Chef Alan Wong holds plantation roots close as he moves forward

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COURTESY CHEF ALAN WONG

Slow Cooked Big Island Abalone

With dried scallop mushroom salad, tako, mustard cabbage

XO Sauce is very popular in China. Instead of making the sauce, we made a salad with the ingredients on the table. We are currently trying to import abalone from Big Island Abalone into the Shanghai restaurant. We are trying to create an exchange and commerce between two countries by bringing Hawaiian ingredients to China.

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COURTESY CHEF ALAN WONG

Duck Won Ton Ravioli

With foie gras, black vinegar, ginger

It comes from Taiwan, but xiao long bao is very popular in Shanghai. It’s a dumpling with soup in the wrapper, so when you bite into it the soup gushes out. As this dumpling heats up, the foie gras mousse melts and creates a similar effect.

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COURTESY CHEF ALAN WONG

Garlic Lobster

With shiitake mushrooms, peanut salsa and peas

Hot pot dining is very popular in Shanghai. At a restaurant called Hai Di Lao, I was led to a condiment bar to create my own sauces. After adding fungus to Szechuan peanuts, Chinese parsley and some other items, the idea for this salsa was born.

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COURTESY CHEF ALAN WONG

Pork Hash Terrine

Steamed in rice paper with ja chai, pistachio, ham, diced shrimp and soy mustard

We all grew up eating Chinese-style pork hash. I used it as a farce for a traditional terrine and added some traditional garnishes like pistachios and ham (tongue). Steaming it in a layer of rice paper reminds me of dumplings and dim sum. Locals almost always eat dim sum with shoyu mustard.

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COURTESY CHEF ALAN WONG

Smoked Salmon Tartare

With smoked salmon mousse, smoked salmon “bacon bits” and ikura on “cafeteria toast”

“Oyako” literally means “parent and child.” This dish is in honor of what the Plantation Village really represents — family histories. “Cafeteria toast” is a memory from elementary school, crispy and dried out, which I loved.

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COURTESY CHEF ALAN WONG

Kombu Cured King Salmon

With ikura shiso rice

Salmon is a highly popular fish for sashimi in Shanghai. For the raw bar at Alan Wong’s Shanghai, we introduced the concept of Japanese-style sashimi don.

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These days, what’s on the minds of food-minded folk like chef Alan Wong are the children of today’s young people, the offspring of those who have grown up in this new age of technology.

Too many of today’s generation “don’t eat at home, so they don’t know what their mother’s food tastes like. They don’t know how to cook, so how are they supposed to teach their children the ethnic family recipes?” said Wong. “When those recipes are lost, they’re lost forever.”

YEAR OF THE FIRE MONKEY

A benefit for Hawaii’s Plantation Village

Where: The Pineapple Room, Macy’s Level 3, Ala Moana Center

When: 5 to 8 p.m. April 24

Tickets: $100

Info: 949-2526

Without that context, there is no true understanding, no real foundation for locally inspired food, he said.

So Wong takes his staff out for training at Hawaii’s Plantation Village in Waipahu for a history lesson on immigrant cultures and lifestyles during the plantation era. There, he shares how Hawaii’s diverse ethnic background continues to inspire the dishes he creates.

He’s holding a benefit dinner, “The Year of the Fire Monkey — Celebrating 21 Years,” on April 24 at the Ala Moana Macy’s Pineapple Room. The event also celebrates the 21st anniversary of Wong’s flagship King Street restaurant.

“We must look to the past to understand the present and look toward the future,” he said. “The Plantation Village epitomizes this entire thing. It helps us understand why we eat the way we do in Hawaii.”

Wong’s menu for the upcoming event reflects his perspective as a local boy informed by multiculturalism. Many of the dishes are rooted in the recipe development for his new restaurant in Shanghai, which opened in February. They track a cultural exchange of sorts: The original dishes, born of ideas in Honolulu and fleshed out in Shanghai, were intended to share a bit of Hawaii cuisine with the Chinese. The event dishes are inspired by those now on the Shanghai menu, to give local diners a taste of China.

Here are a few examples of what to expect. The photographs, incidentally, were taken by the chef himself, a serious camera buff.