Dim Sum At Yung Yee Kee in Honolulu

Honolulu is not especially well known for Chinese food since the Chinese community here is only 4 percent of the city's population.  As such, we don't eat a lot of Chinese food when we come here, since they're are so many other dining options around.  On the other hand, we will reserve a Chinese meal or two just to check on the state of Chinese food here.  As such, it was nice to find another dim sum option here in addition to Jade Dynasty, and indeed Yung Yee Kee, just outside of the Ala Moana Center, is probably a tad better than Jade Dynasty inside Ala Moana.

We started out with the deep fried har gow.  Have only seen this at a couple of restaurants, and this was quite good.

Back home this would be called BBQ pork cheung fun.  However in Hawaii it is known as BBQ pork look fun.  And it's not just a difference in terminology, as the Hawaiian version has a noticeably thinner  skin.  This is akin to the Hawaiian baked BBQ pork bun, which is known as manapua in Hawaii and also has a thinner skin than the version found in the U.S.

Yang Chow fried rice was as good as any I've ever had.

Honestly the best siu mai I've ever eaten!

Har gow was also quite good.

Crispy baked bbq pork buns were good, but last year's version at Jade Dynasty was a bit better.

X O rice noodle logs were much too spicy.

Fish cake with corn was very good.

Turnip cakes

Fried shrimp balls were not what we expected.  Not that they were bad, but they were a little too similar to the fried har gow.

All in all it was an excellent meal, the best dim sum in Honolulu.  And frankly on an absolute scale it was surprisingly good, not what you would expect from a community with a relatively small Chinese population.

Senia In Honolulu--If Only The Stars Fell On Hawaii

As everybody knows, it is a great honor for a restaurant to receive a Michelin star.   Diners rightly go out of their way to eat at Michelin starred restaurants.  But there are many deserving restaurants that will never receive a Michelin star.  That's because to garner a Michelin star, you have to be located in a geographic area where Michelin rates restaurants.  For example,  for years Michelin did not rate restaurants in Los Angeles, and hence there were no Michelin starred restaurants here.

I kind of believe that Senia in Honolulu would garner a star if it were in Michelin related territory.  To my taste, it is the equal of Providence in Los Angeles, a two star Michelin restaurant.  Here are some of the dishes we had at this wonderful restaurant.

Starting off was the ahi tuna cigars, which are actually smoking when they come to your table.

Next was the citrus hamachi, with grapefruit and lilikoi.  What an unexpectedly wonderful combination of flavors.

How about a bone marrow sandwich made with oxtail marmelade using Hawaiian bread?

Seared scallops with crispy kale was a real winner.

Certainly not the prettiest dish, but quite possibly the best, agnolotti with truffle butter topped by truffles!

How about lion's mane mushrooms?

A most interesting dish was the beef cheeks in a bao with red pepper flecks.

Topped off by coconut cheesecake.

And caramello with white truffle caramel.

All in all a star-worthy meal.

Guide To My Audio Appearances (Revised June 2023)

After last year's compilation of my video appearances I decided to do the same for my audio appearances too.  Note that there is a fair amount of repetition between the interviews.

Dave Issac's Breakthrough Thinking.  Dave and I were co-workers some 40 years ago at the CPA firm of Kenneth Leventhal & Company where we used to go out to Chinese restaurants at lunch time.  Who knew decades later we would be talking on Dave's radio show about how we used to go out to Chinese restaurants at lunch time when we worked at Kenneth Leventhal & Company.   https://soundcloud.com/user-904469289/david-chan-celebrity-diner-with-respect-to-chinese-food

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation interview.  In the wake of my BBC website interview and BBC World News television appearance last year, CBC did a follow up interview.  https://drive.google.com/file/d/10POGeA8RNr06LwfsOv1fdXRw9M1RN3qB/view?usp=sharing 

British Broadcasting Corporation radio interview.  BBC followed up their website article and BBC World News appearance with a BBC radio interview on Adrian Chiles BBC 5 Live.  This was an extremely difficult recording for me to find a copy.  The interview was pre-recorded in advance earlier in December, with the comment that it would be aired around Christmas time.  As with many interviews, all of the preliminary contact was behind the scenes personnel, and on a number of occasions my first contact with the actual interviewer was at the time of the interview itself.  No further information was provided to me and I received no further followup from BBC.  I did do some poking around and discovered that there were several BBC radio channels.  Fortunately I eliminated the BBC music channels and focused on their news and conversation channels.  Still I really had no leads as to whether the show ever aired, and even if it did, whether the interview would be posted online.  At that point I decided to review the prior correspondence, which included the name of the on the air interviewer, Adrian Chiles.  At last I finally had a more specific search term to follow up, and indeed, I was led to a webpage where Chiles' most recent shows were in fact posted.  That was the good news.  The bad news was that Chiles did a two hour show, two or three times a week, and each show was posted in a single two hour long file.  And then, even after finding all of his shows from the time I was interviewed through the Christmas holiday, there was no interview with me.  So maybe my interview never made it on the air.  😞  However, a couple of weeks later I decided to give it one last try.  I noticed new post-Christmas episodes were posted so I checked them out.   Success!  I found an episode where Chiles gives a preview of the show and he plays a short clip of my interview.  But going through the rest of the show, the interview in fact doesn't show up.  Fooey! Then I check the next day's show, and again I'm in the preview.  And this time my interview is on the show, and as a bonus, unlike many other pre-recorded interviews I've done, the interview was played in its entirety.  Of course I didn't want to retain and post the entire two hour show, so I forced myself to figure out the voice recording function on an iPhone, so here's my clip.  (Oh and by the way, at the same time I did the BBC Radio pre-recorded interview, I also did one for China Global Television Network's London bureau, again scheduled for broadcast around Christmas.  I never found a trace of this one, and I'm still wondering if it ever made it on the air.)   https://drive.google.com/file/d/12d-Ku4Mku3haT6H6ApDyR7fna1WS_ZsY/view?usp=sharing 

KCRW Greater LA Monterey Park shooting interview.  In the aftermath to the 2023 Chinese New Year shooting in Monterey Park, I was asked to make some comments on how that event impacted the celebration of the holiday.  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f-2KrgFqqPPuZUQ-2rhoclQZ7GZ8n4JF/view?usp=share_link

MiseducAsian Podcast.   A nearly one hour interview with Tommy Chang and his associates from the MiseducAsian podcast, edited down from a two and a half hour conversation.  Focuses on my Chinese restaurant list that chronicles over 8,000 Chinese restaurant visits. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/8000-chinese-restaurants-and-counting-with-david-r-chan/id1601351243?i=1000615969597

 

Teen Sheng Tales From Mangri-La.  Longest interview I ever did, clocking in at over an hour and twenty minutes, was a few years ago with podcast host Teen Sheng, talking about the history of  food in America.   https://soundcloud.com/user-904469289/chinese-american-food-and-history-with-david-chan

NPR interview with Scott Simon.   Short interview from when I was first unmasked as a celebrity diner, but apparently widely heard as I received calls from people I knew from all around the country saying they heard me driving to work.   https://soundcloud.com/user-904469289/npr-interview-with-scott-simon

Follow-up Interview With Dave Isaac.   Where we discuss the movie the Search For General Tso with the picture's director Ian Cheney.   https://soundcloud.com/user-904469289/ian-cheney-the-search-for-general-tso

Nevada Public Radio Chinese Food Program.  I had been contacted to speak on a program about Chinese food for Nevada Public Radio, but they cancelled out the day before the broadcast.  But then an hour before broadcast they asked me if I were still available, so here I am starting at about the five minute mark.  https://soundcloud.com/user-904469289/nevada-public-radio-chinese-food-show-2013

BBC Interview With My Interviewer.  My initial interview with BBC last year did not appear as a video, but rather as a Chinese language written article on the BBC website.  However, there is an English language interview with the interviewer about her interview with me, at about the 15 minute mark.  https://soundcloud.com/user-904469289/bbc-interview-with-my-interviewer

Good Food With Evan Kleinman on KCRW.   This interview on Evan Kleinman's show, which came shortly after Clarissa Wei's first article about me appeared in LA Weekly, was my only in-studio radio appearance.  (I turned down an offer to go to the studio for an interview with talk show host Jim Jefferies right at the start of the pandemic.)  For this interview I went to the old KCRW studio on the Santa Monica City College campus where we pre-recorded the interview which was edited down for time.  My part starts around the 43 minute mark, following an interview with Jonathan Gold. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dmK7SKcLyDRgZRaTiReuMUX37cX_C8Hq/view?usp=sharing

United States of Chinese Food.  I actually wasn't interviewed for this interesting podcast compilation on Chinese food in the United States.  However they did include an unattributed snippet of my interview from The Search For General Tso in the show at around the 21 minute mark.  https://gastropod.com/the-united-states-of-chinese-food/

Shared History Podcast.   Another offshoot of last year's BBC interview and I'm not actually on the podcast.  However, programs hosts Cass and Natalie, comedian/historians, go into a deep dive of my BBC interview, doing their own independent research to add to the story.  Discussion begins around the 41 minute mark. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uz9wJdFbRA7OMyh57DPz939A6nHcKOz1/view?usp=sharing