I smile every time I pass the Sumida watercress farm in 'Aiea. Despite the area's mammoth-box stores, pockets of old Hawai'i exist. I pull into another one called the Waimalu Shopping Center.

What, a strip mall? Hold on. It's really a potluck of humble places that serve local comfort food. I feel like a kid in a crack-seed store whenever I go there. The possibilities include manapua, okazu, saimin, beef stew, malasadas.

Ooh, pastele, listed right on the window! Jackie's Diner it is. And with "onolicious kau kau" on the sign, as opposed to "world-fusion cuisine," my wallet and I feel at home.

Jackie's Diner is owned by Jackie (Chong) Torres, who left Seoul with her parents 30 years ago and graduated from Roosevelt. So what is a Korean woman doing making tripe stew, lau lau and Puerto Rican pastele? Leaving locals in awe over her food's authenticity.

Take Cherylann Perry. She eats at Jackie's two or three times a week. While waiting for her bacalao (salt cod) salad ($4.15) and salt meat watercress ($7.50), she starts off with the haupia (90 cents). My kind of eater — dessert first.

Perry, who grew up in Wai'anae and whose father was "100 percent Puerto Rican," admires Jackie. "Making pastele is hard work," she says. "This traditional way of cooking ... you can tell that she does it with a lot of love in her heart. You can taste it. She's authentic, original."

Jackie had a good teacher: her mother-in-law. The elder Mrs. Torres provided the family recipe and helps out at the diner. On Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, she and Jackie's mom, Mrs. Chong, sit quietly in the last booth wrapping pastele.

On aluminum foil and ti leaves, they spoon out the masa, a seasoned mixture of grated, green bananas. They add a scoop of pork filling (matura), top it with olives, wrap for boiling, then repeat. About a thousand times every week.

A pastele is similar to a Mexican tamale. Locals tend to call it "puh-tell-ay"; in Puerto Rico, they say "pass-tell-ay."

I say, "Thank you, Jackie!" because it takes her five days to make the pastele, and only five minutes for me to eat one. Doesn't seem fair.

Here's how Jackie does it. After the bananas are peeled and grated, she mixes them with water, seasonings and achiote oil, which gives the food its red coloring. Jackie makes that, too, using seeds from her achiote (annatto or lipstick plant) tree.

Next, Jackie creates the filling. She cooks chunks of pork butt with achiote oil, round onions, green onions, garlic, parsley and spices.

Even the ti leaves require extra effort: They are de-ribbed, cut, washed, frozen and thawed to make them easier to bend.

What inspires Jackie to do all this? She answers, "I have no choice! I had kids to raise."

Lucky me. Because of those wonderful children and her love for cooking, I can get pastele the way I like them: spicy, not salty, and not too oily.

I usually order the pastele and tripe or beef stew plate ($6.75). The beef stew is on the sweet side and comes loaded with chunks of meat, carrots and potatoes.

When customer Doris Warr first tried the tripe stew, she couldn't believe it. "It was tripe stew the way my (Portuguese) grandmother used to make it," she said. "It was just like it. I was in shock!"

Warr and her friend Barbara Ladao are former classmates who grew up on the Waialua sugar plantation. Jackie's dishes remind them of small-kid time enjoying many kinds of food. That's because the workers came from different countries, and their foods became part of our local culture.

As they reminisce, I imagine myself back in that era. Unfortunately, I'm passed out in the fields from the hot sun and hard labor. OK, block out the bad part. I imagine myself at lunch — talking story and sharing food from my kau kau tin as my father did when he was a teen working in the pineapple fields.

Is that why I like it here? Because I can get in touch with my roots? Or order sardines with onions ($3) and wala'au with diners who invite me to sit with them? And have a great pastele? No doubt about it.

Tradition is alive and well in 'Aiea. Unwrap it at Jackie's Diner. Take a moment to cherish it when the Sumida family's little grass shack appears among the asphalt. Like crack seed in a glass jar, Jackie's Diner and the watercress farm have a local flavor that's worth preserving.

Lisa Sekiya works in The Advertiser's marketing department and spends her spare time seeking out inexpensive eateries.