hamburger gravy.

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.