Marian’s Recommended List of Restaurants in Haikou
Very Cheap Restaurants
Chinese Name: 新重庆饭店
English Name: New Chongqing Restaurant
Chinese Address: 人民东里
English Address: West side of Renmin E. Alley about 30 meters south from Haidian 3rd Road
I recommend this place for a couple of reasons:
1. It’s very very close to the Banana Youth Hostel.
2. It’s very very very cheap.
3. Despite looking like the standard grungy-hole-in-the-wall type restaurant from the outside (and a little bit like a grungy-hole-in-the-wall type restaurant from the inside) the owner’s have decent sanitary food handling skills and are excellent cooks. No matter what the price point is, if the restaurant has spent a little bit extra to have quality rice, you know you aren’t going to get gutter oil or day old meat.
Chinese Name: 东北餐馆
English Name: Dongbei Restaurant
Chinese Address: 拦海村/南洋小街
English Address: North side of Nanyang Alley Lanhai Village about 50 meters west of Renmin Road (near Hainan University East Gate)
It’s one of those restaurants that cluster near the entrances of universities everywhere in China (/the world). On a short stretch of road with multiple cheap places cheek by jowl, this is the only one that’s almost always full. It’s been there with the same owners and cook at least since 2005 (when I was student). No picture menu. No English menu. Prices so cheap that it doesn’t really matter. Last month, five of us stuffed ourselves for a total of 100 yuan.
Merely Cheap Restaurants
Chinese Name: 广福隆混沌
English Name: Guangfulong Wontons
Chinese Address: 大兴西路 & 新华北路
English Address: Intersection of W. Daxing Rd. and N. Xinhua Rd.
When I first started going here in 2004, this was a well-known old Haikou wonton shop — probably because it’s in the middle of what’s now the “Historic Old Downtown”. They are just off of the fully restored streets. They not only made the leap from being a food cart to being someplace with walls and a ceiling but they’ve also made the leap to taking over three of the four surrounding shopfronts and even having a second floor dining area in one of their buildings (admittedly the only one in good enough condition to have a second floor you wouldn’t be afraid of falling through….). I think they are open 24 hours. At the very least, they have signs that say they are open 24 hours which isn’t at all the same as actually being confirmed open.
Prices have jumped recently. A “small” bowl of wontons now costs 8 yuan.
Chinese Name: 百回味
English Name: Hundred Flavors Dimsum
Chinese Address: 海彤路&三东路
English Address: Intersection of Haitong Rd. and E. Haidian 3rd Rd.
All the charm and atmosphere of a high school cafeteria but with more shirtless 70 year old men. They have morning dimsum (best arrive before 9:30am to have the widest variety of choices) and afternoon dimsum (appears to start after 2:00pm). They emphatically do not serve lunch. In addition to grabbing stuff off the steam tables and having your card stamped, morning and afternoon dimsum also have the option of ordering specific dishes cooked just for you. They have simplified this process by only having certain dishes available to order at certain times of the day with no picture menu, no English menu, no menu at all, and waitresses who are too busy to speak to you. I especially like this place because it is the closest brewed coffee to my apartment. I currently pay 4.5 yuan for black with sugar.
Chinese Name: 一品味
English Name: One Taste Dimsum
Chinese Address: 海彤路
English Address: Haitong Rd just south of E. Haidian 3rd Rd.
This place is a little more upscale looking than 百回味. They have a menu. They will cook outside of the set-in-stone meal hours. Wooden chairs, decent tables, open to the air with big ceiling fans so comfortable in the afternoon in the summer. They even claim to have Kopi Luwak Coffee (the civet shit stuff) in addition to regular Hainanese coffee.
Chinese Name: 一品味美食园
English Name: One Taste Flavor Garden Dimsum
Chinese Address: 四西路 & 邦顿西路
English Address: Far west end of W. Haidian 4th Rd. and intersection of W. Bangdun Rd.
Given the similarity in names, I assume that this place is associated with the place above. I used to go there for breakfasts. A few years ago they switched to instant coffee. I don’t go there any more.
Reasonably Priced
Chinese Name: 新疆帕尔哈提餐厅
English Name: Xinjiang Pa’erhati Restaurant
Chinese Address: 海甸二中路 & 海达路
English Address: West side of the intersection of Haida Rd. and Central 2nd Street. Located on 2nd Street.
Somehow these guys have managed to be one of the only (possibly the only) outdoor barbecue restaurant to survive the current Civilized City Campaign. Having a giant ornate structure cemented into the sidewalk probably helped. Being in the same location for 20 years probably helped. Being minority owned might have helped. They are Uighur and the Chinese government has a very tense relationship with the Uighurs.
Xinjiang food is basically the Chinese predecessor of Middle Eastern food from before the Turks moved west from Central Asia into Turkey. Everything here is halal. Roast mutton on a stick, flatbread, mutton pilaf, mutton noodles, and chicken make up most of the menu. As per the usual with Xinjiang restaurants the only similarity their 大盘鸡 (Big Plate Chicken) has with anyone else’s 大盘鸡 is that it is in fact a lot of chicken on a very large plate.
Chinese Name: 大东北
English Name: Great Northeastern Restaurant
Chinese Address: 人民路 & 海甸五中路
English Address: Southeastern corner of the intersection of Haidian Fifth Street and Renmin Road
This is a chain of moderately upscale restaurants that probably has a couple of hundred locations throughout China at this point. Their first location opened in Sanya, Hainan in the early 90s. Hearty northeastern Chinese food. The size of the restaurant and the popularity of it makes for very long waits for your food to arrive. Picture menus with amusing Chinglish transrations.
Chinese Name: 东北本家小厨
English Name: Northeastern Family Kitchen
Chinese Address: 海甸三中路24号
English Address: #24, E. Central Haidian 3rd Road
This place has a lot of the same food that Great Northeastern has. I think they have picture menus but, if they do, I’m pretty sure they aren’t in English. It’s a tenth of the size of Great Northeastern so, even on the worst days for waiting, you have a seat and food in under an hour. It’s also just across the street from 开心世界 which is the awesomest foot spa ever. However, traffic patterns have finally gotten to the point that the traffic bureau put a barrier down the middle of the road
Chinese Name: 富乐鸡
English Name: Fuleji Restaurant (Fortune Happy Chicken)
Chinese Address 1: 国贸路19号
English Address 1: #19 Guomao Rd.
Chinese Address 2: 五指山路
English Address 2: Wuzhishan Rd about 50 meters south of Haixiu Rd.
Chinese Address 3: 红城湖路
English Address 3: Hongchenghu Rd
This is one of the only good Hainanese restaurants I’ve found in Hainan. It’s a bit of an unfortunate truism that if you want to eat really good Hainanese food, you should go to Singapore. They’ve elevated the art of Hainanese cooking into gourmet cuisine. I’ve eaten a lot of Hainanese food in the 12 years I’ve lived on Hainan Island and, by and large, with the exception of food cooked by friends, friends’ mothers, and friends’ grandmothers, it’s all been pretty well close to inedible. Call me a snob but I like my chicken cooked and without shards of bone in every single piece. One of the cruel things I love doing to Singaporean friends is taking them for “Authentic Hainan Chicken Rice” and watching the expressions on their face as they discover something completely unlike the amazing Singaporean dish Hainan Chicken Rice.
If I only had to go on the decor and how worn out the wooden tables and chairs are, I would guess that any one of these locations has to have been open since the mid 90s.
Relatively Expensive
Compared to places with similar food in other countries (or even in Beijing) these places still aren’t expensive. They just aren’t the sort of places that travelers on a strict budget might want to go to.
Chinese Name: 印度餐厅
English Name: Indian Restaurant
Chinese Address: 京华城
English Address: Jinghua Mall behind Starbucks
In addition to having pretty yummy food, English menu, some items have pictures, they also have knives, forks, and Western toilets. They are the only place on this entire list to have non-squatty pots. If you have a table of four or five to eat together, this place should cost around 60–100 yuan per person with one drink each. A single drink costs almost as much as a single main dish.
Chinese Name:
English Name: Babel’s
Chinese Address: 京华城
English Address: Inside Jinghua Mall Courtyard, near the Corner’s Grocery Store
Excellent western food. Excellent desserts. Amazing cocktail selection. Service can be iffy. English menus. Should have Russian menus soon. Cost per person for a meal with desserts should be around 80–100 yuan unless you have steak.
Chinese Name: 富艾歌披萨
English Name: Pizza Fuego
Chinese Address: 京华城
English Address: Inside Jinghua Mall, I think on the third floor
They’ve been open at least since 2010 but the French Swiss owner and cook keeps moving and closing old locations without notifying anyone. The food is good enough that he’s still pretty packed despite his atrocious marketing skills and personality.
Chinese Name: 普罗旺词
English Name: Mood
Chinese Address 1 : 上百百汇城
English Address 1: Shangbai Shopping Plaza on the 3rd floor near the movie theater
Chinese Address 2: 望海国际
English Address 2: Somewhere inside Wanghai Mall
The number of mistakes and mistranslations on the bilingual menu makes me cringe mostly because I’m getting paid for the translations. At this point, I’ve mostly given up on arguing with their typesetter about letting me proofread after they’ve mangled the recent translation and just asked to have my company name removed from where I previously had it on the menu as advertising.
Set meals starting at 70 yuan per person and going up to 300 yuan including bread, soup, salad, main course, dessert, and a drink. It’s western food though it’s hardly the French food it claims to be (if you read Chinese). I’ve got a German friend who is a chef. I took him there once and he was sufficiently pleased with the quality of the meal that he has taken his girlfriend there on a “I’m not cooking tonight” date.
English Name: Simple Yummy
Chinese Address 1 : 上百百汇城
English Address 1: Shangbai Shopping Plaza at the back of the parking lot
Chinese Address 2: 上百百汇城
English Address 2: Shangbai Shopping Plaza in the middle of the courtyard
Light western meals and sandwiches, bread to go, reasonably priced cocktails, amazing desserts, ridiculously slow service partly because of the number of people they serve and most things being made-to-order. From ordering at the counter to getting your hamburger can take 45 minutes. Lunch should cost around 50 yuan per person.
English Name: The Porch
Chinese Address: 五西路靠近恒福居
English Address: W. Haidian 5th Street across from North Gate of Hainan University near Hengfuju Apartments
My biggest complaint about this Filipino owned and operated restaurant is that they don’t serve enough Filipino food. I understand that they need to adjust to what their market wants to buy and the market of Chinese people eating Western food is skewed towards pizza and pasta but I can make both of those at home. My second complaint is the counterfeit Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee on the menu for 20 yuan a cup. I’ve tried to explain to the owner that just because the person selling it to them calls it Blue Mountain, that doesn’t mean it is Blue Mountain nor does it mean they should sell it but, no go. Dinner and dessert should be around 50 yuan per person.
Chinese Name: 红吧
English Name: Red Bar
Chinese Address 1: 九都大厦后面，国贸路&玉沙路
English Address 1: Northwestern corner of Guomao and Yusha Roads, behind Jiudu Building
Chinese Address 2: 文华中路&文华东路
English Address 2: Intersection of Central Wenhua Rd. and E. Wenhua Rd.
When I met the French owner of Red for the first time and he told me had opened a restaurant, I said he was my new favorite person. When he told me it was a Chinese restaurant, I told him I didn’t like him any more. This place is good enough that someone in Shanghai has copied it down to the decor, menu, and logo. It’s basically Chongqing street food cleaned up and removed from the street.
Cafes
Chinese Name: 米粒咖啡
English Name: Milli Coffee
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Chinese Name: A2Z 咖啡
English Name: A to Z
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Chinese Name: 月石咖啡
English Name: Moonstone Cafe
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English Name: Pause
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