Finding the Chinatown Cultural Plaza would have been easy with a map, but finding the restaurant inside it required some studying of a directory on the wall and a bit of wandering around the maze-like hallways. Walking into the Chinatown Cultural Plaza was like stumbling through a gateway to another country. The central courtyard was lined with tiny shops hawking everything from souvenirs to acupuncture. Inside we found a shrine to the goddess Kuan Yin, bedecked with candles and offerings of fruit. A wizened old man glared at us from a shady bench, clearly disapproving of the two "non-believers" at the shrine. But I digress ...

The hostess seemed bemused by her sweaty "mainlander" guests. I say "mainlander" because I still can't quite shake that persistently foreign feeling that Honolulu has to it, which was accentuated by our sudden detour into China. A Buddhist vegetarian restaurant is a find in any country or state and even more surprising in Honolulu. It is an interesting evolution in Chinese cooking, created by Buddhist monks whose religion required that they abstain from temptations like meat. They got around this particular brand of abstention by honing their craft at creating ever-better mock meats and fishes made from tofu, wheat gluten, and other mystery ingredients.

Even at 2pm, the restaurant was half full of people chatting in Chinese and English over plates of dim sum. Our usual dim sum strategy is to check out what other people are eating and then ask if they contain meat. Not necessary here: everything is vegan and everything is delicious. We got to ogle the carts to our hearts' content, picking out stuffed bundles of rice, mushrooms, and mock ham wrapped in lotus leaves, delicate sui mai dumplings, and pot stickers filled with crunchy veggies. One was tastier than the next! We took our flavorful Singapore Style Mai Fun to go - if our hotel had a microwave I would have ordered extra dim sum to go, to heat up later. Instead we had to settle for going back another day for a second lunch. Be forewarned, though, they're closed on Wednesdays. Send me a message if you'd like their recipe for Vegetarian Ham rolls.

Chinatown is off the beaten path, so unless you're a vegetarian or have plenty of time to spend exploring Honolulu, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. Chinatown is a fun place to visit though. Many of the buildings date from 1900-1920 and some of the shops don't seem to have changed a bit since then. It's also a great area to find inexpensive restaurants of all Asian persuasions.