Bunnibun, our mascot guinea pig, is crazy and fake, the pork belly is real

Kiawe Smoked Pork Belly – A Unique Oahu BBQ Specialty

Buttery, Smoky Twist on Traditional BBQ Pork Belly

Some BBQ recipes are passed down through generations.

This menu item?  Well, it was kind of an accident.

One day, my father saw a YouTube video on “bacon brisket” and told me that I should try my hand at it.  At the time, we were still cooking on our humble Oklahoma Joe smoker, long before we upgraded to our 500-gallon offset pit.  With nothing to lose, I agreed with my father and decided to give it a shot.  But I didn’t want to copy an influencer’s method, I wanted to pave my own road.   

So I did. 

I experimented.

Long story short, our first attempt – magic happened.

It worked.   That never happens.  Just to let you know, it hasn’t happened since.

Fast forward to the present, and it’s one of the most talked-about meats at The Carbon Footprint BBQ menu, and in Oahu.  A lot of customers tell us the same thing after the first bite:

“I’ve never had pork belly like this before.”

That’s probably because most pork belly gets cooked until it turns dry, chewy, or overly crispy. We learned early on that the real secret was balance. You want enough heat and smoke to build flavor and texture, but not so much that the meat loses what makes pork belly special in the first place.

The seasoning hits you from every direction at once. You get smoke, sweetness, salt, savory spice, and that deep wood-fired flavor from real kiawe smoke. It’s bold, but balanced.

And texture-wise?

This is where people really get surprised.

Instead of dry pork belly cubes or crunchy burnt ends, ours stays soft and tender inside with a rich, melt-in-your-mouth bite.  It goes so well with rice.  Now, some pieces develop a little more bark than others depending on the cook, but honestly, customers don’t seem to care. They just keep coming back for more.

That’s the funny thing about BBQ.  Sometimes the best recipes aren’t created in a laboratory or copied from the internet. Sometimes they happen because you tried something different, trusted your instincts, and accidentally created a dish that people can’t stop talking about.

That’s our Pork Belly Bacon Brisket.

And no… It’s not really bacon.

I say it’s better.