Tag Archive | Chinese Food

Char Hung Sut – Chinatown, HI

Apr1

Char Hung Sut is located in a super safe neighborhood and serves up awesome food. April Fools! Okay only about the super safe neighborhood part. You gotta admit, Char Hung Sut’s location is in a less than desirable location but the food makes it well worth the trip. Can you believe I have never tried it until about a month ago? I’m definitely a fool for that. Everything I have had here has proven to be awesome. It’s also helpful that I go super early before work so I can just park on the street and jump in…free meter parking! I was amazed by the person who helped me. I think he’s the owner’s grandson. I ordered all kinds of stuff in random numbers and he magically added them all up on a piece of paper manually…then added tax all in his head. I was amazed. Then again, I’m terrible at math so anything would amaze me. He had talent!

140401-01Love the packaging. It’s becoming like a theme huh?

140401-02Taro Cake. Look at how thick this was! Definitely not the kind of taro cake I’m used to, but I’m not complaining. I thought it was interesting that they had a black bean sauce in it.

140401-03Look at all these nummies; pork hash, half moon and yip chai (with pork)!

140401-04Here’s the filling of the yip chai. Delicious. It’s also the same filling in the half moon – so good!

140401-05Chow Fun – $6.25

140401-06The most flavorful “haole” chow fun I have ever had. I call any chow fun haole if its not dark like the Chinese ones. This was SO good…so much flavor packed into these noodles. The garlic chives make a big difference. Definitely winners.

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Happy Days Seafood Restaurant – Waialae, HI

Mar26

Hey folks! Just wanted to share a recent lunch I had at Happy Days Seafood Restaurant. Definitely the go-to restaurant in the Kaimuki area. Their food is pretty on-par with the food served up in Chinatown so I do enjoy going there as much as I hate to admit it. I like them a lot better now than before. Here’s the pics!

140326-01Siu Mai – one of my favorite dim sum items. I always have to order this in every dim sum restaurant. Even though siu mai is such a common dish, every restaurant makes it so differently! Hawaii has the best ones for sure.

140326-02Hoi Sin Jak – some of these dim sum dishes, I don’t even know the English name because I order it in Chinese. I’ll transcribe the names of them like this one, hoi sin jak – literal translation is seafood bundle/packet. Check out the inside…

140326-03There’s shiitake mushroom, shrimp, a chunk of white fish…and depending on the restaurant, there might be a small scallop or some imitation crab throw in. It’s all wrapped up in tofu skin and steamed. So delicious…I definitely recommend this.

140326-04Pai Kwut (Black Bean Spareribs) – always winners. Always tender and flavorful – if I wasn’t eating dim sum, I would love to just eat this over a nice steaming bowl of rice.

140326-05Kuhl Choy Bang (Garlic Chive Pan Fried Dumpling) – another one of my favorites! It is filled with garlic chives and morsels of shrimp. They have two versions of this dish, one is a steamed dumpling version and this is a pan fried version. I prefer the pan fried version. Delish!

140326-06Hoy Sin Chow Mein – Seafood Chow Mein, this dish reminds me of my childhood and the Chinese parties I had to attend. My favorite noodle dish, the crispy noodles with the awesome seafood gravy…and so much seafood and veggies on top. It’s my absolute favorite, I’ve been on a cake noodle kick lately.

140326-07Ended the lunchtime feast with dessert from the Pillbox Pharmacy. Unexpected place to grab ice cream but they’ve got some of the best! I unknowingly took a pic with the Hawaii cone in full view. Pretty awesome yeah? 🙂

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Cha Gor

Feb20

As I’m typing this entry, I can’t for the life of me remember the English name of this dish. I think the literal translation of the name is Tea Roll but if you look that up online it just pulls up a ton of swirled cream cakes. Ahh…and I don’t really see these in Chinese restaurants. Have any of you had these? They’re so delicious, one of my favorites really. It’s steamed in banana leaves but it’s soooo sticky (because the outer layer is like mochi) that they have to put a lot of oil on the leaves to get it not to stick. Well, it sticks anyway so the oil is kind of useless. Well not useless but not up to par. My family has worked around this in the past by wrapping these things in iceberg lettuce, works great for me. No oil and the entire piece is edible! I should really learn how to make this…

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Chinatown – Chicago, IL

Sep10

Anytime I’m traveling, I like to check out the Chinatown if possible.  San Francisco has a huge Chinatown but I must have fluked out because the dim sum I tried was nothing special.  In fact, the dim sum I tried at SF and New York were nothing to write home about – they just made me miss the dim sum at home!  The dim sum I have tried in Chicago has been the best I’ve had in the mainland.  I actually dined at this same restaurant (Ming Hin) during my last trip and wanted to try a new restaurant so we headed to Chinese restaurant that specialized in main dishes/noodles.  Well we got seated right away but was ignored after that.  We watched as they seated more and more people and no one even came to see us with a menu.  I looked around and caught the eye of the girl behind the counter.  She caught my glance and proceeded to do nothing.  So…we left and went to Ming Hin.  Ming Hin is a huge Chinese restaurant and they’ve got everything down to a science!  The wait staff know Mandarin/Cantonese/English and their ordering system is so easy!  The menu is all pictures and you just put the number of orders you want with each picture.  We need this in Hawaii!  Also…the wait staff is incredibly friendly, something Hawaii is also lacking…hehe.

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This is kind of like deja vu.  I had a pork hash post not too long ago…it’s my favorite dim sum dish.  This version was pretty good.

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