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Phoenix Chinese Restaurant, a closer look
Phoenix Chinese Restaurant on Yelp!
Aloha!
6/15/11 - Besides trusty ol' Yelp, I can't find another page worth seeing regarding Phoenix Chinese restaurant in Hawaii Kai. Phoenix Chinese restaurant? Who 'dat?
I know, I know. Like many other great-little neighborhood Chinese restaurants, you may not have heard of it unless you live in or near the area, in this case - Hawaii Kai. Actually, the East side of Oahu outside of town has a number of great spots for Chinese cuisine. Driving in, there's Duck Yun at the Aina Haina Shopping Center - been a trusty spot for years, but last time I went, everything about the food was different (change of chef?), and not in a good way. Further in at tiny Niu Valley Shopping Center, there's Lung Fung, another spot that's been around since my childhood days. It's become a shade more expensive, but generally, it's got good, solid Chinese food. A few minutes away, in Hawaii Kai itself, there are two more really great places - Harbor Village (My Closer Look there is one of my first blogs, and I hear the quality has gone down a bit recently!) and today's restaurant, Phoenix. Ok, ok - there's also Panda, which is fine for fast-food, but completely incomparable to those above!
But before checking it out.... how's that weather been recently? Me, I love driving over the H-3 after a steady rain, as the entire mountainside awakens with long, silky streams of falling water between just about every ridge! Some think Hawaii is only about sunshine and surf, but without a huge watershed area and heavy rains every so often, we wouldn't be the lush, green island paradise that we are today!
Not nearly as crazy as the Milford region of Te Anau, New Zealand, where the mountains are made of pure granite, and there is little, if any, soil available. Roots of vegetation dig right into pure granite cracks or rubble, and there is literally almost no saturation point whatsoever! In such a climate, any substantial amount of water falling to the earth immediately forms walls of cascading streams everywhere you look (click on pic to see the rest of our trip!):
But anyhow.... Phoenix Chinese restaurant is located at the Hawaii Kai Shopping Center, formerly known as Kuapa Kai Shopping Center. No, it's not the one with Foodland (so saaad - they'll be closing end of next month!) and Zippy's - that's Koko Marina. And no, it's not the one with Roy's, City Mill, and Costco - that's the Hawaii Kai Town Center. Confusing for such a small area, but it's the one with Long's and Safeway, built on the same barren land of dirt and dry vegetation that acted as our playgrounds as kids. Blissful outdoor entertainment, it was, the kind you never got tired of and wished you could do forever! Not that I'm complaining about our current benefit of grabbing groceries, having dinner, visiting the clinic, or even getting a massage, but the formerly open expanse of urban wilderness sure was nice to have around, in all its purity and simple pleasures. With all this development and litigation these days, there's officially no crabbing and no fishing in almost the entire Hawaii Kai Marina area, as well as no bicycling, no skateboarding, no loitering, and no whatever else some stiff suit in an office can think of! We used to catch mangoose in the brush and crab off of any marina wall we wanted to, including fronting people's homes, without a second thought! Nowadays, I look at the wall we used to crab and fish from, just behind Phoenix Chinese restaurant and Kuapa Kai (as well as the Town Center and Koko Marina!), and there are those blah'sted "No this and that" signs again! What's the deal? Can't a kid have fun anymore?
Oh, well. Can't bring home a bucket of Hawaiian, Haole, and blue pincher crabs anymore to boil-up, but we can pick up a giant tray of gon lo mein, one of our favorites here at Phoenix Chinese restaurant! Guess it's not aaalll bad!
As you can see, it's sandwiched between two other popular restaurants, Cha Cha Cha and The Shack.
Inside, it's pretty much as simple and casual as it gets, with the all too familiar scene of a corner of the dining room also being used for storage as well as wrapping wonton and gau gee! You gotta love it! In fact, very few folks even bother dining in, the vast majority opting for take-out. I think I've eaten perhaps once or twice inside, as compared to the 20-30 or so times I must've taken-out over the years!
As stated, gon lo mein is one of our go-to items here at Phoenix:
Last I checked, this "Small" tray of noodles was priced at $22 (I go so often, I don't even look anymore!), and it is worth every bit of that money. It passes two of my biggest requirements for good noodles - a minimum of veggies and other clutter and a maximum of quality noodles, as well as a firmer, more al dente finish! I know it looks like a lot of char siu pork, or clutter, but most of it is found on-top, not inside, and you can easily brush it all away for a good re-fried pork instead. The noodles themselves are thin and eggy, neither over nor under-flavored, perfect in its firm texture, and there is no gravy included anywhere. Actually, I love a good gravy noodle, but when it comes to take-out, you'll always need to worry about lastability (is that a word?), especially for parties or get-together's, where the noodles need to hold their integrity for longer periods of time - not happening with a gravy noodle! No matter how long it sits, this gon lo mein doesn't turn mushy, and neither does it clump-up and stick together, another huge problem with noodles. It is this lastability that makes it so ideal a dish at our hibachi-friendly home.
But that's not all we love about this place. All of the noodles we've tried here, we love, including those with gravy, like this roast chicken noodle!
Most folks here in the islands are in love with that uniquely local specialty called cake noodle, supposedly first created by the chefs at On On restaurant in Moiliili. We don't feel a need to order the tasty but super-oily noodles here at Pheonix, as the regular noodles seem to carry a certain body all their own, and can stand-up to any of the rich gravies extremely well. They are thin, but very firm, and always cooked perfectly.
Here's a similiar-looking, but very different roast duck noodle:
There's absolutely no way you can go wrong with one of these! Phoenix doesn't disappoint with their fatty, highly-flavored, rich portion of golden-brown, slightly red-skinned duck. The gravy all over just seems to heighten the already crazy-tasty duck, and when all that goodness envelops and merges with the noodles? Unbelievable, I tell you! Duck fat, baby!
One dish most Chinese restaurants in Hawaii always seem to have is a House Special Noodle. Mom loves to order it wherever she goes, but I'm not really sold on its virtues, as it's pretty much a mix of every type of seafood, vegetable, and meat imaginable, all thrown in like chop suey. Not that it tastes bad or anything, but to me, I'd rather order an oyster chicken noodle, beef unchoi noodle, minute chicken noodle, pork choi sum noodle, or some other more straightforward topping in place of being all kapakahi (there's one for non-local's - just means "All mixed"), especially since House special noodles are almost always a little more expensive!
But to each his own! You may love the variety, just as mom does!
Here's a blast from the past for ya!
Ooops, that was completely in the buff. Does this look a little more familiar?
That's old-school and up there, right alongside beef broccoli, sweet/sour pork, chop suey, and shrimp fly lice! No matter, though, they all still rock to me! The crust on our lemon chicken was a bit too cornstarchy-hard to deal with, but over-all, not too bad when given a few points extra for being old-school!
Definitely not in the category of old-school is honey walnut chicken:
Old? New? Fusion? I really don't care, so long as it tastes good, and this dish sure does taste good! It's only become a staple at Chinese restaurants in Hawaii relatively recently, but word sure spread fast, and everyone has it now. I have no idea who started this dish, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the Chinese - have you ever seen mayo in a Chinese restaurant before? Nevertheless, somehow, someway, the combination of battered, poofy-fried shrimp, a coating of zingy mayo, and honey or sugar-roasted walnuts is amazing! Who woulda thought?
This one was perhaps a bit over-mayo'd, and doesn't look nearly as appetizing since it was cooped-up in a styrofoam container for at least 5 minutes. Still, we all enjoyed it, and I can only imagine how great it would have been presented fresh at the restaurant!
And speaking of other reasons to criticize and lambast Chinese/American foods in general, what's the deal with General Tso's chicken? I know it's all over the Mainland and possibly elsewhere, but in Hawaii, for whatever reason, the term hasn't really become a household Chinese restaurant name yet. Like honey walnut shrimp, its origins are murky - probably because a Chinese guy in America created it, but was too ashamed to tell his family and friends!
I kid, of course. But like dragon rolls to nigiri, or cross-cut Korean shortribs to properly butterflied Korean shortrib, I guess we're all changing with the times, ey? Except for my uncle Kazu, that is. No possible way there. Anyhow, they don't even carry a General Tso's chicken here at Pheonix! I'm only mentioning it because what Hawaii does have is orange chicken, which is probably an off-shoot of General Tso's now famous dish (at least in America!):
Like I said - old, new, fusion, whatever - if it tastes good and doesn't kill ya, that's all that matters! And I am very well-acquainted with Phoenix's version of orange chicken, as my in-law orders it all the time now when they come over, and I couldn't be more happy! Luv, luv, luv the stuff!
Getting back to things of a more traditional nature, a heaping mound of pork unchoi sure does a man good!
Why people order choi sum over unchoi, I have no idea. The hollow stems are snappy and super-crisp, while the leaves melt quickly, becoming totally saturated with whatever sauces that are added while seemingly concentrating the already potent flavors even more, in this case, that being a basic hom ha (shrimp paste). I guess you could argue that there's a bit of a wilder, gamier taste in unchoi, as opposed to choi sum, but like a good lamb, I love that extra kick of something a little more exotic! Reminds me of the sukumawiki I loved so much while in Kenya!
Another fabulous vegetable dish, also with a bit of a wild side, is sour cabbage. First of all, it comes from kai choi, or mustard cabbage, which is definitely one of the more spicy greens out there. Next, they use a very sour, very tangy, very vinegary sauce that is more of a love it or leave it kind of thing. Customarily, it's ordered with pork, but after a while, it made more sense to just enjoy the sour cabbage alone - really good stuff!
Another simple but very good dish is ginger beef. With lots of large ginger slices, long green onion cuts, diced garlic, and tender, soft beef, it's perfect over a hot bowl of white rice!
Island folks know that one of the best ways to cook fish is Chinese style! Yes, it's very simple - just steam your fish, cover with green onion and ginger, douse liberally with shoyu, and finally, layer with a super-hot fix of oil, preferably peanut oil since it has the highest burning point of any cooking oil. Don't know what it is about so few and such basic household ingredients, and how they combine to create such unbelievably sophisticated results! Granted, this style is much more suited to a whole fish, where the extra skin, extra bones, big ol' eyes, and ooops, probably an errant scale or two, all provide a depth of flavor and presentation unmatched by a simple fillet. Nevertheless, it still works! You can even do this exact same thing with chicken!
And don't forget your pupu platters! This one came with roast chicken, roast duck, and gau gee:
Am I alone in wondering why there can't be a gau ton, or won gee? I mean, I love gau gee, but sometimes, the pork mix inside gets to be a bit much. But if you order a won ton, it's almost like eating a deep-fried wrapper! Isn't there something in-between? Just sayin'.
Hey, hope you're having a great and wonderful day! Finally got my camera back, so I'm stoked! It'll take a while to flush out all these so-so, blurry pics (no, I ain't gonna waste 'em!), but it'll get better eventually.
Take care, and Aloha till next time!
Aku
Phoenix Chinese Restaurant
377 Keahole St. at the Hawaii Kai Shopping Center
396-7777
Lunch and dinner daily
Parking in Shopping Center lot
