[Bay Area] Dish/ meal of the year 2016- wonderful, terrible- all of them

Regional Dining Discussions SF Bay Area, NorCal, Tahoe
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Bumping this!

There are tons of great tips on the SFBA Best/Favorite Bites threads @ernie_in_berkeley has been creating:

Here’s my picks for 2016, including several I never got around to reporting about, but loved :

Best and worst overall

  • Best local meals were a flawless meal at Liholiho and a meal at Din Tai Fung, which had room for improvement, but anticipation and excitement on our group’s part elevated it.

  • The two foods that best satisfied personal cravings were the chao bing at Boiling Beijing in San Bruno, which was a proxy one night for the umami and wok charred goodness of East Coast lo mein, and the Hong Kong style chow mein at Cooking Papa.

  • Best meal of the year: Star Noodle in Lahaina, Maui

  • Worst meal of the year: Raliberto’s Taco Shop in Crescent City where I ate what might have been the worst burrito I’ve eaten in California. Despite going there after an exhausting hike, I tossed half of it out.

SFBA Bready

  • Rancho Gordo beans on toast at Della Fatorria. Pureed beans whipped with olive oil and Laura Chenel Chévre, on Rosemary Meyer-Lemon Toast. Delicious. Northern California on a plate.

  • Favorite (new to me) pizzas were the white pizza in Dogpatch’s Long Bridge Pizza and the garlic oil laden “Margherita” pizza at Gaspare’s.

  • The chevron (english muffin-egg-bacon-cheese sandwich, tomato, green chile, mayo) Parkside in Stinson Beach makes their English muffins in house, and nailed the quality and ratio of ingredients for a breakfast sandwich.

SFBA starters

  • Egg Hopper w/ Jidori egg at 1601 in SF SoMa, kind of like a bowl shaped dosa with an egg in the middle. I’m not familiar with Sri Lankan cuisine, but for my palate, felt that the rest of their Sri Lankan inspired dishes could use more spicings.

  • SF Hawker Fare’s rice ball salad with fermented pork and also the rare brisket

SFBA Soup/Stew

  • Favorite noodles were the pickle shredded pork noodles 榨菜肉丝 at Yum Noodles in Santa Clara and the #25 noodles w/ fried egg at Ha Nam Ninh in SF Tenderloin’s.

  • Chicken jook at Turtle Tower

  • Little Gem’s Hen of the woods mushrooms, heirloom beans, tuscan kale-bacon stew. Super savory.

SFBA Pieces of Meat

  • Toothpick lamb at Chendu Style in Berkeley

  • Inexpensive and delicious hand-grabbed pork bone at Taste of Jiangnan.

  • Spicy tripe at Bei Fang style in the Sunset

  • Pork chop at Cockscomb in SF, SoMa. Big enough for a large family.

SFBA Sweets

  • Hanlin Tea Room’s sweet cream bun.

  • Butterscotch drink at 20th Century Cafe

  • Chocolate rice dumplings at Hakkasan

  • Butter mochi at Liholiho

Out of the SFBA:

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