Had dinner at “Joyful Garden” Chinese restaurant near Kozo Sushi in Kaneohe this weekend. Supposedly they also have a downtown location. The atmosphere is more upscale here than the more familiar “take-out”/family dinner Chinese restaurants here. It was very clean and bright inside, and they had a big Philips LCD TV to watch the end of the “Big Game” on. Cloth napkins – I think that sums it up well. The waiters had black slacks, white shirts and black vests!
Their hot/sour soup (A) was good. The tofu was cut into tiny pieces like shoestring potatoes, and there was a good sesame oil taste and smell. Their pork with bittermelon (B+) was nicely prepared with slightly fattier pork than I usually see (this is a good thing!), and the bittermelon was cut into lengthwise strips rather than half-circles. This may have moderated the bitterness by exposing fewer of the vascular cells where that particular taste resides. It did seem a little on the sweet side though. Their gon lo mein (B) was fine, but that’s pretty hard to screw up. The best part was their minced shrimp tofu on spinach garden (A+) which was a February special. I thought it would be steamed stuffed tofu, but instead, it was deep fried balls of minced shrimp and strained soft tofu, served over a bed of cooked spinach and covered in a rich translucent brown sauce. It was simply wonderful. There was also jai (?), but I didn’t have any.
Go get some of that shrimp/tofu stuff before the end of February!
Four out of four grinning monkeys
Around $60 USD for a family of 4
I’ve been there before too, and found everything to be quite tasty. They do Dim Sum for lunch, that is also wonderful!