This August will mark 34 years that I’ve written a continuous restaurant review column that started in Honolulu Star-Bulletin and carried over to Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Knowing that history, some readers I’ve met have speculated, “Wow, you must have eaten at every restaurant by now.”
I’ve certainly been to a lot. If I calculate a minimum of one new restaurant a week over 33 years, the number would be 1,716, well short of the estimated 3,600 restaurants open statewide, although I have increased visits of small popups and food hall eateries that have proliferated in recent years.
With the focus of “the news” being what’s new, I’ve rarely looked back at some of the older restaurants in our midst, but one in particular intrigued me just because of the 1950s vintage sign that still graces its roofline, evoking a time steeped in nostalgia.
Every time I drove past, I told myself, “I need to eat here one day.” But I had my reservations. For one thing, older restaurants don’t tend to thrill patrons past their heyday for many reasons such as personnel and ownership changes, and the original desire to please turning into lackadaisical routine.
And, the idea of Cantonese food didn’t exactly set my heart aflutter. It’s because, for me, growing up Chinese in Hawaii meant eating a lot of Cantonese food from youth to adulthood, which made it pretty monotonous. Young food influencers probably couldn’t comprehend this but until the 1980s, most people stayed home and cooked and if you wanted to go out to eat, there was nothing but Cantonese restaurants, drive-in fare, pizza, or the steakhouse or fancy French restaurant reserved for special occasions. There were no Thai or Vietnamese restaurants, ramen houses or other of today’s popular cuisines that only began appearing in the late 1980s. That’s how I ended up with this job. No one else in the newsroom wanted it because they didn’t think there were enough restaurants in Honolulu to sustain a regular review column for even a year. And by that time, I was willing to try anything beyond Cantonese food.
Finally sitting inside Tasty Chop Suey, and after all the excitement of other cuisines, I found it’s actually nice to retreat back to this comfort cuisine of my childhood.
The restaurant was opened by Lillian Wong and her chef husband in 1956, and moved into its current space, in what had been a laundromat, in the 1960s. The restaurant was sold in 1985 and changed hands several times since, and while the original family spirit may have dissipated over time, food prepared by the restaurant’s Hong Kong born chef hits the right marks and remains as good as any in Chinatown.
Tasty Chop Suey’s place in history was immortalized as one of three Hawaii restaurants — the others were Wo Fat and Lau Yee Chai — featured in the 2011 Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History Chinese-American exhibition “Sweet & Sour,” an examination of Chinese food in America as a window into the immigrant experience.
One of Tasty Chop Suey’s original menus displayed during the exhibition showed deep-fried chicken with oyster sauce priced at $2.25, roast duck going for $2, and the costliest dish, lobster with black bean sauce priced at $4. And, you could get a small bowl of wonton mein for 60 cents, a large for 75 cents.
I can’t tell you how the food was back then, but the classics remain, cooked up to please contemporary palates.
Although Chinese restaurants are largely family-dining oriented, changing demographics and pandemic isolation means there are plenty of lunch plate specials to address the solo diner such as ginger chicken or crispy chicken on rice ($12.50 each), roast duck and kau yuk on rice ($12.50), as well as individual soups such as saimin ($10) or wor wonton mein ($12).
Hong Kong-style roast duck ($18 half) and pork char siu ($12.50) are musts for the family table. There’s nothing more satisfying to my Chinese heart than biting into that mahogany-colored five-spice, soy and garlic marinated duck skin, and enjoying the tender sweetness of familiar char siu. Add to the variety with seafood, veggie and rice or noodle options ranging from honey walnut shrimp ($17.50), fish steamed with ginger and onions ($18), stuffed eggplant ($11), and char siu chow fun ($12) to lup cheong and chicken chow mein ($14).
For a chop suey dish with a little bit of everything, there’s bat chun tofu ($13.50), a stir-fry of tofu, snow peas, broccoli, baby corn, onions, mushrooms, choy sum, pork and beef.
And, if you really want to go old-school, there’s one of my favorites, a pork hash patty layered with salted egg ($14.50). Not everyone will get it, but when it comes to foods that shaped my memories and connect me to a simpler past, it doesn’t get much better than that.
Tasty Chop Suey
1606 Gulick Ave., Honolulu
Food: ***½
Service: ***
Ambiance: ***
Value: ***½
Call: 808-841-3115
Hours: 10 a.m. 9 p.m. daily
Prices: Dinner for four about $60-$70
Nadine Kam’s restaurant visits are unannounced and paid for by Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Follow Nadine on Instagram (@nadinekam) or on YouTube (youtube.com/nadinekam).
