The Weekly Eater
THANKS TO THE INTERNET, we have eyes, ears and hungry mouths in Oregon. After dissing Portland's "cuisine" in a travel story last week, I heard from readers there who wanted to send me out to discover the charms of Tigard, Gresham and Hillsboro. Coming home to
good dim sum makes
it a Happy DayNo offense, but that would be like spending a year's worth of savings to go to Mililani. What's a city girl to do there?
At the same time, I raved here about San Francisco cuisine, but that city doesn't come away unscathed in the dim sum department, with inadequate dishes and service far worse than what's called brusque at home.
I've been told I went to the wrong Chinatown in San Francisco, that I should have gone to the new one in Richmond. Maybe I'll do that next time, though the last thing I seek on vacation is the sort of food I can get at home. Thankfully I find the dim sum here second, oh, maybe tied with New York, to Hong Kong's.
I came home to find a new addition to the scene in Happy Day Seafood Restaurant on Waialae Avenue. I was hungry for some dim sum, local style, meaning compact siu mai of juicy ground pork (not tough cubed pork as in Portland), and half moons with pale orange shrimp peeking through glistening translucent skin (not wrappers as chewy as won ton pi layered two squares thick, as in San Francisco).
HAPPY DAY SEAFOOD RESTAURANT
Food 
Service Ambience Value Address: 3553 Waialae Ave. at 11th Ave. (metered parking in back)
Phone: 738-8666
Hours: 8 a.m. to midnight daily
Cost: Dim sum for two about $20; dinner for four about $40
At Happy Day the fragile wrappers were sometimes too fluid and floppy to hold heavy ingredients, snapping in half to spill peanuts and chopped vegetables, but this is preferable to dim sum that gives your jaw a workout.
Vegetarians, the food-phobic and the allergic avoid dim sum because they can't be certain what's in those bundles. If the menu says pork, chances are there'll be a big piece of shrimp in it. Here, it's no different. Scallop gau seemed to be all pork, with no trace of the shellfish, fresh or dried.
There are a lot of people willing to overlook such flaws for $2.30 baskets containing these mouthwatering jewels. Happy Day brings to Kaimuki some competition for Eastern Garden. Neighbors rolling out of bed any day of the week can now skip the trip to downtown for dim sum beginning at 8 a.m. Those of us who don't live in the area will probably find it easier to keep frequenting our favorite Chinatown restaurants, but fanatics will still be interested to know that Happy Day picked up a lot of its staff from dearly departed Sea Fortune.I'm still curious as to why someone would move into a space where other Chinese restaurants have tried their luck and failed. So far, Happy Day has had no problem filling its seats during the day, but at night it's as quiet as ever. It's difficult to sell customers on spareribs with pepper and salt ($6.95) with neither much pepper nor salt on gristly pork. Sizzling oysters with ginger and onion ($8.95) wore a gelatinous goo of gravy and cornstarch a quarter-inch thick. One of the grand-opening specials is stir-fried lobster for $9, but mine, drenched in a butter-garlic sauce, arrived partially cold.
I'm wondering whether a limited dim sum menu in addition to entrees might bring people in until midnight. If people can't seem to get enough of these little dumplings by day, why end the service at 2 p.m.? Why not bring it back from 6 to 9 p.m.? I suppose this would present a costly staffing dilemma, but wouldn't a full house be more attractive to potential diners?
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Nadine Kam's restaurant reviews run on Thursdays. Reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Bulletin. Star ratings are based on comparisons of similar restaurants:
To recommend a restaurant, write: The Weekly Eater, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802. Or send e-mail to nkam@starbulletin.com
excellent; very good, exceeds expectations; average; below average.
