Located in downtown Honolulu, Little Village Noodle House is not exactly a secret (it’s been around for over 20 years and reviewed many times, including several times on Yelp). It’s been around for quite awhile for good reason: it has some real appeal.
First off, it has its own no charge parking lot! It’s not huge, but in downtown Honolulu, this is a gargantuan advantage. We showed up on a Friday evening at about 5 pm and were seated very quickly, but when we left about an hour and a half later, there was a line eight patrons deep, so I would suggest arriving early for dinner.
Long time friends of mine would be shocked to read me reviewing a Chinese restaurant as I am well known to not care for that particular cuisine (as an aside, while I can’t really know how this is, I suspect being local to Hawai’i and saying, “I don’t like Chinese food,” is similar to coming out of the closet. Once when I said this, a friend of mine said, “That can’t be. Local guy like you?”). However, given that my dining partner is vegetarian and the location was convenient, I went for it.
Little Village bills itself as health oriented; their current menu is MSG free, although the actual physical menus were printed when MSG free was “on request”; the “on request” part is now covered up with stick on labels. The food menu is online as well, at their Web site; we had a variety of dishes–their menu definitely does not lack variety–mostly vegetarian but also including minute chicken. The servings were large enough that there were enough leftovers for the two of us to go home with a meal for the next day. Total damage to the pocketbook was approximately $30.
The restaurant (and restrooms) are more than decently clean, the food is varied and reasonably priced, the parking is available and free, the service is decent, and they take credit cards. They are, however, quite busy and a bit noisy (not overly so).
I’d recommend it if you want somewhere to eat downtown, and moreso if one of you is vegetarian.
Little Village Noodle House
1113 Smith Street
Honolulu, HI 96817
Phone: (808) 545-3008, fax: (808) 545-3738
I haven’t been to a Chinese restaurant in quite some time. Thanks for the review, Ryan! I think I’ll stop by — especially since they’re “healthy,” too! (Usually you don’t equate “healthy” with “Chinese food.”) Love it that they’re MSG-Free!