Sunday Dinner Week #21: Sunday Dinner in Honolulu

Little Village Noodle House

1113 Smith Street

Honolulu, HI (Chinatown)

In 1974, the owners of Little Village Noodle House, Kenneth and Jennifer Chan arrived from China with a suitcase and $100 to their name. Theirs is the typical immigrant story of hard work and determination leading to success. The interesting thing about their story is that their hard work led to a small restaurant, then a larger one, then an even larger restaurant, until Mrs. Chan decided to go smaller and open an upscale restaurant in the middle of Chinatown. In 2001, they opened Little Village Noodle house to rave reviews.

My friend Rod introduced me to this quaint little restaurant when we were in Honolulu on business, so  I couldn't wait to bring my family. This place is right up our culinary alley, so when my middle son had a cheerleading competition in Honolulu. . .Sunday is Chinese!

Atmosphere: It's Chinatown, but much cleaner, and with parking on the side. Once inside, it's cozy and always on the brink of being crowded. Look around and see what other people are eating.

Service: Excellent

Food: We tried the duck with taro (pictured above) - It's crispy, not oily on the outside and the duck is cushioned by Chinese taro mash. The house fried rice is tasty, and we are very familiar with good and bad fried rice. This one is chock full of flavor bursts, and again, it's not greasy or over seasoned. We also had the green onion pancakes for appetizer and Chinese spinach with oyster sauce.

We overate, as usual, but if we had it to do over again, I want to order the taro basket. We also need to order two orders of fried rice.