Tasty and Meatless | Restaurant Features

The newly renamed Kirin restaurant at Ala Moana Center is quickly becoming the spot for small groups favoring meatless Chinese cuisine. The serene and comfortable Kirin, which is located at street level between the GNC and ABC stores, opened last September as Hei Chin Rou. In December, that name was dropped and Kirin was adopted, a move that more closely identifies this establishment with its two sister restaurants in Honolulu. The official stance on its vegetarian offerings goes something like, “We aren’t a vegetarian restaurant. We don’t really cater to vegetarians, but we can do vegetarian.” This is a good thing, and with the latest official polls showing that 57% of the U.S. population orders meatless at least some of the time, it is also a smart thing. The force behind this flexibility is Kirin’s chef, Shen King Kan, who came from Legend—the palace of dim sum in Chinatown.

While the chef requires twenty-four hour notice to honor special group requests, the rest of us can enjoy a delicious and meatless lunch, dinner or tea break with convenience and excellent service. The largest selection of meatless options is found among the dim sum, served daily from 10:30 am until 5:00 pm. Instead of selecting from a cart, diners are offered a colorful picture menu and pencil and paper on which to mark their choices. Several soups listed on the dinner menu can also be ordered vegetarian during “dim sum hours.”

Regular readers of the Tasty and Meatless GOODnews may recall my fondness for beginning my meals with soup. I was fortunate, at Kirin, to indulge in two radically different but equally satisfying varieties. The Minced Chicken and Cream Corn Soup ($9.50 to serve four, individual bowls available), made veggie style without the chicken, is beautifully translucent, comforting, and sweet with the taste of fresh corn. The Hot and Sour Soup ($8.95 to serve four, individual bowls available) is thick and amber brown, every bite dense with wood ear mushrooms, flower mushrooms—a more tender variety of black mushroom—bits of tofu, and bamboo shoots. On the tongue, the tastes progress from savory to sour to spicy hot to snappy with the occasional hit of ginger. This is not a passive soup, and your taste buds will appreciate the action.

Four always meatless dim sum are available, each different enough to satisfy a variety of tastes and appetites. The Seared Bean Curd Rolls with Vegetables ($2.95) are pan-fried packets of bean curd sheets (the Japanese Yuba) stuffed with chewy shiitake mushrooms, carrots, and bamboo shoots. These crisp credit card-sized treats satisfy a taste for fried food without the unhealthy drip of oil. For a more bread-like snack, try the Crispy Green Onion Patty ($2.95), a plate-sized “pancake” redolent with fresh green onion flavor. The Steamed Vegetarian Dumplings ($3.50) are served in a bamboo steamer with a side of shoyu-vinegar-ginger dipping sauce. Filled predominantly with tiny bits of shaved broccoli, these six little purses also contain small amounts of tofu, mushroom, and long rice. The dumplings are best eaten immediately while they are still steaming and meltingly cheesy. For a fresh palate cleanser to accompany any of the other dim sum, order the Chinese Style Pickled Cucumber ($2.25). The Japanese cucumbers are pickled in rice wine vinegar and salt and combined with sliced garlic clove and zippy red Chinese chili pepper. The melding of flavors is fresh and cooling and not at all vinegary, but if palate cleansing is your intention, avoid the raw garlic. (I’m told the garlic wrapped in a bite of the Crispy Green Onion Patty is a heavenly combo.)

For those wishing to dine at Kirin at Ala Moana after 5:00 pm, there are a few good possibilities always available, but a twenty-four hour call ahead will expand the selection considerably. The Veggie Fish, a satisfying combination of protein and greens and a specialty of the chef, is available at lunch or dinner. Made with bean curd sheets and nori, lightly breaded and fried, this “fish” is served in thick slices arranged on a platter, surrounded with bok choy, and topped with a brown mushroom sauce.

Kirin is opened daily from 10:30 am until 10:00 pm. Take out orders are welcome. For large groups and special requests, call 946-1888.