HON'S on Keefer Street (Vancouver Chinatown)

As immature teenagers fresh out of high school, my good pal John and I were quick to nickname our server Pringle. Each and every Thursday night, our cylindrically-shaped saviour. hence the handle, would deliver two bowls of wonton noodle soup, two plates of 12 pan-fried chicken potstickers (w/ gingered vinegar), and two dishes of gai lan w/ oyster sauce fresh from the hot and steamy kitchen at Hon's restaurant on Keefer Street in Vancouver's Chinatown for us to scarf down. Cokes were served on the side in glasses halfway filled with crushed ice, but back to the man. Standing tall, straight, and slender, "Pringle" appeared to be in his late fifties, or early sixties, w/ a full head of jet black hair parted to the side and a reserved demeanor on the job. Even after years of patronage, our relationship remained strictly business. We were hungry and he was, well, working. Every now and again, I’d see Pringle out of the restaurant, walking around downtown. I always wondered about his life outside of work, his family, hobbies, and interests. My father had turned me on to Hon’s in the early 1990s at their New Westminster location and it quickly became a favourite. I'd bring friends whenever possible and spread the word at each and every opportunity. As the years progressed, so did my ordering, from the aforementioned soup, to curried beef brisket, to Szechuan pork juliennes on egg noodles. By the new millennium, I must have eaten this dish up to a hundred times, the slightly spicy and sweet sauce w/ dry noodles and served with a bowl of broth and thinly sliced green onions for flavour and texture. Chopsticks were always used even when forks were offered. Weekly trips to the Chinatown Hon’s location became almost religious in nature, a final stop before heading back to the suburbs of Burnaby and Coquitlam on the 151 bus. Prior to our meal, John and I would spend time perusing the bins and racks of the many great record shops that used to line Seymour Street between Pender and Dunsmuir. There was Sam the Record Man, A&B Sound, Track Records, Odyssey Imports, as well as Collectors RPM. After spending most of what little money we had, we'd walk down Pender past the massive vacant lot where the International Village Mall (previously known as Tinseltown) now stands. A block south of Hastings, the road was dark and edgy at night, a different bag than our usual suburban scenes. But it was the food that made us venture into Chinatown in the evening, an area that I’d been visiting w/ my family since the early 1980s. Looking back, the emergence of Hon’s in my restaurant rotation was a revelation and always a fun place to hang. It was generally bustling and had been. People of all backgrounds would eat there, enjoying good company and the restaurant’s famous Cantonese creations, initially around the corner on Main Street, since the early 1970s. When I moved back to Toronto from Vancouver in 2007 after almost 15 years, Hon’s was one of the places that I missed the most. On return visits to BC, a family meal, often at the more recently opened Robson street branch, which had separate meat and vegetarian kitchens, was mandatory. The hot tea was always free and flowing. Fortune cookies rounded out the meal and often provided an insight or a cheap laugh. My dad Dennis liked to order the spicy squid w/ rock salt and their Shanghai noodles w/ XO sauce, which would be devoured within minutes of their arrival. Upon returning to live in Vancouver again in 2010, Hon’s once more became a part of the mix. By then, they had expanded to Coquitlam and I would often stop there while visiting friends or after hitting up the local thrift and record stores. One day, I ordered my classic Szechuan pork juliennes on egg noodles dish, settled up at the cashier, and proceeded to get my first ever migraine. I had never felt such pressure and discomfort in my head before and barely made it to my dad’s apartment only a few blocks away, before curling up into the fetal position until the pain subsided. Was it something that I had eaten? A reaction to MSG? A sodium overdose? I wasn’t keen for an encore. Still, the lure of my favourite restaurant meal eventually brought me back and was followed by another monumental brain buster. What the f%ck was going on here? Had Hon's changed their ingredients? Were they cutting corners? Either thick or simply not wanting to take the hint, it took one more crippling headache there to stop going altogether. I'm glad to report that I haven’t had a migraine since, but the pain of longing persisted. A couple of weeks ago while downtown, I decided to walk up and down the streets of Chinatown, to catch the vibe amidst heavy development and a shifting socio-economic dynamic. While it was already closed for the evening, I walked up to the large street facing Hon’s window on Keefer and paused for a good minute to reflect on the many hours and happy times that I'd spent inside in my younger years. The restaurant was vacant and dimly lit by the adjoining mini mall. I thought of the man we used to call Pringle (what WAS his name?) and the dozens upon dozens of meals eaten there, the jokes, conversations, as well as the love shared. I took a few quick snaps on my iPhone and proceeded to walk over to Main Street up to Mount Pleasant. Last week, I caught wind that the Hon’s Keefer Street location had closed. Though I don't think that I'd return for one final, nostalgic meal, it did make me sad to think of yet another casualty in the neighbourhood and the temporality of what many of us hold dear. Thanks for the memories Hon's... PEACE