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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, January 21, 2005

Kirin features flawless dim sum, shoddy service

By Helen Wu
Advertiser Restaurant Critic

Chef Shuchuen So makes Tai Shan crab at Kirin Restaurant at Ala Moana Center. Crab, a house specialty, was prepared in an unusual way — baked with young Island coconut and dried scallions.

Photos by Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser


Evan Chinn, 11, left, and brother Aaron, 9, enjoy their meal at Kirin, which serves dim sum and other Chinese favorites.

Kirin Restaurant at Ala Moana Center

Makai, street level, between GNC and ABC Store

946-1888

Parking available in the mall

Open 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily

Dim sum 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Partial bar

Dim sum restaurants appeal to the kid in all of us.

Where else do you get to point and stare without being rude? When you want more tea, you get to signal by secret code, turning the tea-pot lid upside down. And if you do make a lot of noise, who would be bothered among the bustle and noise of people ordering?

It would be hard for some aspect of dim sum not to "touch your heart," as one of the translations of the term dim sum indicates. Everyone can pick a favorite from the innumerable little dishes prepared in a multitude of ways — fried, sautÚed, steamed or baked, with assorted sweet or savory fillings.

Weary shoppers at Ala Moana Center can find a restorative respite at Kirin Restaurant. During the day, Kirin serves up dim sum along with noodle and fried-rice dishes and a few classics such as Mongolian beef ($10.95). At night, traditional northern and southern Chinese dishes are featured, some with a Southeast Asian touch.

Opened as Hei Chin Rou in late August, the restaurant changed its name to Kirin a few months later to avoid confusion. Japanese tourists associated the original name with a Hong Kong chain of restaurants with branches in Japan and Thailand. This place actually is the newest addition to the locally owned Kirin chain: the original is on South Beretania Street and another is on the Big Island at the Hilton Waikoloa Village.

What isn't so confusing is Kirin Ala Moana's dim-sum menu. Unlike most typical dim sum eateries, Kirin employs a menu laden with large, eye-popping photos of its limited dim-sum selections. This means no cart congestion or commotion as servers try to explain what's in each item. Instead, all you have to do is hail a waiter and point to a photo of what you want. This makes it the perfect, unintimidating place for dim sum novices.

Two steamed-bun dishes are particularly appealing here. Chef Shen King Kang, formerly of Legend Seafood Restaurant in Chinatown, displays an ethereal touch with these items. Ordinary wheat flour and water are transformed into delicately sweet, puffy, cloud-like buns. They dazzle whether stuffed with rich, dark red char-siu barbecued pork ($2.75) or a bright yellow, coconut-flavored, sweet egg yolk-cream filling ($2.50). Manapua lovers will be floating away on the first bite.

Tender, plump har gow, or shrimp dumplings ($2.95) and siu mai, or pork dumplings ($2.75), also radiate a satisfying warmth. At Kirin, dim sum arrives hot and steaming directly from the kitchen without cooling off on carts. For a party of two, order no more than three choices at a time because nothing is worse than eating hot dim sum gone cold.

While dishes show up promptly once requested, getting the attention of the waiters at Kirin was challenging at times. Service seemed to ebb and flow like the tides. Sometimes the servers were too efficient, whisking away sauce dishes before we were finished dipping. On other occasions, waiters disappeared altogether for longer than a few minutes. This happened more than once, even though the dining room was almost full.

And it happened again at dinner. Initially, waiters descended upon our party repeatedly, anxiously trying to take our orders. Once we had made our selections, they practically vanished except when delivering plates.

Although we ordered several dishes, the waiter didn't write them down. Sure enough, we had to remind the waiter later about a forgotten entrÚe. We also had to repeat our request for rice, which finally arrived after we were halfway through our meal. Nor were our plates cleared; we had to ask for them to be taken away before dessert arrived.

Menus are a sought-after commodity at Kirin. They don't seem to have enough of them to accommodate all their patrons. We were forced to share menus on two separate visits. And before we had decided on our dinner orders, the maitre d' told us other guests needed the menus and then proceeded to take two of them away from our party of five.

The menus themselves are a little troubling. They offer English, Japanese and Chinese descriptions, but three set-price dinner menus are printed only in Japanese. And you may not receive exactly what is shown in the menu photo. An example is chilled mango pudding ($3.50) available on the dim sum menu. It is depicted with a scoop of ice cream and a sprig of cilantro. Only the pudding appeared, with about a tablespoon of evaporated milk drizzled on top, and to my relief, no cilantro.

The dining room is comfortable and elegantly sedate. Tall, carved wooden screens afford a bit of privacy by sectioning off the room. Crab, a house specialty at $17.60 a pound, shone on the dinner menu in an unusual preparation — baked with young Island coconut and dried scallions.

But all of these pluses were undermined by insufficient service.

Confucius said, "A fine horse is not praised for its strength; it is praised for its virtue." It is possible for diners to satisfy their Chinese-food cravings, especially for dim sum, in the attractive setting of Kirin at Ala Moana Center, but only if they aren't deterred by the inconsistent service.

Reach Helen Wu at hwu@honoluluadvertiser.com.