Under the Paifang: A Field Guide to Orlando Chinatown in Pine Hills
More than 60 Asian businesses behind one red-tiled arch — Enson Market, Sun Pearl Bakery, hand-pulled noodles, skewer hot pot and Korean tofu, storefront by storefront.
3 minute read
You see the paifang first: a red-tiled Chinese ceremonial arch rising over a West Colonial Drive parking lot, announced in 2013 and still the most surprising sight on Orlando’s west side. Behind it sits Orlando Chinatown — also signed as Chinatown Plaza and Westside Crossing — at 5060 W. Colonial Drive, at the corner of Pine Hills Road. Opened in 2002 with space for more than 60 Asian businesses, it is the pan-Asian heart of Pine Hills: a supermarket, bakeries, noodle shops, hot pot, tofu, phở and desserts, arranged around one lot you can cross in three minutes and explore for a whole afternoon.
Start at Enson Market
The anchor is Enson Market, the plaza’s vast Asian supermarket at 5132 W. Colonial Drive. Visit Orlando’s guide to the plaza calls out what makes it a destination: fresh produce built for Asian cooking — bok choy, gai lan, bitter melon, durians, lychees and longans — live and fresh seafood, aisles of ramen, spices, seasonings, snacks and frozen treats. Inside, Pang’s BBQ handles Chinese-style barbecue to go, the roast meats that turn a grocery run into dinner. Enson is Chinese-based in its range, which makes it the complement, not the competitor, of the Korean markets further west on Colonial: each stocks what the other does not. Shop here before you eat, or after — but leave cooler space in the car either way.
The bakery and the sweets
Sun Pearl Bakery, at 5082 W. Colonial Drive, has been the plaza’s Taiwanese bakery since 2004. The case runs light and not-too-sweet: pineapple buns with their crunchy topping, red bean pastries, roast pork and curry buns, milk breads and sponge cakes — the baked goods Orlando’s Asian community has bought here for two decades. For dessert proper, Meet Fresh serves Taiwanese sweets — shaved ice, taro and herbal jelly in the style the chain is known for — a cool finish after hot pot or noodles. Between Sun Pearl and Meet Fresh, the plaza covers both the take-home box and the sit-down sweet.
Noodles, hot pot and tofu
The hot food bench is deep. Walala serves hand-pulled noodles — watch for the stretch and slap that gives the strands their chew. Malu Bian Hot Pot offers the skewer-style hot pot that Visit Orlando identifies as the only one of its kind in Florida: choose a broth — spicy, mild or mushroom — then cook your own skewers of vegetables, lamb, beef, seafood, fish balls and tofu. Hunan Taste brings the chili heat of Hunan cooking, garlic eggplant among its signatures. BBB Tofu House, a plaza veteran at 5140 W. Colonial Drive, serves Korean soon tofu — bubbling stone-pot tofu stews — with bulgogi alongside. And Chef Wang’s Kitchen, at 5148 W. Colonial Drive, built its reputation on hand-pulled noodles long before the current noodle shops arrived; Orlando’s food writers have been sending readers here for years.
And just across the street, Vietnam
The plaza’s gravity pulls across Colonial to the Vietnamese kitchens at its eastern edge — Huong Viet and Phở TD among them — which we cover in full in Vietnamese on West Colonial. Treat them as one crawl: market, bakery, noodles, then phở. Taken together, this single intersection holds more distinct Asian cuisines than most Florida cities manage in total, which is precisely the Pine Hills story — many cultures, one bright future, applied to lunch.
How to work the plaza
Park once. Do Enson first if you need groceries, Sun Pearl before the bun case thins, and pick one hot kitchen per visit — the plaza rewards repeat trips, and Pine Hills regulars treat it as a weekly circuit rather than a one-time attraction. Bring cashless payment and patience; this is a working plaza serving its community, not a themed attraction. Find it on the Orlando Top Spots Map, at the corner that also anchors our Where to Eat in Pine Hills roundup — Colonial and Pine Hills Road, under the arch.
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