KEN IGE / KIGE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Two generations of the Pang family are in the restaurant business, with different eateries. Edmund Pang, left, owns Asiamanoa with his wife, Wendy, right. Edmund's parents, Jenny and Howard Pang, own Duck Yun Restaurant in Aina Haina Shopping Center.
Although his parents had owned a Chinese restaurant since he was in grade school, Edmund Pang says he never worked there and only went into the kitchen once or twice as a kid, to find his mother.
After earning a business degree at the University of Hawaii, he set out on his own in the real estate market, making some investments. He says he had not considered opening a restaurant himself.
Then one day about three years ago, he drove past the old Toyo Superette, set back off an East Manoa Road sidewalk, and saw it was being stripped out and renovated.
"I decided to lease the place, not knowing what I would do with it," he said. Suddenly, he thought it would be a good spot for a restaurant and Asiamanoa was born. The restaurant business must have been in his blood after all.
His wife, Wendy, who helps out at the restaurant when she is not at her job as a residential loan officer with Hawaii HomeLoans Inc., recalls the hectic time that decision brought them.
"He opened the restaurant one month before we were married. I knew he was entrepreneurial, but I didn't know it was going to be a restaurant," she said. "He didn't even tell his parents."
After the decision was made, Pang did tell his parents, Howard Pang, who had operated the Duk Yun Chinese Restaurant in the Aina Haina Shopping Center since 1984, and his wife, Jenny.
Enjoying a family lunch at Asiamanoa while talking about the two businesses, Howard, now 69, said Edmund wanted him to come into the business as a 50-50 partner.
But he thought his son could, and should, go it alone. Besides, Howard joked, he worried that he might end up doing 90 percent of the work while his son got 50 percent of the proceeds.
The senior Pang is no stranger to work. He arrived in Hawaii, an immigrant from Guandong, China, in 1951 at age 18, an only son who set out on an American adventure.
He helped out in restaurant kitchens and became a cook at such restaurants as the Golden Dragon in the Hilton Hawaiian Village and Trader Vic's. "I had a lot of different jobs. I worked in a lot of different restaurants," Howard said.
Eventually, he was able to go to San Francisco City College. He came back to Hawaii and began a new career at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, starting as a machinist's apprentice.
Thirty years later, he was finally able to open his own restaurant, a year before he could retire from Pearl Harbor.
In that year he worked two jobs, Monday to Friday full-time at Pearl Harbor and part-time at the restaurant. On weekends he worked at the restaurant full-time.
He and Jenny had four children. Edmund is the eldest. A daughter is in pharmaceutical sales for a big drug firm. One son is a doctor and another is an attorney.
Jenny is from a big family, one of eight offspring, all of whom live in Hawaii.
Edmund said he no longer has time for his real estate business and puts all his effort into the restaurant. It turned out to be a good business, but it needs constant attention. His education helps, he said.
"The second generation operating the restaurant is very different from the first," he said, adding he draws on his knowledge of finances and investments.
Not that the older generation hasn't succeeded with its own methods. It has, the Pangs said, it's just that the approach is different.
Edmund said he is glad he was able to create the restaurant he wanted, the kind of place he would like to visit.
Asiamanoa, at 2801 E. Manoa Rd., opened in October 2000, serving Cantonese food. It has a contemporary decor "with Asian accents," Wendy said. It's a neighborhood restaurant in a nice neighborhood, she said. It is open every day for lunch and dinner and that does mean a lot of hours for the owner, the fa]mily said.
The older Pangs are busy outside their restaurant as well as in it. Howard, whose Chinese name is Pang Hock Won, loves to organize parties and he is active in arranging reunions for people from his old high school in Guandong.
He has been president of the Chung Chung Alumni Association of Hawaii and recently organized a get-together in Honolulu for some 250 people, alumni of the old school and their families.
While the family businesses are separate, it is clear that the families are together. The younger couple often end up at Howard and Jenny's house at the end of the day, Edmund said. They get together to share ideas and recipes.
Edmund likes to introduce new foods in Asiamanoa, but at home, he and Wendy said, their tastes are pretty simple -- fish, stew and vegetables in Asian and American styles.
Business often takes precedence over family life, however.
"We never celebrated Father's Day on Father's Day," Edmund said. "It's always a day or two before."
