The Green Door Cafe

It’s Sunday night and normally I’d be watching football. Instead, I was prowling Honolulu’s Chinatown for a place to eat.
But since I’m in Hawaii and Hawaii is two hours behind California, which is three hours behind New York, watching football becomes an early morning thing. Which means that if you can get up early to watch the games, you still have the rest of the day to do stuff.
Generally, the early Sunday game begins at 1300 EST. That translates to 1000 in San Francisco, which means 0800 in Hawaii. The afternoon game begins at 1100 in Hawaii. And Sunday “night” football during the regular season begins at 1500 here. That means if the game ends on time, it’s 1900 here and you can actually do stuff afterwards. Back in SFO, the late game ends around 2100 which means it’s time to clean up and to pack it in for the evening.
Tonight, I had dinner at the Green Door Cafe. It’s a very small restaurant with four tables and one chef/waitperson. I walked by this place and smelled the mix of spices and food wafting out the door and ducked inside to take a look.

The menu changes each day, depending on what’s available to cook and the owner’s mood
Inside, there was a redhead in a red dress who was waiting for a table and her two roommates for dinner. During the ten minutes she was waiting , she wound up with two more dining companions; a friend who saw her standing on the street as he was driving by and myself, for a total of five.
We ordered a LOT of food and devoured it. The Green Door Cafe specializes in Nonya cuisine (hailing from Malaysia and Singapore, primarily) which was not too spicy but with a lot of zing and punch to it. Yum!
There was roti canai, sticky rice, Nonya pork loin, Tai Tom Sum shrimp soup, Malaysian Chicken Curry, mixed veggie curry and fried tofu with bean sprouts on our table. Also two bottles of wine since it’s BYOB and no corkage here! WAAAAAH!

Fantastic food (often referred to as Chinatown’s best restaurant) and the smells and tastes here made miss Singapore (and a certain individual) that much more. Eat! But eat early, they close at 2000 and last orders are taken at 1930…
The Green Door Cafe
1145 Maunakea St.
Honolulu HI 96817
(808) 533-0606