I love Chinatowns the world over. This one's no different. Great selection of fruits and veg, fresh meats and fish, and basic junk stores to buy anything and everything you don't need. Also a great place to eat from many different Asian cuisines. Lots of good bakeries too. Take a walk through Chinatown. It's fun and you'll likely find something of interest to eat and or buy to bring home. read more

THIS REVIEW IS FOR A NAMELESS CART IN CHINATOWN Best boba (aka bubble tea, pearl, tapioca) I have had in a loooong time. Better than the boba: FRESH pineapple slushie. My mouth is drooling right now... read more

This place can get super stinky!!! The fishy smells can get pretty intense in the heat. Theres no a/c in the stores. I like looking around the shops better than the markets. Parking can be difficult to find, and you can end up going round and round if you dont know where youre going. They have some neat things in the shops. They also a lot of different things in the markets, but its hard to know what stuff is unless you know exactly what youre looking at. read more

and interesting chinatown, definitely not what a typical (SF, NY, Vancouver) chinatown looks like. a hodgepodge of asian markets restaurants all packed within a few blocks radius. meat/vegetable stalls in various markets that you probably wont see anymore unless you're in asia. read more

You will need a whole day to discover all the hidden shops and restaurants in China town. Love the different restaurants and nick nacks you can buy here. Everything is so affordable and the restaurants are casual and food is out of this world read more

A wonderful place to buy fruits and vegetables that are locally grown on the island of Hawaii. I bought some extremely fresh locally grown papayas for 60 cents a pound. Strangely, Honolulu's Chinatown reminded of Vancouver's Chinatown in terms of its overall design and feel - minus the palm trees on the streets. read more

Chinatown - Local Flavor Near Me - Honolulu, Hawaii

I live in New York and I was totally disappointed when I visited this Chinatown. The stores were dilapidated and I question the sanitary conditions in some of the meat/fish/vegetable shops. The fresh fruit smoothies were very good and I did find decent dim sum here. Unlike the Chinatowns on the mainland, this one closes relatively early. Be careful walking around after dark because of the wandering crack addicts, drug dealers, and prostitutes. There was a police station nearby and I still felt uneasy. read more

Chinatown - Local Flavor Near Me - Honolulu, Hawaii

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My hood The only place that feels like home.. Also the market place is da bomb! Cheap vegetables and fruits.. I never go to the grocery stores.. read more

Most restaurant opens late morning 10:30/11:00am here. Take out type deal. Expensive fruits and were NOT good ;( read more

Old Ohau with the original buildings. Must try dim sum and check out fish market. Beautiful items to purchase as well. Especially if your in the Market for original Chinese antique s. read more

I love Honolulu's Chinatown, rats and all! Always like stepping back in time when you go there. Fresh, cheap vegetables and other Asian stuff. Also, you can wheel and deal on prices because there's so much competition. I got some papayas the size of footballs for a buck each! Also fresh chili peppers and other vegetables. Only thing is the parking. There's an underground parking structure nearby, which is reasonable, but street parking is hit and miss. I'll keep going back cause it's so worth it! read more

Don't waste your time here. This Chinatown is dirty, with trash and pigeons everywhere and homeless people living laying all over the sidewalks. Smells and looks dirty which makes it very difficult to want to eat anywhere near there and there is no feeling of safety. Nothing like a traditional Chinatown. read more

I love this Chinatown it has to be one of the most authentic I've been too. And I've been to a lot. This location makes me feel as though I've left Hawaii and made my way into Asia. This is a must come and I will definitely be coming back here read more

Authentic Chinese community. You hear Cantonese spoken everywhere. Also comes with the ethnic smells and feeling of your typical downtown old and hole to n the wall joints on old narrow streets. Cleanliness is questionable but not a bad stop over. Just not much to offer someone looking for something a little cleaned up. read more

So what? I admit I have rat phobia am not afraid of many thing, but not rat. I am afraid of them, but it won't stop me from eating at Chinatown. there are rats everywhere because they have good taste buds or else they would not want to eat at the same eatery I frequent to. I don't believe that rats like crappy restaurant. I say, let's follow the rat read more

I AM NEVER EVER GOING TO PAY SUPERMARKET PRICES FOR PRODUCE EVER AGAIN! Being brought up in Kalihi to Filipino parents means that I spent my share of my childhood being dragged around Chinatown with my mom and dad. Whether it was for chicharron, chicken feet, vegetables, fruits, or seafood I remember the smells and images of Chinatown...as I grew older I associated Chinatown with the homeless, the trendy and the business people. I forgot how to shop locally and cheaply and relied on produce from Safeway and Times. Shame on me. I'm starting to be more conscious of how to spend my money and also what types of veggies and fruits to stock in the house. The amount of money I am saving is tremendous. To put it in perspective I spent almost $25 at Times to recreate my favorite hot pot soup with veggies...enoki mushrooms, okra, bok choi, choi sum, tofu, cilantro, bean sprouts, kabocha pumpkin...add in bananas and strawberries for my weekly grocery needs and it isn't bank busting but it definitely eats at the monthly budget. Compare this to a recent Chinatown trip...I spent $10 for almost all the same ingredients sans strawberries. I couldn't believe it. I kick myself all the time thinking about the money I wasted. I love Chinatown. Not just for the produce, seafood, meat and baked goods but for the culture it's steeped in and the long ago memories of my childhood. read more

Chinatown is one of those places that you need a local to guide you around. There are certain places that are seriously awesome and have amazing restaurants, bars and clothing stores. Chinatown is one of those historical places thats amazing to take pictures of and also just experience a different culture. But there are places that are just not safe to go in. While your there just be safe where you go and you will be able to experience the best chinatown has to offer. read more

Went here because I heard about it. Don't waist the time. It sucks . People here are jerks they follow u around , like ur going to steel something. And the place is so ghetto I actually saw a women pooping on the side of the road beside a car . I had my daughters with me . Sick nasty place. read more

The real Chinatown is Maunakea and Hotel and King. The parts of "Chinatown" closer to downtown financial district is slowly becoming "haolified" or "gentrified". I like the real Chinatown for their very low prices on fruits and produce. I like to shop on Sundays where street metered parking is free. I don't like how the city allows to homeless to loiter there making Chinatown ghetto. The dirtiness, seediness of Chinatown relates to the homeless which is a City issue. Once you compare prices of fruits and veggies to your big store chains, you realize the big store chains are taking advantage of you. There are several municipal parking lots where you can park cheap during the week. read more

Horrifying. I read the other reviews about the gnarly homeless population and thought "How bad could it be?". OMG. You could not walk down one sidewalk without encountering a minimum of 2 homeless people, not to mention the encampments. It was shocking and sad. So with that in the background, we were extremely deterred from buying any food this afternoon. The usual exotic smells of a Chinatown became disconcerting and confusing. We went into one beautiful store called Guan Hua Co, Inc which was full of jaw-dropping antiques worth hundreds of dollars. I asked the shop keeper where was good to eat and he paused and looked at me. I named a place rated high on Yelp and he said "Oh yeah, that's good". We left without eating anywhere. I feel like he didn't want to recommend anywhere close. What a shame. Maybe the Chinatown Business Bureau will realize tourists and their money are avoiding their businesses and get their act together. read more

First, prepare yourself to spend a flat fee of $20 on parking on a Friday evening. I'm serious as a heart attack. We were in the area no longer than 30-40 minutes, tops! Luckily as we were arriving someone else was pulling out and gave us their ticket! So, of course, we paid it forward to the next person who pulled in as we're leaving. As far as the shops, not what I expected...I've been to Chinatowns in San Francisco and London and there are all kinds of specialty shops you can purchase Asian items to send home to friends, or one of a kind items you can collect for yourself. Um, no not here. Mostly restaurants and a few quicky mart type stores (think 7-11). I looked up one place that said it was suppose to be a department store, Lai Fong, but it was a smelly, over-crowded antique shop. We walked in, the person working there was talking to a couple at the counter and we couldn't get past them to look any further. We waited about 7-10 minutes and no one moved, so we left. We walked around several blocks, because there was suppose to be an art walk on this particular evening. We saw one gallery with about 10 paintings, including more than half of those being the paint pallets that were used for painting, not all art, really trying to make a buck on used pallets really?...hmmm. The one person there was helping one customer while customers came and went with no acknowlegsement. Seemed there were food market areas that closed much earlier. Some areas seemed pretty shady with homeless people setting up camp in many doorways. We walked down a street that advertised nude dancers, please don't take you young children here...they will ask, or at minimum, stare. I have nothing good to say about this place. Just a bunch of run down shops in what looked like a shady part of town. I don't think my expectations were too high to visit a decent Chinatown In the middle of the Pacific. Also, never even saw the advertised Art Walk. read more

Was less than impressed. This is shop after shop of the same mom and pop grocery store. We went there because we read about it in both the Sunset Magazine and our Oahu guide books. We were there less than an hour. Certainly not what they made it out to be. read more

The majority of the shops closes around 4 p.m. ish. Its pretty dirty, not really worth visiting.

There are so many options! I do like the one fish market tucked behind one of the main markets. It was our first time in chinatown so we walked around to all the stalls. You quickly learn some places are cheaper than others. The hard part is going to be remembering which stalls or market has the best price and fresh product. I'm sure it'll take us a few trips to learn it all. It was a fun experience and we bought a few things: ahi tuna, coconut buns, rambutans, and longons. There were surprisingly quite a few Vietnamese markets. There's hope...I can cook pho! Although there were a lot of pho restaurants in the area we will have to check out. I'm just happy there's a chinatown! read more

aside from the homeless pee smelling streets China town is the go to for Asian grocery shopping and cheap no tax items. Parking can be a challenge but there are ample parking garages and street parking though is hard. You'll find authentic places selling herbs, produce homemade look fun noodles etc. And THere Are Many pho And dim Sum Places Pretty Much It's What Your IN The Mood for... read more

Place is so gross and dirty. No pride in the area and the buildings are all falling apart. The couple good places to eat there are ridden with roaches. Homeless everywhere. Like others said its not on par with other Chinatown's. We tried to give this place many chances from their restaurants, shops to markets and its just disgusting. read more

$1.50 for metered parking for hour limit meters. Chinatown is small. There are distinctive old buildings but you are left to just wander up and down the streets. No real tourist spots. Yelped for food places to check out. Not like Chinatown in Sf or Ny. Even Chicago and LA have a gate to take a pic with. Bought a dragon fruit for $2.99/lb. Wasn't sweet. Guess it's an okay place to just walk and say you've been. read more

I love walking around Chinatown with all the different markets and food vendors. There's all kinds of crazy things.

Great morning mix of vendors selling basically the same things. You just gotta shop around to find the best deals since thankfully they don't price the same. read more

This market has a very strong smell of pourtry which kinda gross, avoid the area where they sell fish and chicken then everything is good. I love the food court. It is not too clean but it does provide pretty decent food. Sitting in this food court made me feel like I am not in the US which is the fun part of it :) If you happen to be in Oahu, give this place a try. It is pretty easy to take TheBus from Waikiki to here (bus #2, B, and 13) read more

Love it...it has evolved some (for the better) since hana bata days. You can find all kinds of ethnic foods here! Celebrations are great here too. Check the local calendar for events through out the year. read more

It was Sunday when I went and most shops were not open. The streets had trash piles on the sidewalks and stunk when you walked by them. There are a lot of homeless around the area lounging on the sidewalks. I tried to give one guy an orange but, he refused it and did not get hassled for food or money. The pavilion was open and I felt a really good Boba tea and it was not very expensive at all. In one of the pavilion shops was a large store selling all kinds of trinkets from China. They had beads, Crystal's, tea pots, Buddahs and lots more fun stuff to look at. I ended up with a hand crocheted hula girl doll for my daughter. It's not something I've seen on every tourist souvenirs cart ever before. Thus store was very inexpensive. I did not get to try any food at the restaurants though but, they had a mom and pop food court type place with different stalls selling Filipino, Korean and Chinese plate lunches. read more

pros... great place to buy your lei's. restaurants are good and plentiful as well. and when you park in the parking garage, and you are driving a scooter, you can park for free. that's right for free. at least that is what happened to us when we went. cons... this chinatown is not very chinese, the place is clean, and the shops aren't open very late, and you won't find too many bargains here. but search and you will find stuff that only chinatowns have. read more

Don't really like it here. I'm afraid to buy any food items because there's been complaints about rats and other sanitary issues. I sometimes go here to watch the lion dances during Chinese New Year and that's always interesting. However, there's some sketchy people in the area that could ruin the experience. read more

Kung Hee Fat Choy! always good variety of food!

I had a difficult time locating it until I randomly found Chinatown Municipal Parking. Once parked, I walked around which hardly had any stores. Streets doesn't look busy. It was a sad looking Chinatown. read more

Maybe I am bias because I've lived in San Francisco my whole life and only really experienced the Chinatown there. The Chinatown here is a bit deserted with many flower shops, restaurants and grocery stores. The streets are dirty and not a lot of people stroll around here. It's mainly the locals around here. read more

Visiting from California. Was surprised to see how empty Chinatown was. Shops and restaurants looked sad and struggling. The dim sum place we ate at was pretty good and super cheap. read more

The vendors in Chinatown are sweet. All Chinatowns no matter the area are always going to smell funny. We were a little sad we didn't get to spend much time here as it was just a quick stop prior to our flight. The few shops that we visited were cute. But the bathrooms... don't do it. SO GROSS. Honestly, just avoid all Chinatown bathrooms. They are always disgusting. read more

Thought it would be nice to grab dinner in Chinatown during our vacation in Waikiki. As we did not have a car, we took The Bus as it was only a 25 minute ride. As soon as we hit that part of town, around dusk, I could tell that it was not where I wanted to bring my wife and 10 year old son. Lots of empty storefronts and no people...I've been in nyc and sf Chinatown and this was nothing like it. We literally got off the bus, went into a restaurant (which if it was anywhere else we might have stayed but they had nothing for a kid) and left. Walked out into a dark street in a gritty part of town and were lucky to catch the bus back within 2 minutes. May be totally different during the day, but at night watch out. read more