Gone, But Not Forgotten
Once ubiquitous, Honolulu’s old-school Cantonese restaurants are dwindling—but as a former HONOLULU editor notes, they leave lasting memories.
When I was growing up, events revolved around a Lazy Susan.
My parents come from large Chinese families, so milestones were marked banquet-style in five-, eight- or 10-course increments. Like many locals, our rotation of Chinese restaurants became an indelible part of family traditions that I thought would last forever.
We celebrated weddings at Royal Garden, where I loved the seafood in taro baskets, or Lau Yee Chai with its signature clover-shaped entrance. When we got antsy, somewhere between the shrimp chips and noodles we knew never to cut, we swung on stanchions protecting the large paintings. First birthdays and graduations sent us to Hee Hing, where doting grandparents or older cousins took little ones to gaze at fish swimming in the tanks.
For a while, my Uncle Hing Chock and Auntie Bea Wong hosted Christmas lunch at Seafood Village in Waikīkī. With Gran and Grandpa, Pearl and Albert Lau, we gathered at Doong Kong Lau on River Street for birthdays, anniversaries and casual dinners, interrupting rounds of beef sin choy and pork hash to race around the T’Sung sculpture overlooking Nu‘uanu Stream. Informal lunches with Popo and Gung Gung, Dorothy and Ah Mun Young, included steaming bowls of jook topped by green onions and youtiao, the crispy deep-fried Chinese doughnuts.
Sundays after church meant wun tun mein at Tasty’s in Kalihi, where we pulled bottles of Coca-Cola from an old-fashioned vending machine. Weekend trips to Chinatown with Gran and Grandpa included rolls of look fun and bags of guazi watermelon seeds that we cracked open with our teeth. We over-ordered from dim sum carts at Wo Fat—baskets of char siu bao, siu mai and my favorite, har gow.
One by one, these restaurants closed. Lau Yee Chai, where my sisters celebrated their unions, was gone by the time I got married. We marked the big day at the Ala Moana Hotel just so we could cater from Royal Garden. That’s now gone, too. My older daughter’s first birthday was in that side room at Hee Hing; when my second daughter arrived, Hee Hing, too, had closed. Gone are our family parties at Pah Ke’s in Kāne‘ohe and dinner at Pauoa Chop Suey before midnight Christmas Eve services. My daughters’ Chinese food memories are more tied to the roast pork, jook and jai my mom makes, and the gau we steam to greet the Lunar New Year, using recipes handed down from my grandparents. At least my girls can still get a taste of family history, no reservations required. But I miss the restaurants that transformed meals into memories.
