By Paul Reidinger

THE INTERSECTION OF Geary and Masonic has become, in the past few years, an epicenter of urban bedlam. First there was the makeover of the old Sears into a multilevel mall – with plenty of parking; then there was, kitty-corner, the opening of a Trader Joe's – with insufficient parking. Lesson: if there's lots of parking, everyone will drive, and if there's insufficient parking, everyone will drive anyway. Result: the area is more or less continuously flooded with cars.

The exception – the eye of the automotive storm, you might say, an island in the stream – is a little stub of Masonic, a leftover from some previous incarnation of the street. It's now separated from the main drag by a little wedge of weeds and some trees, and while that doesn't sound like much, it does bring a definite sense of oasis to Hukilau, the Hawaiian restaurant that opened last spring in a corner space long occupied by a pub.

Would-be evokers of the Big Island's serene rusticity usually find this city – any city – a pretty tough go, but Hukilau manages to filter out a surprising amount of urban white noise. Of course, there's no filtering out the cold, wind, and fog; to the extent you'll enjoy a balmy evening al fresco on Hukilau's enclosed sidewalk terrace, it'll be because of the awning, the heat lamps, the bamboo windscreen, and the romantically flickering torches atop their long poles. But even on a chilly winter evening, you will enjoy it.

If part of the restaurant's charm is its veil of seclusion from a busy street, another is the clientele. Nearby lies the University of San Francisco, and its students clearly have discovered that Hukilau provides plenty of what President Eisenhower called (in a slightly different context) bang for the buck. There's a bit of exotic atmosphere, good beer on tap, big platters of Hawaiian (and non-Hawaiian) food for not much money, fast service, and live music.

We were not enticed by the live music (which, thanks to prompt service, began some time after we'd managed to eat and flee), but otherwise we gladly submitted to Hukilau's college-town charms. On each visit we arrived and were immediately seated; menus were proffered, orders taken, and drinks brought in a matter of minutes. And appetizers weren't far behind – a blessing, since you don't get a basket of bread for nibbling.

Although Hawaii has evolved a cuisine quite as distinctive as California's – a splendid blend of tropical and Asian influences, assembled from the islands' sophisticated bounty – there is also an older Hawaiian cooking in which pineapple and Spam star, sometimes together. Hukilau does offer a Spam appetizer, which we couldn't quite bring ourselves to order. But the Big Kahuna sausage ($5) – garlicky coins cut on the bias and nicely browned – struck us as a near relation. In its Iowanness it reminded us that Hawaii's joining the United States amounted, for many years, to an imposition of mainland (and military) ways on a small island culture.

And to remind us that island culture has persisted anyway, there are the pokes, one of buttery cubed ahi ($9), marinated in soy sauce and sesame oil and tossed with sliced red onion and purplish seaweed; the other of octopus chunks ($8), tossed in the same combination. I rarely make explicit recommendations, but I will say here that the ahi is worth the extra buck; it is as meltingly tender as the octopus is tough.

The big dishes, best for dinner, are mostly less than $10, and they are big. Chicken adobo ($8), a dish whose origins are in the Philippines, offers three nicely braised thighs, with the vinegar-rich sauce on the side along with a pair of rice mounds, a scoop of macaroni salad, and shreddings of cabbage. Teriyaki short ribs ($9), meanwhile, sounds Japanese but seems Korean, with its three boards of tender meat interlaced with knuckles of bone. The big dishes arrive on oblong wood platters, which enhance the Big Island plate-lunch – or plate-dinner – effect.

The lunch menu is the same as the dinner menu, but one's attention naturally gravitates to the soups and sandwiches. These on the whole strike the standard American note, despite being more modest in scale than the dinner platters. The pub burger ($6) pays homage of a sort to the onetime occupant of the space; we found the meat to be well seasoned and slightly overcooked, the accompanying fries to be a bit limp but surprisingly tasty.

Leaving nothing at all to be desired was a bowl of chili ($5.50) – thick and spicy, with a heavy, melting cap of shredded cheese (jack and cheddar) and slices of red onion. Equally flawless was the Big Island brownie ($6.50), a mammoth chocolate slab, delicately frosted and nicely split into a pair of isosceles triangles for sharing, with a fallen meteor of coconut ice cream nested in the chasm between the chunks.

The key word there, by the way, is sharing. The brownie is more than enough even for two greedy people and provides a sugar rush sufficient to propel you out the door if your fondest wish is not to have your ears burned off by the live music. If your fondest wish is to have your ears burned off, you must be a college kid. Lucky you.