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Panda Cuisine, a closer look
Aloha!
11/6/09 - Don't mistake Panda Cuisine with the Panda Express fast-food restaurants that are popping-up everywhere, where $6 to $8 gets you two or three choices from a buffet line, all sitting under hot lights and redolent with salt, sugar, shoyu, msg, then a little more salt, sugar, shoyu, msg, then a little more...
Hey, it's aaaalll good once in a while, but this Panda, on Keeaumoku St. just mauka of Kapiolani Blvd. and the Ala Moana Shopping Center, is a bona-fide dim sum restaurant serving fine Chinese cuisine, not da grinds or cheap eats (no reference or tie at all to Lyle Galdeira and Russel Yamanoha!) kind-of-stuff. They've been around for a while now, and the name regularly comes up upon asking the advice of every Chinese-speaking person I know of on where to find authentic Chinese cuisine. And judging by all the famous people on the wall, a whole lotta people have found their way to this reasonably elegant eatery, including the likes of Ichiro Suzuki, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a host of Asian big-name celebrities, and much more. And this was just one of several walls full of shots:
The entrance and entire restaurant sits on the second floor of this small building, with parking located inside a slight down-ramp underneath. You'll have to pay a buck or two unless you get there early or late, when there's no parking attendant waiting to issue you a ticket stub, or upon finding an open slot on the street at night, when the City parking police have all gone home. Of course, by right, any ol' cop can give you a ticket for no change in the meter, but in all my years working nights at Waikiki Hotels, I haven't found a single one clipped under my windshields yet.
The inside is perhaps a bit old-school, but still looking fine as far as Chinese restaurants go, with a classic mix of mahogoney-type chairs, decorated glass, polished windows, and neatly-pressed linen, not to mention the tuxedo-clad waitstaff, always a plus:
The hours are a huge plus here, as well, as they stay open till 2am except on Sunday's. Why, the only other Chinese restaurant I know of still awake after that is Fook Yuen (one hour later), another must-try eatery found in the McCully Shopping Center.
As stated, and besides having the full line-up of authentic dishes, Panda Cuisine is well-known for their dim sum, which are sometimes prepared to order (mostly evenings) and at other times, arriving from dim sum carts such as the one found in the next shot. It also depends on what you order, too, as this place is not nearly as crowded as spots like Legend or Happy Day, where Chefs can pretty much make anything, and it all gets snapped-up by a hungry, boisterous crowd. Here, with a bit less traffic, I'm guessing they have to be quite selective choosing what to pre-make.
One dish you'll always find on any dim sum cart in Hawaii, at any time and in any dim sum restaurant, is the tried-and-true pork hash. Only, I believe it's not really called pork hash anywhere else! It is a type of wonton where a flour wrapper is used to wrap any one of a number of different fillings, and which are then steamed or fried to a delicate perfection. In the islands, pork hash is often found hand-in-hand with manapua, that other local dish deriving from char siu bao, and one that we've somehow managed, like so many other things, to twist and warp into our own creation - albeit in a good way, of course!
The open-topped pork hash is made primarily from pork and shrimp, and is always a winner. Me, I don't ever have to worry about ordering it, because Kumi will always have at least two bamboo steamers' worth, leaving me opportunity to go after fare with a bit more of an exotic touch, as you'll soon see.
Another similiar type of morsel are the many variations on gao, or dumpling, which is also wrapped, but in a semi-transparent rice or wheat flour blanket. These are perhaps more ideal for the delicate tastes and textures of seafoods like shrimp or scallop, as even when completely wrapped, you can still visually enjoy and appreciate the contents even before opening or biting into one - you know these tricky Chefs, always trying to pull psychological stunts and traps on us, using any means of subtle imagery and coaxing of hidden sensations to have us enjoy our meals more fully. The nerve.
Along with pork, shrimp is probably one of the most popular of themes when it comes to dim sum fillings, and there's little else besides shrimp and chives in this next particular type of gao:
Another popular gao product comes with scallop:
See the transluscent wrappers on both the above? There's not a machine on the planet that can form, shape, and press these things as well as a trained dim sum Chef, but like an offensive lineman pushing attention away from himself and onto the quarterback and ball-handler's, he'd rather have you concentrate on the fillings, instead! And what better way to showcase them (fillings) than with the light, delicate, see-through qualities of a gao shell (wrapper)? Like good food everywhere, the main focus is on the pure, undadulterated taste and freshness of the natural products inside, and that's including refraining from preparing the dish with too many seasonings and sauces.
It's stuff like this that makes the meal, yes?
A little bit of shrimp, a little bit of imitation crab, a little bit of shiitake mushroom, all steamed to perfection - what more do you need? Tender, succulent, moist, and with that wonderfully fresh, snappy texture and slight crispiness - this is what dim sum is all about!
The above contents come from yet another type of wrapper, this time a soy-derived bean curd wrap that's quite a bit larger, and shaped into a rough rectangle. Whether being any one of many tofu-derived products, such as Japanese yuba or aburage, or made into the wraps or bundles found in Chinese cuisine, I absolutely love bean curd. It has a much firmer, yet paper-thin texture that, when layered (especially the bundled form) like they almost always are to some degree, always gives you that little something extra, that pleasing, enhancing effect that's almost like a baklava, except minus our pal, crispy. Those Chefs again, I tell you, always playing tricks on our minds!
Similiar in size and shape to a bean curd wrap, the difference with the next dish is that the wrap is made from the same ingredients as fun noodles. Once again, the inner ingredients are simple, coming with little else but small, perfectly-cooked shrimp, and then doused all over with shoyu.
But you know that something fried is never far away, and most dim sum houses will have steamed carts as well as deep-fried carts roaming the premises, the latter carrying heat lamps above instead of simmering water underneath, used to dole-out goodies like this shrimp wonton:
Another one of my many favorite's is deep-fried seafood/vegetable mix wrapped in nori seaweed:
Both excellent, I might add. But moving on to something a little more exotic, as promised, everyone should try this next dish at least once in their lifetime:
Why, pray tell? Well, all the better of which to amuse yourself, pat yourself on the back, and boast of such a sophisticated palate, while you secretly wonder inside how anyone could ever eat such a thing! I mean, once upon a time, chicken feet, organs, sea urchin, opihi, cow tongues - these were only eaten by peasants that couldn't afford real meat! Salmon roe? Why, we used to use them as bait in Oregon! And now? How did these things ever enter into such the vogue? My lack of sophistication and unpolished insensitivity to the uppity-exotic may leave you wondering how I could ever run a legitimate food website, but try as I may, I guess I'm forever doomed, lost in hopeless inadequacy to a rather boringly normal palate. And I do hate the n-word, believe me!
I'm sorry, but with excessive globs and over-the-top levels of fat and collagen, these chicken feet were kinda like turkey tails, except with even less real meat (in fact, none!) and a stubbornly stinky, gamey taste that wasn't over-powering or anything, but eerily steady and tortoise-like strong enough to where I just couldn't stomach it for very long. I gamed myself through an entire two whole feet, after which I promptly threw-up the flag and gulped-down my entire cup of water, and some of Kumi's, too, both of which I used to gargle and rinse every crack and crevasse in my entire mouth!
No, actually, I may be exaggerating just a bit, but still, I now finally know that chicken feet are not exactly my cup of jasmine tea, for sure. But as always - no regrets, and I'm glad to have tried it!
Our final dish was about getting back into normal, with an order of beef chow fun. And hey - have you ever thought about why beef is hardly ever found in dim sum wraps?
Even outside my chicken feet experience, this place is not without its faults, as these fun noodles above were a bit over-cooked and some of the dim sum, well, a bit shy of perfect in a few ways, but probably not enough to really put a damper on anything, so I'll just hold my tongue at such tiny speckles of barely noticeable faults, lest I be viewed as some kind of food critic or something - eeeks! Barring some change of Chef, ownership, or use of ingredients, however, Panda Cuisine will still always be one of the better dim sum restaurants on the island, with enough class and skill in both the kitchen and dining room to merit a return trip.
Well, it's finally good to do a normal restaurant page again! I'm still working out the kinks right now, but I'll get back into the groove once again, always in hot pursuit of the good eats out there on this beautiful island Paradise we call home! No matter how fun it is anywhere else, and no matter how much I want to live part of the year in other parts of the world on a permanent, cyclical basis, Hawaii will always be home, no matter what!
Take care and Aloha till next time!
Aku
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