According to the Chinese Restaurant News there are more than 36,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S.. To give you some perspective, that is more than the number of McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger Kings combined. So how did Lahaina end up without a single good Chinese restaurant over the past 5 or 6 years? Well, worry no more, with Zuihao’s arrival in late June, Lahaina has added a wonderful source for Chinese cuisine to the massive list of Lahaina restaurants.
    With the waves up a little yesterday, we decided to postpone our usual Thursday beach outing and eat an early meal in Lahaina instead. Ever since they put up the coming soon signs we have been talking about trying the new Chinese restaurant coming to Lahaina. Some how it took us a month after they opened to try it, but now I’m sure we will be back again soon.
    Entering Zuihao, I immediately noticed the comfortable modern dining room with thick chocolate woods and Chinese themed statues and thought, “this is going to be a little more expensive than I expected”. We chose to be seated outside on the patio on Front Street with a beautiful view out to the ocean and were pleasantly surprised at the prices when we received our menus. The appetizers ranged from $7 to $10 and the entrees were between $9 and $22 dollars, quite affordable by Lahaina standards. True to Chinese form, the menu offered tons of choices including meats, poultry, vegetables and noodle dishes.
    Our server Damien, was very friendly and helpful, and very well versed on the menu items. After some discussion we decided to start off with the red sauce wontons, calamari and Natalie decided to try something called a “Confucious Kool Aid”. The wontons were excellent, stuffed with pork and shrimp, cooked not too stiff and not too limp with a spicy red sauce complemented by scallions and cilantro. We also sampled the calamari, which was lightly breaded and fried with a thai basil coulis garnish and served with a sweet hot red chili sauce. The calamari was pleasantly tender, and the sauce served with it could be poured over old shoes and you would swear you’d try them again. The Confucious Kool Aid was well, honestly I don’t remember what all was in it, but it was very tasty and was served with a little Chinese lantern hanging from a large slice of pineapple.
    For dinner, Damien brought us the Zuihao Sweet and Spicy Shrimp, which appeared to have a light batter and were served with a tangy and lightly spicy sauce. The prawns were cooked to perfection and the sauce was not overbearing to their taste, which was very nice. The Hunan beef was medium spicy and served so that there was very little sauce on the plate with most of the sauce sticking to the beef. The servings of both dishes were generous, more than we could finish and everything was really great. If we had any complaints, it was that we would have liked to have ordered some sort of vegetables to go with the hunan beef, but hey we know that now.
    A little too stuffed for dessert, we didn’t get to try any of the desserts. We were looking at the chocolate torte (something too many Chinese restaurants lack is a little chocolate) and the lychee creme brulee in an almond cookie shell and vowed that we will try them next time. Craig Cohen the Director of Operations is a great guy and is super excited about Zuihao’s future. For any locals reading this, Craig said that on Sundays and Mondays from 5 to 6 they are offering a 50% off Kama’aina special and for any visitors, enjoy a 25% early bird discount on any meal any day between 5 and 6 PM.
Zuihao Chinese Cuisine
900 Front St
(808)667-9020