Golden Eagle Chinese Restaurant

Golden Eagle Chinese Restaurant is one of those hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurants that at first glance you might avoid. You make excuses on why you haven't eaten there, "Oh, I don't know if it's open or not it's hard to tell..." or "It's the location. Maybe if it wasn't located in [insert rough neighborhood here. My personal favorite is China Town] I wouldn't mind eating there."

My initial excuse was that Golden Eagle Chinese Restaurant has large (and I mean LARGE) posters all over the exterior (and interior) of their restaurant advertising special dishes. Now these posters weren't colorful and displaying pictures of dishes. These posters were black and white large-font print. However interesting pepper-salt frog legs may sound to me I would much rather view a specials menu than gaze around the room looking at the additions to their menu.

Golden Eagle has a number of interesting items on their menu (this much I knew without taking a glance at the actual menu). "Wallpaper Specials" as I will refer to them in the future included pepper-salt frog legs (which I hear are delicious), pepper-salt quail, honey-shrimp with walnuts, shark fin soup, pork belly with taro and so on and so forth (yes I wasn't exaggerating as to the number of these papers lining the restaurant). While I didn't try any of these specials except the honey-shrimp with walnuts, I did get to try their house special for two.

The house special for two ($29.99) included egg-drop soup, chicken with house sauce, honey-shrimp with walnuts and crispy gau-gee mein. My friend and I also ordered beef-broccoli with cake noodle to top it off.

The waitress was friendly and it seemed that she was the only one running the front of the house operations at Golden Eagle. She brought us water and tea and took our order. I noticed that the tea was slightly sweet and not the usual tea that you would find at a Chinese restaurant. But I wasn't in much of a tea-drinking mood that day so I didn't mind too much.

The waitress reappeared with our egg-drop soup and served both of us a bowl-full. There was enough left over for maybe two more bowls so the portions were quite generous. The soup was your standard American-influenced egg-drop. I noticed that the carrots and peas that were added into the soup tasted frozen (maybe canned?) but definitely were not fresh-cut.

By the time I was about halfway done with my soup more dishes arrived. First up was the rice followed by the chicken in house sauce. The chicken was stir-fried with bell peppers and onions and covered in what looked to be a blazing-hot chili pepper sauce at first glance. However after diving into the platter of chicken I found it to be mildly spicy and quite tasty.

Next up was the crispy gau-gee mein and the beef-broccoli with cake noodles. Two very standard dishes that you see in most Americanized Chinese restaurants. The reason why these two dishes were ordered were of course for comparison between other Chinese restaurants around the island. After digging into both I came to the conclusion that they were your average crispy gau-gee mein and beef-broccoli with cake noodles with one exception -- the sauce was a bit too sweet.

Last to arrive was the honey-shrimp with walnuts. If you have read my previous Chinese restaurant reviews, you know that this is perhaps one of my favorite dishes to order. When the dish arrived I started with a walnut. It was good. Crunchy and slightly glazed as it should be. I then took a bite of shrimp. The mayonnaise sauce was a bit too sweet yet it was also lacking flavor (not enough salt or MSG. Not to say that they use MSG here of course). The shrimp also tasted a bit undercooked and slimy underneath the batter. I'm not sure what to make of their honey-shrimp with walnuts. Perhaps I'll have to give it another go.

Overall, the meal was decent and the service was great. Who can complain about a lunch like that? Well, I guess I could but hey, I'm sometimes overly critical (and obsessive) when it comes to honey-shrimp with walnuts.

NOTE: About MSG in your Chinese food...it isn't the bubonic plague. I for one don't mind MSG in my food. Please check out the website below for more information on MSG.
For More Information Click Here

Golden Eagle Chinese Restaurant
Rating System: 1-2.5-5 (poor-average-excellent)

Service: 4.25
Food Quality: 2.25
Monetary Value: 1.75
Quality vs Quantity: Tie
Overall: 2.75

2334 South King St. (The structure is located along South King however it is facing Young St.)
Honolulu, HI 96826
808-955-5080