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The Weekly Eater

BY NADINE KAM

Dim sum diners
have a new place
to eat in Chinatown

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The landscape is full of commercial real estate vacancies and companies going out of business or moving out of state. The big ones, like J.C. Penney closing its Hawaii stores, we can't help but notice. But every little disappearance has its ripple effect.

Many in Honolulu haven't noticed Doong Kong Lau's absence. Many more probably never knew it existed in the first place. But especially over the holidays, a whole bunch of Chinese -- by birth or mind-set -- were devastated. How were they going to put mochi duck on the table? The dish was one of the restaurant's specialties.

Sun Kong Seafood Restaurant to the rescue. The restaurant took over Doong Kong Lau's space, in the Chinatown Cultural Plaza, and although manager Fong "Queenie" Lau said she had no plans to offer the dish, they gave it their best shot, cooking it up special for those placing orders a day ahead.

Making the Hakka specialty is a task that involves de-boning a duck; stir-frying the sticky rice with Chinese pork belly sausage, taro, black mushrooms, onions and dried shrimp; stuffing aforementioned duck with the mochi rice; steaming the duck; then deep-frying it. The resulting creation doesn't taste greasy at all.

PHOTOS BY CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM Sun Kong manager Fong "Queenie" Lau tempts patrons with an appetizing array of dim sum.

Luckily, old-time customers approved, sampling Sun Kong's version over the Christmas holidays and coming back for more at New Year, according to Lau, who said one man returned four times for the duck.

DUCK IS NOT the only worthwhile menu item. In fact, dim sum fans who believe they've seen Lau before may remember her, her chef and many of her waiters from Mei Sum on Pauahi Street. Theirs has been one of the happier restaurant stories. In a business with a failure rate of 30 to 50 percent, according to the National Restaurant Association, the restaurant was packed from day one and grew to a point where Lau could sell the business and start the larger Sun Kong, which is more luxe than Mei Sum or Doong Kong Lau ever was, done up in rich red and gold.

The new restaurant is packed with dim sum diners by day, when you'll find a deep-fried seaweed roll stuffed with a whole shrimp, look funn rolls as slippery and slurpalicious as jelly, and chicken feet that might actually be described as meaty, braised in a black bean and oyster sauce. Most of the dim sum are priced at $1.75 per plate.

If you want to order off the regular menu, there is the usual laundry list of rice plates, casseroles, sizzling platters and vegetable dishes. Pot stickers ($4.95) are made with chunks of pork rather than ground meat, and served with vinegar. Seafood tofu soup ($7.95) is a delicate, starch-free blend of egg whites, tofu, shrimp and scallops. I drank a bowlful on Monday when I was suffering from fever and chills, and by Tuesday morning I was fine. Miracle? Coincidence? I'd like to think it was the soup.

Delicate melt-in-your-mouth sea bass is paired with choy sum in an order nearly double the size of Chinatown neighbors. The dish is one of 50 on the restaurant's lobster dinner special list, which allows two diners to pick any two dishes, one soup, and a 1 1/2-pound lobster for $29.99. Other prices are $39.99 for four and $64.99 for six.

The only lapse I found was the salt-pepper pork chops ($7.25), which weren't up to the crispness achieved with such dishes as deep-fried oysters.

I don't know whether Lau has more expansion plans, but the problem for all of Chinatown's restaurants is luring an evening crowd. Few are brave enough to saunter around the Aala Park area by night. All I can say is that it's been cleaned up somewhat so you're more likely to run into a skate punk than a bum.

You may also get assaulted by a loved one if you try to grab more than your fair share of the crackly skinned crispy chicken, at $7.95 for a half-order or $15 whole.

Live dangerously; it's worth it.

SUN KONG SEAFOOD RESTAURANT Chinatown Cultural Plaza, 100 N. Beretania St. / 532-8688 Food Service Ambience Value Hours: 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily Cost: About $15 to $20 for two

See some past restaurant reviews in the
Columnists section.

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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:

	excellent;
	very good, exceeds expectations;
	average;
	below average.

To recommend a restaurant, write: The Weekly Eater, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802. Or send e-mail to nkam@starbulletin.com