Chin’s Chinatown Restaurant

CLOSED
Another one bites the dust!

Their cold ginger chicken is great. Prices are alright, food good and this place seems sanitary compared to other places in Chinatown!!!
One of my favorite places to go nowadays since Chinatown is starting to get smaller and smaller.

Riana «Tittahbyte» S. and I were driving around with a case of Blue Moon, 1 Navel Orange, and two cameras ready to go but guess the fuck what. We had no where to go.
Actually I sorta take that back because we were headed to our friend’s grad party, however; she lives in the most inconvenient place on the island… across the street from Hawaii Prince Hotel near Waikiki. Yup. That traffic/​parking hell hole.
Anyways, you can already tell that we didn’t find parking so off to our next stop of the night, Chinatown!
After driving around for 30 minutes since leaving Ala Moana, I needed a beer.
But where to drinking it? Well I whipped out my iPhone and called up the Unilocal app. I searched BYOB and out came a map of about 20 places. Sweet lord, now to choose.
Eeny Meany Miny Mo. I chose Chin’s and gave em a call just to be sure. It went like this:
Whispery voice: «Hello?»
Me: «Hi! Is this Chin’s?»
WV: «Yeah.»
Me: «Are you guys BYOB?»
WV: «What?»
Me: «Are you BYOB? Bring your own booze?»
WV: «How many pepo?»
Me: «Two.»
WV: «Okay.»
Me: «Okay.»
Literally. That’s how it went.
So a few minutes later we showed up at Chin’s not wanting anything Chinese. We were about to go somewhere else until WV opened the door and we agreed to just eat here.
Well we were surprised at how delicious the food was. We ordered Crispy Gau Gee and Beef Chow Funn with Black Bean Sauce.
Oh my Hu Jintao. The CGG was beyond crispy. It was crunchy perfection. Very light. Very meaty. Very tasty. Good thing it was 8 pieces between two people or else I would have ordered more!
Then the BCF. Wowxia! (Pronounced wow-​zah) this was excellent! The noodles were great. The beef was tender. And the flavor was what we loved.
Chin’s. If you didn’t have an apostrophe in your name, I’d understand why. Pepo coming here will definitely order plenty and often, causing them to have more chins than a Chinese phone book but hey.
Take it as a compliment because I don’t mind wearing them as badges of honor.
Good prices. Nice décor. Good tea. And BYOB!!!

Typical Chinese restaurant in Hawaii. The dishes were standard, however, the portions were on the smaller scale. The most outstanding part of the restaurant was that they actually spent some money on the décor and tables and chairs.
We had the following dishes:
Stir Fried String Beans — Very tasty with black bean sauce.
Steamed shrimps on top of look funn — Lots of garlic flavor. Very interesting dish and only a few of the restaurants in Hawaii have it.
Sweet and sour pork — Nothing special.
Deep fried pigeon — Typical cooking and tasting.
Black Bean Clams — Worse dish of all. The clams were small and they totally over dosed on the black bean sauce, it was salty.
I believed that they have a buy 2 entrees and get 1 free special going on, however, they cheated us on one free dish. Probably won’t be returning.

We were squeezing in some time in Chinatown and found this place authentic and delicious. Nothing special about the décor, but the kung pao and fried rice excellent.

The first time I had Chins in Chinatown with my friends and co-​workers. It was by far excellent in my opinion which made me wanted to come back again. The second time around was really disappointing ! Like seriously disappointed. The food that night tasted horrible, and wasn’t even fresh at all. The vegetable «choy sum» we ordered still had dirt on it and a couple piece of rock left behind on the dish which was spotted after we had nearly finished everything. The popular dish I always get is the «Walnut Shrimp» which most Chinese like myself would always order. Boy was I upset. The crust tasted like hard dough, and the shrimp tasted like it was left overs. Man, was I upset the whole night. I decided maybe the desert would be good «just like last time». Another failure, I got the almond tofu, and it was so hard on the edges like I was eating a sponge. On top of that, I always thought that you would serve it with fruits? I am not sure if i’m correct on this, but everything I go to other places they have some sort of fruits on top. That wasn’t the case here, it’s just the fact that I am thinking the second time around, they are slacking or the chef didnt feel like making anything that night for customers. Regardless, they just lost a good customer who doesn’t mind paying for good food.

My dad was craving for authentic Chinese food! We had been on a boat for about a week, so the lack of rice and greasy food was on top of his to-​do list for our trip to Hawaii. So we wondered around Hawaii’s Chinatown and we asked around to ask for local’s recommendations. This spot was voted for best for value and authenticity.
I suppose it’s not fair to judge this restaurant based on my access to LA Chinatown and New York Chinatown, but… considering this Chinatown is on an island it’s not bad. More expensive than most of the other Chinese joints on the mainland, but it’s clean and the authenticity is solid.
We ordered a lobster, wonton/​wonton soup, and kon-​chin tsai (greens) with garlic. The bill ended up being $ 34. For authentic Chinese food in the middle of the ocean, it’s satisfying.

If you have a large party, this is the place to go. Clean! Service can sometime be slow but overall, food quality is great! If you are into seafood, they got lobster at $ 12, crab and fish for $ 18.95/ib. You can get awau with feeding a family of 10 – 12 for $ 220.

The restaurant itself was very nice aestheticly. The food was about average. We got spring rolls, minute chicken with cake noodle, and the young chow fried rice. Both my boyfriend and I agreed that we have had better though the food wasn’t terrible. Service left us wanting more though. We had to wave the waitress over for water and our check. Though she came over repeatedly to get our order.
All in all, 3 stars. One for the food, one for the décor, and one for the delicious oolong tea.

Lousy service. We walked in and the place is less than ¹⁄₃ filled and 2 waitresses standing near door of kitchen watch us take a seat. No one brings us menus or comes over to table. We wait patiently and 5 minutes later we still have not received menus. Another small group walks in and sits down and they hurry over with menus and a pot of hot tea. 2 Chinese ladies who can’t get service in a Chinese restaurant… other group had a man in it… hmmm. We stand up to walk out and NOW a waitress comes over and tells us she will bring us a menu. I would have choked trying to eat there after their blatant rudeness.

i initially felt bad about giving any «local» restaurant a «not-​so-​good» review. everyone is struggling and i don’t want to add to that. but since so many of my fellow Unilocalers like this place, i’m going to assume i just landed there on a bad day and be honest about what i thought.
i’ve had better. nothing more/​nothing less. the only reason i gave it 2-​stars is the restaurant itself is really nice. cool art-​deco type look, except for that one picture on the right wall of the dining room as you walk in… would someone please straighten it next time they go? there are 3 pictures in a row and the last one closest to the kitchen is hanging crooked. it made me crazy… if there hadn’t been diners at the table under it i would have got up and straightened it myself. PLEASE PEOPLE, STRAIGHTEN THE DAMNED PICTURE…
now, sorry about that… but oddly, that is all i have to say about this restaurant… a picture was hanging crooked. nothing else really worth mentioning other than i’d really advise against the egg rolls. seriously.
next time i’m craving americanized chinese food i’ll stick to my kalihi «favorite local chinese place» which i Unilocaled about in my fledgling Unilocal days. good luck to you chin’s.

Clean place. Prompt service, although no one came back to refill water etc. once the food was served. Food was somewhat bland, and on the greasy side.

I freaking Love Chin’s!
They have awesome food here. I grew up in Chinatown and this is the place! The prices are more than reasonable, it’s WAY cleaner than most Chinese places.
My typical menu is a Roasted Duck, salt pepper garlic lobster, Honey walnut shrimp, seafood fried noodle, black mushroom choi sum, hot sour soup, garlic shrimp look fun, some type of chicken. Honestly I crave Chin’s roast duck like a crack head.
This is really the best spot I think for Chinese food. I have probably been to all the Chinese places in Chinatown.

Very nice Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. The decoration is OK, but it’s fairly new and clean.
We went on a Sunday around 12:00 pm. They had two big groups; that might be the reason why it took a little longer for them to cook for my order.
My parents’ order were ready a lot faster than mine. Before I asked waitress where my order was, she spotted me and rushed to the kitchen.
I think two big groups had caused the short-​handed chaos in the kitchen.
When you are in Honolulu Chinatown, don’t forget to stop by this restaurant.

This is a solid chinese food, nothing fancy, but good food and fast service. Since most of the servers speak hardly any English, I assume it must be authentic?! Most of their clientele does not speak English, so I assume… The place is clean, the portions are generous, prices reasonable. My favorite is seabass with veggies. Go there regularly. Prefer it to Little Village.

ALPHA KENNY BODY for some Chin’s, seriously. Everyone forms a stigma about Chinatown. Dirty, cheap, smelly, the list goes on, but my intention is to show that gems like Chin’s do exist.
The interior is modern, comfortable and most importantly, CLEAN. I still wouldn’t say it is «i’d eat off the floor clean» but I will note that I didn’t feel like I had to take a shower once i got home. :)
I’ve been here quite a bit, but never for lunch. Chin’s has a nice lunch menu of really affordable dishes. You could get a bowl of saimin and a side dish of fried pork chops for $ 4.99. The fried pork chop has to be the best i’ve eaten. The tenderness of the meat combined with the crisp of deep frying it makes it THE perfect combination.
We also tried the Jook and the mochi noodles. Both were outstanding, I will note that the mochi noodles were OUT OF CONTROL good. The only way I can describe it, is like you pan fried slivers mochi but didn’t burn it and made it taste BOMB-​Tastic.
If I’m ever in Chinatown, this is definitely my go to spot for Chinese food. I mean you can spell CHINATOWN without CHIN. :)

The food is decent but here is another place that one worker can totally ruin it all. I came here for a nice family dinner. When the food came, I asked for a fork for my son and the waitress said «you’re going to have to wait I’m busy» AND she then said «tell me everything what you guys want now so I can do it now.» WOW! Need less to say she got snapped at, played on, and a nice complaint to the manager. What a way to have your family dinner ruined because at this point no matter how good the food is going to be, we already has a bad taste for this place.

For some reason I have a hard time finding quality Chinese food for my non-​adventurous friends in Chinatown. Went to this bustling Chinese joint on a weekday night and was surprised how packed it was with Cantonese-​speaking families– was the only non– Chinese in the place for sure. Service was very friendly and the food was great. Not greasy or oily like traditional American Chinese places. Look fun with garlic and shrimp was very fresh and tasty. Don’t be surprised when they bring you the raw (or live) fish to your table for ‘inspection’- just like they do in restaurants in hong kong or china. Good place to take people not ready to brave the really dirty places of c-​town but you want something more authentic than little village noodle house.

i’m only giving them 4 stars for now b/​c my friends and i only ordered 2 things (AND we were looking for dim-​sum… they dont have dim-​sum here).
ordered the Shanghai dumplings, and the potstickers. both were good, but i kind of expected the Shanghai dumplings to be more soupy inside. these WERE soupy, but not as soupy as i thought they’d be… but then again, i’ve only had them at one other place, and compared to that other place, Chin’s is way better. they serve theirs with some vinegar, and the vinegar makes them soooo gooood.
the pot stickers were good too, and BIG. they’re each at least 5 to 6 inches long. also delicious.
but they dont have dim sum :(

Chin’s in chinatown (NOT Kahala) has the best-​tasting Chinese food in Hawaii. I have never eaten here when it was Glowing Dragon but I heard that they have a new chef and the quality of food has improved. I have eaten here many times and not only is it always good, I have never ordered anything that is bad. It’s hard not to order the same things over and over again. Here’s some recommendations:
–Their 12.99 (or something like that) Lobster done salt and pepper style. It’s loaded with garlic chunks which makes it taste so good. It’s a little messy to eat because you have to use your hands but it’s totally worth it.
–Their choy sum is so flavorful and better than any you’ve had in your life. You will like it even if you’re not into greens that much.
Shrimp Look Fun is freaking delicious, and is covered in garlic chunks like the lobster.
–Cashew Nut Chicken, or pretty much any of the chicken dishes are fantastic.
–Seafood cake noodle, can’t go wrong. Most of the noodle dishes come with a lot of nice veggies like choy sum, mushrooms and carrots.
–The roasted duck is TO DIE FOR. If you’re a duck fan, this is totally the place to go for a super juicy duck with a crispy skin. I love the flavor of the duck grease that is left on your lips after eating it. I’m obsessed with it. I don’t usually order this because I’m afraid of devouring the whole plate and looking like a pig. The half duck order is massive, but I came close to finishing it because it was so damn good.
There is also a huge snapper cooked whole, Chinese style with ginger and garlic. I’ve never had it but I see a lot of the families eating it and they seem to enjoy it. Most of the diners here are native Chinese so you know this is the place to go. Some of the people can make a lot of noise gabbing in Chinese, but they always quiet down when the food comes, a sign that the food is good.
The owner is very nice and so is the wait staff. The service is always quick, but for me the 5 minute wait for the food kills me because of the anticipation. The food tastes so fresh, and whoever they have in the kitchen is very good at what they do. The food is so good and addictive here that I wonder if they use MSG.