Welcome to the city’s changing Chinese food scene: Once dominated by Cantonese restaurants, it’s now a mix of regional culinary styles as richly diverse as China.
By Martha Cheng and Mari Taketa Photos by Aaron K. Yoshino
never been a more exciting time for Chinese food in Honolulu. No longer are we bound to orange chicken and cake noodle—though never ask us to give them up! A window into China’s immense regional culinary diversity has been cracked, bringing in the hot and numbing spices of Sichuan, the skewers of northern China, the thin rice noodles of Yunnan. It reflects a diversity unfolding across the country: Whereas the first Chinese immigrants came to the U.S. primarily from the southern province of Guangdong, newer waves have arrived from Fujian and other regions.
The result is a heady mix of different culinary styles at eateries around the city—from the tiny, family-run Wu Wei Chong Qing to Los Angeles import Chengdu Taste to large chains like Meet Fresh, which draws on Taiwanese traditions. Even longtime restaurateurs have adjusted to the changing demographics.
When former owner Kevin Li opened King Restaurant and Bar in 2019, he sensed a shift in tastes and departed from the localized Chinese food he served at his previous restaurant, the homey neighborhood spot Hung Won. Instead, he offered Sichuan dishes like mouthwatering chicken alongside honey walnut shrimp and salted egg yolk crab.
King Restaurant’s repositioning is a larger trend writ small: It’s not a coincidence that the rise in diversity comes as Chinatowns across the country are struggling. Some of our longstanding Cantonese-style eateries, both inside and outside of Chinatown—Nam Fong, Golden Palace, Tasty Chop Suey—are closing as the older generation calls it quits, giving way to newer restaurants with their regional specificities.
And so, yes, as diners we have so many more choices and, especially in Hawai‘i, an appreciation for both the familiar and novel, so that ultimately our dining scene is like the best Chinese banquet: wonderfully textured and complex and perfectly in balance. —MC
North to south, east to west, culinary styles of a country about as large as the U.S. now feature at restaurants around Honolulu.
Chongqing/Sichuan
Tongue-numbing mala is only one of Sichuan’s
complex and varied flavor profiles.
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Chengdu Taste and Mian
808 Sheridan St.
(808) 589-1818
Chong Qing Hot Pot
1200 Ala Moana Blvd.,
Building 4, Floor 2
(808) 593-8818
Joy Cup Noodles Mean
1608 Kalākaua Ave.
(808) 725-2898
SXY Szechuan
1450 Ala Moana Blvd., #2870
(808) 942-8884
Wu Wei Chong Qing Cuisine
1738 S. King St., #101
(808) 741-2297
Xinjiang
Spices like cumin and fennel reflect the region’s ethnic mix and Silk Road history.
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Honolulu Skewer House
567 Kapahulu Ave., #1A
(808) 888-8680
Khan Skewer Restaurant
925 Isenberg St.
(808) 955-8868
Volcano Skewer House
808 Sheridan St.
(808) 398-1960
N.China/S.Korea
A hybrid cuisine of northern Chinese dishes modified to suit Korean palates.
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Dowon Chinese Restaurant
510 Pi‘ikoi St., #106
(808) 596-0008
Eastern Paradise Restaurant
1403 S. King St.
(808) 941-5858
On Dong Chinese Restaurant
1499 S. King St.
(808) 947-9444
Shaanxi
Famous for salty, sour and spicy flavors and biang biang hand-pulled noodles.
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Youpo Noodles HI
At various farmers markets
Tianjin
The street food capital of northern China is known for steamed buns and meaty crepes.
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Bing Bros
At various farmers markets
Guangdong/Canton
The most popular Chinese cuisine in Hawai‘i and the rest of the U.S., with fresh ingredients and modest seasoning.
Yunnan
Rice and varied ethnic influences feature in dishes from a region bordering Southeast Asia.
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Ten Seconds Yunnan Rice Noodle
98-1005 Moanalua Road, #801A, ‘Aiea
(808) 892-6888
Hunan
China’s other spicy regional style features a chile heat more intense than mala.
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Hunan Cuisine
53 N. Beretania St.
(808) 599-8838
Taiwan
The island nation has a distinct food identity separate from China’s.
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A-ma’s Gua Bao
919 Ala Moana Blvd.
(808) 429-7896
Aunty’s Hotpot House
91-5431 Kapolei Parkway, Kapolei
(808) 670-2813
Cloud Nine Café
1221 Kapi‘olani Blvd.
(808) 739-9988
Dragon Tea Taiwanese Cuisine
1339 N. School St., #104
(808) 847-4838
Fooki
98-199 Kamehameha Highway, ‘Aiea
(808) 484-9188
Honolulu Noodle & Co.
2250 Kalākaua Ave., BSE 2
(808) 888-2868
Ice Monster
2255 Kūhiō Ave.
(808) 762-3192
Meet Fresh
1450 Ala Moana Blvd., #1320
(808) 809-9034
Season’s Ice & Eatery
100 N. Beretania St., #117
(808) 538-1978
85˚ C Bakery Café
Multiple locations
85cbakerycafe.com
Hong Kong
A hodgepodge of Cantonese, Southeast Asian, British colonial and other influences.
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Yi Xin Café
2919 Kapi‘olani Blvd.
(808) 738-0818
HK Café
1113 Maunakea St.
(808) 200-5757
Sandy’s Café
100 N. Beretania St.
(808) 200-0468
Hybrid
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Dew Drop Inn
1088 S. Beretania St.
(808) 526-9522
Honolulu Hotpot Hale
1440 Kapi‘olani Blvd.
(808) 888-8869
King Restaurant
1340 Kapi‘olani Blvd., #101
(808) 957-9999
Chongqing was part of Sichuan Province until 1997, so they share similar flavors, though cooks in Chongqing are particularly famous for upping the ante in mala, or numbing-and-hot flavor. But it’s only one facet of the cuisine: Other tastes characteristic of Sichuan include “fish-fragrant” flavor—sweet, sour and generously flavored with pickled chiles, garlic and ginger—and “strange” flavor, often a blend of soy sauce, chile oil, Sichuan pepper, sesame, sugar and vinegar.
At Wu Wei Chong Qing Cuisine, owner Lulu Sie melds her hometown’s xiao mian (“small noodle”) street food culture, which includes simple noodle soups of ground pork and yellow peas, with traditionally home-cooked dishes like mapo tofu, twice-cooked pork and fish soup with pickled mustard greens. The latter is usually paired with rice, but here it’s poured over noodles. Our favorite match is the suan cai yu: tender basa fillets in a hot and sour broth of Sichuan pickled mustard greens, house-made pickled ginger and xiao mi la, a small red chile. Serving it with noodles from Yat Tung Chow Noodle Factory in Chinatown ensures that little of the flavorful soup is lost. —MC
Tea smoked duck (Zhangcha duck)
“Smoked duck is one of Sichuan’s most lauded delicacies,” writes food scholar Fuschia Dunlop in The Food of Sichuan. Chengdu Taste follows the traditional, multiday method of preparing it, seasoning it with spices including Sichuan peppercorns, fennel, clove and ginger, then smoking it for 48 hours over tea and camphor leaves. The duck is steamed, and right before it arrives at the table, gets doused with hot oil to crisp and brown the skin. Only 15 ducks are available each day, so reserve yours in advance.
Twice-cooked pork
Twice-cooked pork is a beloved dish of the Sichuanese home kitchen—its taste is even characterized as jiachang wei, or “home-style flavor,” one of the cuisine’s most distinctive flavor profiles. At Chengdu Taste, thin-sliced boiled pork belly is stir-fried with fermented black bean; doubanjiang, a bean paste; leeks; and Shaoxing wine. It’s a xia fan cai, or “rice depleter, and makes you want to refill your bowl of rice,” says Jean Lin, marketing manager of Chengdu Taste. We couldn’t agree more. —MC
Chengdu Taste, 808 Sheridan St., (808) 589-1818, @chengdutastehonolulu
Locals who grew up on Cantonese flavors at Honolulu’s dim sum parlors and chop suey takeouts may not recognize spicy barbecued meat skewers as part of the family of Chinese cuisines. Lamb is popular among Muslims of China’s northwest, and cumin dominates the blends of dried spices that evoke Urumqi’s place as an important trading post on the ancient Silk Road.
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Shaokao or chuan
Minimalist and plain-looking, meat skewers in China burst with flavor. They are the polar opposite of yakitori, whose naked chicken pieces are grilled with nothing more than salt or sweetened soy sauce. Chinese skewers ripple with chiles and Silk Road spices. They come from far northwestern Xinjiang, whose long history layers in Muslim influences that not only survive, they’ve birthed a street food skewer culture all over China.
Thumb-size slivers of meat are threaded onto metal sticks, marinated and grilled, the leaner bits interspersed with pockets of crisped, yielding fat. Onto these are dusted seasonings including cumin, numbing Sichuan chiles, red chile powder, salt, pepper, and sometimes fennel, sometimes sesame seeds.
“For people in my hometown, this is comfort food. We eat it for dinner, midnight dinner, even for lunch,” says Fiona Yang, who opened Khan Skewer Restaurant when the pandemic thwarted visits home to Xining in Qinghai Province. “My hometown is really cold, and people like meat and spice. There are Muslim people, Mongolians, people from Xinjiang, Tibet. Skewers are part of our culture because we are a mixed city.” —MT
Honolulu Skewer House, 567 Kapahulu Ave., (808) 888-8680, @hnlskewerhouse
Khan Skewer Restaurant, 925 Isenberg St., (808) 955-8868, @khan_skewer
Volcano Skewer House, 808 Sheridan St., (808) 398-1960, @volcanoskewerhouse
One of the most popular dishes among Koreans almost everywhere is jajangmyeon. The noodle dish isn’t Korean: It comes from Chinese restaurants whose founding families fled the northeast corners of that country with home-style recipes stashed in their heads. No one city in China claims ownership of this hybrid cuisine, whose other popular staples in South Korea are tangsuyuk sweet-sour pork and jjamppong spicy seafood soup noodles. Common themes include wheat and often, spice.
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Zhajiangmian or jajangmyeon
Zhajiangmian, a glossy dish of wheat noodles crowned with sauce the color of black coffee, is multicultural. Its popularity traversed the cold regions of northern China until decades of famine and war drove thousands of Chinese across the border, where the dish took root in South Korea as jajangmyeon.
The story of Steve Lee and his family parallels this path: Their escape from Shandong Province and hard work in Korean cities were crowned with success when the family opened Chinese restaurants, fortifying and sweetening their zhajiangmian to suit local tastes. A generation later, they would uproot again, this time settling in Hawai‘i.
In 1978, in the same spot where you’ll find it today, the Lees opened Eastern Paradise Restaurant. Today, it’s one of three places serving jajangmyeon in Honolulu, along with On Dong Chinese Restaurant and Dowon Chinese Restaurant. Each burnishes the dark, wok-fried sauce of fermented soy beans, pork, onions and other vegetables in its own way—one sweeter, one thicker, one or two with seafood, and so on. House-made kim chee always accompanies. —MT
Dowon Chinese Restaurant, 510 Pi‘ikoi St., (808) 596-0008
Eastern Paradise Restaurant, 1403 S. King St., (808) 941-5858, @easternparadise
On Dong Chinese Restaurant, 1499 S. King St., (808) 947-9444
“The notion that Taiwanese cuisine is its own distinct genre is extremely new,” Clarissa Wei writes in her recently released cookbook Made in Taiwan. “But it’s an increasingly common perspective that’s being adopted by many who live on the island today, especially in light of cross-strait tensions and as we look for ways to set ourselves apart from aggressors.”
So while much of the U.S. associates Taiwanese food with beef noodle soup, soup dumplings and a breakfast of fan tuan and shaobing, these were brought by mainland Chinese fleeing the Chinese Civil War in 1949. These dishes evolved to be unique to Taiwan, but in addition is a cuisine with older influences, including the island’s Indigenous tribes, Japan’s colonialism and Fujianese and Hakka immigration, which can make Taiwanese food as hard to define as modern American food.
The towering shave ice snags most of the attention at Frost City, but the taste of the taro balls feels particularly nostalgic for Taiwanese. Akin to gnocchi but sweet and springier, they’re made with mashed, cooked taro mixed with rice flour. Lavender in color, they’re served in milk or tea alongside Frost City’s vibrant orange kabocha balls and Okinawan sweet potato balls. I like to pair them with grass jelly, especially on hot days—it’s said to have a cooling effect. Grass jelly is made with Chinese mesona, a plant in the mint family, that’s dried and boiled and thickened with starch for a slippery, gelatinous texture. —MC
Originally a byproduct of British colonialism in Hong Kong, cha chaan teng emerged in the 1950s and ’60s, fusing flavors of the East and West. In recent years, three such restaurants have opened in Honolulu. Reports from Hong Kong point to a decline in their popularity there, but could it be that in Hawai‘i, where food rooted in nostalgia seems to last longer, the spirit of cha chaan teng will survive?
In 2014, milk tea and other cha chaan teng dishes were officially named part of Hong Kong’s intangible cultural heritage. This isn’t the British weak milk tea that the drink was derived from, but a potent cup that will keep you up all night. “The cure for that? Drink another one,” jokes HK Café co-owner Chris Law.
Here’s why it’s so strong: 130 grams of a finely ground blend of five different black teas are brewed for each pitcher, and the tea poured through a cloth filter bag (the shape of which gives it the nickname “pantyhose” tea) 16 times over an hour. In essence, you’re drinking about 10 times the amount of tea in your average cup, steeped for way longer. Served hot, it’s mixed with evaporated milk and sugar; the cold version is served with condensed milk. (You can specify your preferences for milk and sugar.) Co-owner Man Fang’s hands are stained from preparing so many milk teas each day. —MC
Baked pork chop with tomato sauce and cheese over rice
Baked pork chop rice is a quintessential comfort food in Hong Kong’s “soy sauce Westerns” and cha chaan teng (literally, “tea restaurant,” and otherwise known as Hong Kong-style diners). This casserole of egg-fried rice is topped with a marinated, lightly battered and pan-fried pork chop, all covered in tomato sauce and melted cheese. At Sandy’s Café, the addition of red onions, fresh tomatoes and canned pineapple chunks in the sauce lightens the concoction, which arrives in a disposable aluminum tin, underscoring its unfussy and deeply soothing nature. —MC
Sandy’s Café, 100 N. Beretania St., (808) 200-0468
You may not know Terry Cheung’s name, but if you’ve been to Honolulu Seafood Restaurant or Kapi‘olani Seafood Restaurant, you’ve seen his face. Cartoon images of the local contractor-turned-restaurateur are plastered on menus, tote bags and keychains, with good reason: Cheung is a new force on the food scene. Honolulu Seafood, in the former Mandalay space downtown, seats more than 300 diners on two stories. A takeout dim sum counter is slated for Kāne‘ohe in the spring, a sit-down eatery is in the works in ‘Aiea, and Cheung is eyeing another banquet-style restaurant in metro Honolulu. “There are plenty of restaurants that closed. So, we want to do the best dim sum in Hawai‘i,” he said after opening Honolulu Seafood in February. “We’re trying to make this the best restaurant for wedding parties, Chinese parties, graduation parties.” —MT
By Christi Young Tomisato