Culinary training has long been known for its almost militant culture, doling out tough love to ingrain values of discipline, perseverance and excellence. But the toughest culinary instructors have nothing on the woman who taught Koti Ramirez Baranda how to make pastele. A resident of Mayor Wright Homes, she is known simply as Mary.
“I learned by smell and whacks,” he said of Mary’s way of gauging proper seasoning, and the physical corrective measure used on her student, respectively.
Mary didn’t measure anything; she threw ingredients together by feel. “That’s how I learned — just smell and throw,” he said.
Ramirez Baranda is owner and operator of Wat Get?, a destination pastele shop in Waipahu. He prides his pastele recipe on being true to those of the plantation era, when Puerto Rican immigrants recreated the cultural celebratory dish out of what was available to them in Hawaii.
The pastele that locals love comprises aromatic, savory green banana masa filled with seasoned pork, chile pepper and a singular olive, all wrapped together and steamed.
The recipe Ramirez Baranda learned from Mary hails from Maui.
A lifelong Kaimuki resident, he has been running his Waipahu shop for a dozen years. It’s in a building next door to one where his parents ran a physical therapy office from the 1980s to 2015, after emigrating from South America in the late 1970s.
Yet Ramirez Baranda never intended to be the one “rolling pastele” every day.
When the shop opened in 2007, the person in the kitchen was Elaine “Auntie Maile” Silva, a relative of one of his parents’ employees, who was making a fresh start after serving a prison sentence.
Grateful for his life’s blessings, Ramirez Baranda decided he wanted to “pass it on.” Silva was his recipient, and he opened the pastele shop for her.
Mary, Silva’s neighbor at Mayor Wright, taught both of them the ins and outs of pastele making, then Silva exercised all her cooking chops at Wat Get? “She could throw down,” Ramirez Baranda said. “She was a genius in the kitchen. Whatever was in the fridge was what she was gonna make.”
The shop caught on with the community and all went well for a couple of years, until Silva reverted to her old lifestyle.
It was then that Ramirez Baranda decided to take over the shop, leaving behind his nearly 20-year management career working for luxury resorts.
He said the shop has faced constant challenges over the years, from rail construction that cut customer access, to the pandemic lockdowns. He admits he’s had thoughts about calling it quits.
“Then one day three ladies, in their 60s to 80s, ordered some food and ate in their car in the parking lot,” he recalled. “Then one lady came back in crying. She said the taste reminded her of her childhood. That’s when I realized, I’m stuck because people recognize the flavor. So now, it’s a labor of love for folks who love their culture.”
Ramirez Baranda said he aims “to be as honest to the birth of the Hawaii version as possible.” Fresh, local ingredients “are the base and heart of it,” he said, and “achiote is a key. That’s as far as I can go.”
But his secret recipe continues to be a work in progress, and while customers offer lots of opinions, he’s learned where to take advice.
“My old-timer customers, the Puerto Rican uncles and aunties, tell it to me straight. They know just by the smell when there’s too much of this or too little of that. They help get us closer to the recipes of 100 years ago.”
Wat Get?
94-752 Hikimoe St., Waipahu; 808-671-6611
Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays to Thursdays, until 6 p.m. Fridays and until 4 p.m. Saturdays (closed Sundays)
Menu
>> Pastele plates ($10.75 to $15) include white or gandule rice, bacalao salad and/or mac salad
>> Pastele stew ($11.75/$14.75)
>> Bacalao salad ($8.75/$12.50)
>> Empanadilla (deep-fried pasties, $5).
Wholesale orders taken as well.
