Chin’s brings local flavor home
One thing fun about a wired world is that one just never knows who's reading. I once believed that dining was a regional subject and there isn't much use for a review beyond our shores, unless someone is planning a trip out here, but people do get homesick for a taste of the islands, even if it must be virtual.
So one reader in Maryland emailed me his complaint. After recently covering P.F. Chang's China Bistro and Moe's Southwest Grill, he implored me to stop writing about chain restaurants when there are many other homegrown restaurants that could use some press.
Point taken, though I can't discriminate like that. If there's even one person who wants to know what a particular restaurant is like, I have to be there. So in heading to Chin's restaurant, an import with 10 locations in California, I braced myself for another faux Chinese P.F. Chang experience and another anti-chain reaction from this reader.
Lucky for me, Chin's does indeed have roots in Honolulu, dating back 25 to 30 years when Chin Tsai started the original Mongolian BBQ. That's also about the time he and Sunny Chan met, both starting out in the restaurant business.
Eventually, Chin moved to California to try his luck at empire building, and Chan, now franchise chef/owner for the Honolulu Chin's, went on to work at a string of restaurants, including the Hilton's Golden Dragon. In fact, one of the reasons the food is so appealing to this homegrown reviewer is because, made to local tastes, Chan says it has little in common with the California Chin's. The food had also been put through a battery of tests at Chan's other restaurant, Kapolei's Ho Ho, where patrons were asked for their thumbs up or down on dishes. Only the favorites made it onto Chin's menu. Even so, there's a lot to choose from, though you might note the food seems to taste best when Chan is cooking.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Yuyu Zhan presents Chin's house specialty of braised lobster at the Kahala restaurant Tuesday. Chin's is located where the Tony Roma's was in Kahala.
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IF YOU'RE overwhelmed by the vast menu, you may not want to look any further than the first page of Chin's "Signature Dishes."
Forget about the more exotic duck when plain chicken is transformed into a luxury dish when smoked with chamomile. Price might be an indicator of its esteem when green tea smoked duck is $14.95 half, and $28.95 whole, and the chicken is $16.95/$32.95 respectively.
I guess I couldn't get enough of tea because I also ordered the green tea shrimp ($15.95) that poured out of a bamboo basket. Too bad that wasn't a cornucopia because this is another dish it's hard to stop eating. The shrimp is boiled in a "special soy sauce" devised by Chan, then tossed with the flash-fried tea leaves you could ingest, or not. The tea itself tends to be stalky and chewy, but the flavor's all there.
Garlic-topped oysters became finger food when wrapped in lettuce leaves but weren't as crispy as they could be, nor were they served with the familiar five-spice salt. For the price, at $14.95, I'd hold out for less expensive specimens in Chinatown's hole-in-the-walls.
Also among the signature dishes was comfort food in the form of Chinese taro combined with shredded dry scallops in a hot pot ($12.95).
Less pricey entrees can be found among the beef, pork and vegetable entrees, and a highlight, for many, would be the long list of Szechwan dishes, including the titillating "Nude Party" ($15.95), which just happens to be shrimp stripped of their shells.
The dish most closely associated with Szechwan cooking here is kung pao chicken ($10.95) and there are beef ($11.95) and shrimp ($13.95) versions as well. Get all three in the specialty dubbed "Kung Pao Three Flavor" ($14.95). None are as spicy as they could be because the peppers included in the dish are stir-fried whole without liberating their fiery contents.
If you need greens to go with all that try the Chinese broccoli topped with a handful of crunchy, deep-fried baby whitefish. It may even tempt children to eat their vegetables.
And, unusual for a Chinese restaurant, in addition to the usual almond tofu ($2.95) dessert, there's ice cream in lychee and, again, green tea flavors.
