Let’s talk about Pupu Platters. Flaming, spinning, glistening, pupu platters. The pupu platter was once a mainstay for big nights out—a treat and a white tablecloth occasion. While they had their heyday in the 60s and 70s, we say bring them back!

That’s why, for this holiday season, we’re offering a blueprint for the ultimate festive party idea: the Pupu Platter party. Between this post and our recent YouTube video, you have all the information you need to pull it off.

It’s got that retro flair and all the trappings of a great gathering. The food can be made in advance, the meal is interactive, and there’s a very strong theme.

Get out the tiki bar decorations, and mix up some mai tais and piña coladas. Younger guests will enjoy the camp, and older guests will enjoy the nostalgia. Put them together, and you have an event that your guests will be talking about for years to come!

The Pupu Platter: A New Old Love!

We’ve heard stories from Bill’s younger years, when he helped his father churn out pupu platter after pupu platter on busy nights for the Catskills resort crowd. Until recently, however, we’d never really experienced it ourselves.

We realized that over the years, we’ve cracked the code on just about every classic pupu platter item. At The Woks of Life, you can find every recipe you need for a fantastic Pupu Platter party!

Not only do we have them, we’ve been quietly churning them out and tweaking them over the past year…did you manage to figure out our grand holiday plans? If you subscribe to our Youtube channel, you may have!

The History of the Pupu Platter

In the mid-20th Century, the tiki craze swept America, popularizing tropical cocktails and island-themed decor. As diners sought out “exotic” culinary adventures, Chinese establishments responded by incorporating Polynesian elements—such as the beloved PuPu platter—into their offerings. The result was a blend of cultures on the menu, where Cantonese-based Chinese American cuisine shared space with Polynesian themes.

Pūpū” is a Hawaiian term that means small shells or shellfish, but came to mean small bites or appetizers. The Pupu Platter may have first emerged in the 1950s. A Honolulu restaurant, Trader Vic’s, is often credited with its creation. By the 1960s and 70s, it was served in many Chinese restaurants across America.

The pupu platter became so popular that many Holiday Inn hotel restaurants (then a new-fangled concept offering predictable accommodations and quality food that would taste the same in any location) converted from an exclusively American menu to a hybrid American and Chinese Polynesian menu.

See this Facebook post from a gentleman in Maine sharing memories of a Holiday Inn menu from the 1970s, “before the restaurant went Polynesian.”

In fact, a Holiday Inn restaurant kitchen in Liberty, NY is where our very own Bill became acquainted with pupu platters.

His father (my grandfather) was head chef for both the American and Chinese Polynesian sides of the menu. The Catskills resort crowd seemed to have an insatiable love of Chinese Polynesian luaus and pupu platters!

A brochure for the Liberty, NY Holiday Inn, where Bill’s father worked as head chef, and where Bill first worked in a restaurant kitchen. Zoom in on the dining room photo, on the brochure. Bill remembers making caesar salad on a cart in the back of the room, by the curtains.[Photo credit: SullivanCatskills.com and @catskillspapertrail on IG and FB] In the photo above right, you can see the bar/lounge where Joanie the bartender would occasionally make Bill’s father a scotch sour at the end of a long night in the ktichen. [Photo credit: SullivanCatskills.com and @catskillspapertrail on IG and FB]

Remembering the Liberty Holiday Inn Staff

Bill here! Just wanted to share some of my memories of the people my father and I worked with at the Holiday Inn.

• Joanie, the bartender, as Kaitlin noted in the above caption.
• Edie, a nice older lady.
• Renee, a saucy German woman.
• Ellie, a waitress who told me she started smoking at a young age because she felt she needed to “do something.”
• Lois, a nice younger mom.
• Susie, a waitress who also bartended at the Stinkin Lincoln bar.
• Monica, a middle aged woman with attitude.
• Flo and Herbie managed the place. Herbie was a nice guys who would walk around with a big cigar in his mouth. Flo was in charge of the dining room and gave me a lot of tips on how to be a better busboy. She was fond of my father’s roast chicken!
• Irving, an older guy, worked the front desk and piled the mustard and duck sauce on top of his shrimp with lobster sauce and pork fried rice.
• Louie was an older Puerto Rican guy who worked the American side of the kitchen.
• Ray was a younger guy who also worked the American side and helped my father when needed.
• The cast of dishwashers, including Wilson, Jorge, and Chico, were mostly from Puerto Rico. I credit my ability to speak some decent Spanish with putting my high school Spanish to work talking with them in the back of the house!
• All the busboy staff were classmates from my high school, working seasonally like me, mostly in the summers.

All this is to say that today, Liberty isn’t the most happening place, but back then, it really was!

Later, they also served a pupu platter at our family’s Chinese restaurant in New Jersey, when my grandfather finally made the jump to open his own restaurant. Bill has made countless pupu platters, but the one we assembled and tried for this post was the first one he and my mom sat down to enjoy!

A Chinese Polynesian Luau!

Pupu platters can still be found in restaurants today, though they may look a little different. Back in the day, they were part of a white tablecloth experience.

The appetizers were served on a Polynesian-style wooden tray with a flame in the center to crisp and reheat the appetizer delights. Often, it was just the prelude to a big luau dinner, where the variety of dishes multiplied with the number of guests.

My dad says a Luau for two would include subgum wonton soup (also known as wor wonton soup), a pupu platter, and two dishes: pork fried rice and shrimp with lobster sauce. Add a person to your party, and you’d get another dish.

A pupu platter for six, for instance, would get you six of each pupu platter item, spread across two pupu platters, a pork fried rice, shrimp with lobster sauce, roast pork with vegetables, a polynesian chicken, and wor shu opp.

If you had seven people, the final dish was Sub Gum Wonton, a stir-fry with roast pork, lobster, shrimp, chicken, and mixed vegetables, surrounded by fried wontons. Any more than seven people, and dishes would start doubling up. Talk about a feast!

Today, Pupu platters are more often found in Chinese takeout restaurants, where it’s simply a medley of fried items that come in a large styrofoam container to be feasted on at will, or perhaps in a series of smaller white takeout boxes, wax paper bags, or red foil bags that you can tip out onto a platter at home.

Today, at sit-down Chinese restaurants, you may still find the odd Pupu platter served up with a fancy cocktail. Here in New Jersey, Lee’s Hawaiian Islander in Lyndhurst is still slinging pupu platters and tiki drinks!

Going there was like stepping into a time machine, where karaoke night, pupu platters and kitschy island decor still reign. You can watch our family field trip to Lee’s Hawaiian Islander in our Youtube video!

Make a Pupu Platter at Home!

Now let’s get down to brass tacks. If you’re still reading, that means you’re interested in having a pupu platter party at home.

To be quite honest, making a Pupu platter isn’t for the novice cook or the faint of heart. But if you’re up for it, it’s just as enjoyable as people found it to be years ago. There’s something to the old pupu platter!

You do need to break out the frying oil, but generally, you can make things ahead (and even freeze them). We would make all the fried items in the same week—after all, when you’re frying one item, you may as well fry a few others too! Then, on the day of your party, you can reheat them in the oven (convection is ideal) or air fryer.

And you cookbook clubs, listen up! This is an excellent one for neat delegating. Each person brings one item, and you assemble it all into a glorious pupu platter party! Anyone who might be less comfortable in the kitchen can bring drinks.

Encourage people to dress up! (Perhaps in their best 1960s or 1970s finery?) After all, a night out at the local Chinese Polynesian restaurant used to be a special occasion. With friends and family gathered together, everyone can participate and indulge in their favorite small bites!

What Is In a Pupu Platter?

You’ll want to choose 5-6 items for a good amount of variety.

The Pupu platter items we’ve chosen to include are:

1. Chinese spare ribs
2. Chinese Fried Chicken Wings
3. Fantail Shrimp
4. Shrimp Toast
5. Beef on a Stick
6. Egg Rolls

But feel free to experiment with other items! You could swap in:

• Crab Rangoon (the recipe is available in our cookbook!)
• Fried Wontons
• Coconut Shrimp
• Firecracker Shrimp
• Char Siu strips
• Chinese Boneless Ribs – if you prefer these over the spare ribs
• Spring Rolls – a slightly lighter alternative to egg rolls

You could even add some Chinese Luau dishes to your menu, like our Shrimp with Lobster Sauce, Pork Fried Rice, Polynesian Chicken, Subgum Wonton Soup (Wor Wonton Soup), and Roast Pork with Mixed Vegetables.

Check out all the recipes on our blog and in our cookbook.

Equipment:

• A wooden pupu platter with a built-in lazy susan (Amazon, Webstaurant Store)
• Cast iron fuel holder (we found them on Webstaurant Store)
• Food-safe Sterno (Amazon) ***Be sure to get a Sterno can that is 100% ethanol based, NOT methanol based, as the latter is toxic. Sterno makes ones that are for roasting food like s’mores rather than just sitting under chafing dishes. **
• Mini tongs (Amazon)

Pupu Platter Party Make-Ahead Guide:

1. The week (or even a few weeks before the party), make and do the first fry of the chicken wings and egg rolls. The same goes for the Fantail shrimp. Stash in the freezer.
2. The night before the party, marinate the spare ribs and beef on a stick
3. The day of the party, roast the ribs first. Meanwhile, skewer the beef, then broil them while the ribs are resting.
4. Make and assemble the shrimp toast the day of the party; pan fry shortly before guests arrive. These can also be made weeks ahead of time and frozen in a single layer, uncooked. Then pan fry them straight from the freezer.
5. Reheat the chicken wings and egg rolls—do a second fry in oil (this is ideal for the chicken wings), or heat until crispy in the oven (if you have convection, use it) or air fryer. (We found that the egg rolls reheated a little better in the oven and were less greasy.)

Even if this is all a bit too much, you could choose to make some of the elements at home, like the ribs, and the skewers, and then order the egg rolls, chicken wings, and shrimp from your local takeout restaurant. Then just heat everything up in the oven, and whip up the cocktails.

And remember, the beauty of the pupu platter party is that can of sterno heat. Anything that’s gone a little lukewarm can be reheated over flames in a jiffy. That’s part of the fun!