The menu, which is part of MoCA's "Have You Eaten Yet?" exhibit that will will run through Jun. 30, is undated. However, a few prices listed on the menu — including a filet mignon for $1 — hints that it's circa 1930s.

"P.Y. Chong (the restaurant's original owner) always believed in provding the best," said Leighton Mau, Lau Yee Chai's president and CEO, and whose father Bill Mau took over the original restaurant back in 1948. "He put dishes on the menu that you just couldn't find at any other Chinese restaurant."

The Maus upheld Chong's tradition of excellence, with a few exceptions. The beef is now "sizzling" and no longer charcoal-broiled. And it costs 10 times more than the original $1.

"We've got a long history here," Mau said. "My dad always had a vision for this place even when he moved it to the Waikiki Business Plaza and re-named it the Plaza Room. But, he did that so he could keep the chefs."

Twelve years later and construction complete for the new multi-level Waikiki Shopping Plaza, it was time to re-open Lau Yee Chai.

"Every floor in the building has 15-foot ceilings," Mau said. "But only the fifth floor has 20-foot ceilings."

Pointing to a larger-than-life painting, Mau said that this "monumental landscape" piece of art was the reason.

"My dad built the entire fifth floor and the room around that painting by Bick Kai Ho," he said. "And all the hand-carved, fable panels were also carefully re-assembled so that the stories they tell follow a specific timeline."

As one of the only — if not the only — person at the restaurant who can read and translate each panel, Lau Yee Chai's general manager Sammy Li described how the artist for one of these panels wrote about food and seasonings, and the search for them across mountains, from east to west.

"I hope he found what he was looking for," the good-humored Li said. "I guess they didn't have grocery stores back then."

Translating to "House of Abundance," Lau Yee Chai will feature a $280 banquet menu for 10 in honor of the new year.

Served family-style, the nine-course feast starts with a mound of baby spinach salad that's simply garnished with tomato wedges then surrounded by thinly-sliced, delicate pieces of duck.

Next to appear on the table's lazy Susan is a large ceramic bowl of three-treasure stewed abalone soup, followed by steamed Dungeness crab and a platter filled with slices of sauteed filet of beef mixed with slivers of bell peppers.

Two of chef Leung Cheng's specialty dishes are also included: the sweet Kahuku shrimp seasoned with rock salt and pepper, and the smoked-Chrysanthemum chicken.

"It's dry-cooked for hours," said Li of the Chrysanthemum chicken. "It's surrounded by uncooked rice, which, once it starts burning, gives the chicken its smoky flavor."

Two other dishes include the jai or "Monk's food," which is deemed as a good luck dish made with noodles, mushrooms and assorted vegetables, and "Diamond" fried rice topped with chef Cheng's Chinese-style gravy.

Guests will also be served a choice of either peach-colored "longevity" sao bao (red-bean-filled manapua) or the "lisee" (the traditional lucky money red envelopes presented on special occasions) soup, which is believed to bring 100 years of prosperity.