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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, March 4, 2005

Singapore flavors reward diners at Green Door

By Helen Wu
Advertiser Restaurant Critic

Chef Betty Pang, right, chats with diners Rahul, left, and Rachna Zaveri at the Green Door Café, where fresh food and spices prevail.

Photos by Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

Green Door Café

1145 Maunakea St., enter on N. Pauahi Street (makai) between Maunakea and Smith streets

533-0606

Lunch: Tuesdays-Sundays, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

Dinner: Tuesdays-Sundays, 5:30-8 p.m.

Cash only

BYOB (no corkage fee)

Street parking; pay lot at Smith and N. Pauahi streets

Tiny Green Door Café sits like a jewel in the rough of Chinatown. Except for bright red lanterns hanging outside, its pale green facade blends into the block. You could easily miss it walking by. But if by chance the door is ajar, smells wafting from its kitchen will probably make you stop.

What lies behind the doorway is a very small Malaysian-Singaporean eatery — just four tables and takeout.

An almost reverent, mysterious silence strikes as you pass through the Green Door. Ambiguous music plays softly in the background. Occasionally you hear a short exchange, a few sentences drifting in from the kitchen. Otherwise, the sounds are an occasional roaring flare from the wok or the sizzle of ingredients being thrown into a hot pan.

Malaysian-Singaporean food is rare in Honolulu, despite our large Southeast Asian population. Green Door Café offers access to this cuisine, which is gaining ground elsewhere as an alternative to Thai and Vietnamese food. In fact, Laksa, a Malaysian spicy noodle-soup dish, appeared on foodie favorite Saveur magazine's annual top 100 list this year.

Malaysian-Singaporean cuisine can only be described as complex. Before 1400 and the rise of the port city of Melaka, what is now Malaysia was a center of trade. The area was favorably located on the trade route between China, India and Africa. It provided a safer passage for ships during monsoon season and some protection against marauding pirates whose descendants still operate today. Malaysia was a melting pot of indigenous, aboriginal Orang Asli groups and Malays with influxes of Indian, Chinese, Arab, Indonesian, Thai and later Portuguese, Dutch and British settlers and merchants.

Instead of too many cooks spoiling the pot, what you get in Malaysian-Singaporean cuisine is an explosion of tastes and styles. An abundance of readily available spices and herbs season the food, in combination with other local ingredients. Complex curries, rich coconut milk and pungent fish sauce and shrimp pastes all have a place in this cooking, as do pandanus leaf, wild ginger buds and turmeric root.

Owner-chef Betty Pang presides as benevolent queen over the Green Door Café. She features traditional Nonya-style (or Nyonya) cooking. Nonya was the name given to female children born to Chinese men who settled in the region and wed Malay women — the name refers to the homey cooking of these combined Chinese and Malay households. The cuisine is a hybridization of Chinese components such as soy sauce, tofu and rice noodles with Southeast Asian elements such as fiery sambals (chili pastes), sweet palm sugar and tart tamarind. Laksa, the noodle soup, is a famous example.

Pang's short menu is hand-written on a wipe-off board with a few items posted on pieces of paper. She changes the list according to her whims and what is seasonal and easily obtained a few steps away in the heart of Chinatown. Varied cultural impacts appear in the assortment of affordable dishes offered: southern Chinese Chiu Chow shrimp omelette ($5.75), Melaka or Malacca-style crispy tofu with eggplant in satay sauce ($7.75) and roti canai or chennai ($1.50), an Indian flat bread.

The mystery of the quiet pervading Green Door was solved as MSG-free dishes began arriving at the table I shared with my friends: People are eating.

Everything is served pre-packed in to-go containers. This comes in handy for leftovers, since portions are big, family-sized helpings. Food landed in front of us at just the right heat not to burn our tongues, temperature- or spice-wise.

As we began sampling, we fell into the same hushed reverie as seems to strike everyone else who enters the Green Door. The food mesmerized us with its overwhelming freshness and powerful seasonings. It was a delicious amalgam of some of the best aspects of the different cultures that went into it.

The tiny Green Door Café offers a delicious menu of spicy dishes, blending cuisines of China, India and Africa in family-size portions.
I highly recommend the Green Door's spicy, red chili jumbo shrimp ($8.50). Request them whole, with heads on, so as to to better enjoy sucking up the flavorful sauce. Singaporean Nonya-style pork loin ($6.75) is another must. Described as "tender and moist," it was even more so than what we imagined. "Healthy soup ($6.75)," a Malay-style chicken soup — made with medicinal ingredients of sun-dried dates, dried longan, ginger and wine — is an intriguing, herby concoction.

We hardly uttered a sound while eating the two delicate fish dishes here: pan-fried crispy pomfret ($8.50) and Nonya-style stir-fried sea bass with vegetables ($9.50). The pomfret barely needed a fresh lime squirt. After finishing the sea bass, it was a pity to throw away its lovely sauce perfumed with kaffir lime leaves and galangal.

As for laksa, Pang sometimes makes a homemade version instead of using the more common laksa bouillon. She is a stickler for fresh and authentic ingredients. Only real curry leaves go into her deep-fried samosas served with fresh pineapple-cucumber-yogurt chutney. If she can't find an ingredient, she won't make the dish. She also thoughtfully considers vegetarians in constructing her menu. Pang explained that she understands vegetarians need variety and don't want to eat the same dishes on every visit.

Betty Pang offers a splendid spice journey that amply rewards those in search of exposure to new flavors.

Reach Helen Wu at hwu@honoluluadvertiser.com.