Looks like shao bing (烧饼). Shanghainese also call it “da bing” even when it’s not “da.”
My wife buys the Einstein sesame bagels from Costco because they remind her of da bing when toasted. 
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Shanghainese of my wife’s age will tell you a real street breakfast consist of “four heavenly kings” (si da jin gang), 四大金刚), as follows:
Da bing (大饼),
You tiao (油条), or crullers,
Dou jiang (豆浆) or soy milk
Ci fan gao (粢饭糕) or sticky rice “hash browns”
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Koi palace makes a large da bing iirc, pie-sized. I used to get the crunchy sticky rice cakes (with thin omelet on top) at Winsor in boston but haven’t seen them here
So true. I don’t think it’s an accident that cocktail culture was at a peak in the '50’s when food was at a nadir. I enjoy food and I enjoy cocktails (though rarely out, as they’re overpriced), but I drink cocktails or strong liquor after a meal, not before. And my main reason to order beer with dinner is that I can nurse it (there would be more reasons if I knew places with a great beer selection and great food, but they seem to be distinct, at least locally). A glass of wine gets finished too quickly (and is typically more expensive, also).
Went to China Live for a snack. Was seated in the back where they were making the Dongbei style vegetable potstickers and SJB. A chef was continuously rotating the SJB pan with some calipers.
SJB ($9) were pretty good. Not too bready, but some of them could have used some more filling, seemed to be a little uneven filling wise. Bottoms were also a little thick, maybe by design? Had some juice inside. Bottoms were crispy.
XLB ($9) were also good - lots of juice, no leaks. I accidentally poured soy sauce instead of vinegar on the ginger plate and repurposed my spoon to be a dipping vessel. They are unmarked and the same color - the vinegar is in the smaller bottles.
Vegetable Potstickers Dongbei Style ($9). I ordered these because I figured I should have some vegetables. Huge. Stuffed with some ribbons of bean curd sheets, mushrooms, vegetables, and I think some glass vermicelli. Not bad but probably would not rush to order again. A little on the dry side.
I like that they have a wine list. Had a nice glass of sauvignon blanc with the dumplings. Didn’t feel so much like a “Chinese Eataly” right now as it felt more like a large restaurant that happened to also have a retail section. I’ve only been to the Eataly in Chicago but there they had a larger selection of goods, and the restaurant/food counters were more like separate entities.
SJB
XLB
Vegetable Potstickers Dongbei Style
I went yesterday around 4 pm. They have continual service from lunch until closing but I’m not sure if they should. It was largely empty which I was happy about, and I sat at the counter by the dumpling and noodle section.
I ordered the sjb and the “Marco polo” zha jiang mian. I was told the bao would take 20-30 minutes which i took as a good sign that they would be fresh and hot. I noted the huge special pans and waited for about that length of time, noticing that the two cooks at the station were folding trays of wontons for dinner service. Eventually one of them opened one of the pans and plucked four bao out. They were precooked from before I was seated and were hardly warm. I sent them back and was asked if I wanted another order, and my server pointed at the same pot my first order came from. I said no for that reason and was told it would be another 20-30 minutes. I was too hungry and could no longer schedule in that long a wait, so I asked for xiao long bao instead.
My noodles came while I was waiting for the xlb. I liked the shape of the noodles, long and tubular like bucatini. I’m guessing they’re the “Marco polo” aspect. It was not a large portion, which I expected. But the sauce was kept in a metal tub over a bain marie and was also not very warm, for a dish that translates into fried sauce noodles, if I remember correctly. At first I thought it wasn’t enough sauce to coat the noodles, and the very eager to please and friendly floor staff had me brought another small bowlful of sauce. But it wasn’t the amount, it just was bland. When I think of zha jiang mian I think of salty, funky, earthy fermented bean paste flavors. I knew not to expect the blackish Korean version I grew up with but I’ve had northern Chinese versions and liked them. This one was just underseasoned, watery and lukewarm.
The xlb’s were pretty good. I’m not too picky about them. I really liked dumpling kitchens a few years ago. Bund shanghai’s, one of the LA area din tai fung’s. I did not like Shanghai dumpling kings. Just for comparison over the past couple years. Two had small cracks in the skin, but they were hot at least and had good flavor, and were juicy. They seemed very eager to demonstrate proper xlb eating technique, maybe because of timeout london’s piece showing people exploding them for fun and discarding the soup?
Maybe the Shen jian bao weren’t being tended to because I was the only one who ordered them between lunch and dinner, which is why I said maybe china live should not be open in between. But the precooked baos were not warm, and I did wait roughly half an hour for them as told, while watching the cooks making wontons instead. I just didn’t like that bowl of zha jiang mian. Except for the actual noodles.
The staff seemed genuinely concerned about my experience and eager to accommodate me. i will go back, but not too soon. The veggie potstickers that the cooks started to cook fresh after my own misfire of a lunch looked delicious. And I was eyeing those ducks as well.
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The meal we had was disappointing - each dish was flawed. I like the space and concept, but I may revisit in a few months when they’ve hopefully worked out the kinks.
I think the menu needs some more focus and refinement; it just seems a bit haphazard. We got the distinct impression that this feels like a restauranteur’s concept backed by tech money, but not a restaurant with great food.
"Peking duck with kumquat glaze and sesame packets" was off in texture. One of the important elements of good Peking duck, in my opinion, is the texture contrast. Whether it’s the pliant chew of the thin pancake, or the fluffiness of a just-steamed bun, the wrapper should have a nice softness that contrasts with the crisp skin and crunchy cucumber. Here, the “sesame packet” was like a medium-thin, crispy sao bing. Not enough contrast with the skin, so the skin’s texture was lost. The kumquat glaze was quite nice, but also wasn’t contained well because it didn’t absorb but was rather leaky.
"Snow peas with lily bulb and black mushrooms, abalone sauce" was disappointing. The mushrooms were sour - we’re guessing they used soy sauce and not oyster sauce. It wasn’t a good sour, but the kind of sour your get when cooking mushrooms the wrong way. The sauce wasn’t bad, but this dish was just OK. These ingredients could work well together, but the execution was off. Again, better texture contrast would be the key here.
"Grilled Monterey octopus, XO sauce, watercress and radish salad" was pretty poor. First off, it shouldn’t be in the “Live Seafood” section, but rather it should be listed as a salad, because that’s what it is. Pieces of charred octopus are pretty paltry, so you don’t get the nice tender chew that you’d experience with bigger pieces. XO sauce was nearly nonexistent, and whatever faint flavor there was clashed badly with the copious amounts of mint. The char, mint, XO, and radish was a weird combination that didn’t do justice to any of the ingredients.
"Three Treasure Bao Zai Fan Claypot Rice" had promise, but the rice’s texture was off. The rice was nearly mushy, but not that moist. The lap cheong, la rou, and cured duck were thinly sliced, but not bad.
China Live, at least in our experience, needs a bit of work. The ingredients sound pretty good but the menu just doesn’t seem like it’s coming out of a strong Chinese kitchen at the moment.
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Did they have socarrat at the bottom?
There was some, but overall we didn’t think the rice was cooked well enough. It was almost mushy, and the clay pot almost didn’t seem hot enough.
There’s potential in the space and concept, but I’ll wait until the menu improves.
Taiwan Beef Noodle is now &16.
per my Yelp review detailing the beef broth as tasteless. George Chen inboxed about Robin Lin’s awards.
Lin’s broth is made from 27 spices brewed at 6 levels. beef broth is brewed 48+. describes Lin’s broth as “pure”
note: beef tendon, baby bok choy, beef brisket very nicely done. big fat noodles chewy. not much.
also mention XIao long bao’s hot tasty soup & miniscule amount of meat within.
seems every server on duty asked me how the food was. “so so” i replied,.
Were there more? I made it here for the first time to check out their fancy pantry collection but didn’t see much. Lots of tea, some soy sauces. I think maybe a vinegar or two. Some spice powders. I was hoping that they would import more of the good stuff from China but I am guessing many of the better stuff don’t have an importer. They seem to have more housewares, books, etc, i.e. the non-perishable stuff.
I’m surprised I said “a lot”. These were the interesting items. There were also artisanal non Chinese things like Sosu Sriracha, which is great, but I’d prefer they focus on the hard to get ingredients listed in the Chinese cookbooks they sell
I haven’t been, but noticed they were advertising tastings of some of their specialty products on Sunday. Maybe it will become a regular thing?
I secured a reservation via Yelp on Father’s Day. It was bustling, but still had plenty of space for walkins. The meal was mixed, but the extreme highs made up for one lackluster noodle dish.
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Char siu baked buns were stellar, perfect ratio of crispy topping, dark baked bottom, and intense roast pork. Each crispy bit of crust was tethered to the yielding insides, with not a bit of wasted fluff. 3/$9.
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buckwheat noodles, a Father’s Day special, bland and uninteresting, absent of acidity.
- Dongbei Vegetarian Long Pot Stickers - very good, filling, lots of crunchy veggies.
- Spring Celtuse, Toasted Bait Shrimp, Extra Virgin Tea Oil – Misguided or refined depending on your perspective. It’s a showcase for the briny shrimp with a nutty, crunchy vegetable backdrop. Very tasty, but a waste of celtuse, which most of their patrons have probably never eaten and whose flavor gets buried. I found myself sucking off the dressing so I could enjoy strips of celtuse on their own.
- Lemongrass and Blueberry Zong with Egg Cream – glutinous rice, blueberries, and lemongrass is a killer combination. The egg cream brought this to an 11. There are some crispy rice bits, which taste like cracker jacks, which are good on their own but I felt distracted from the composition.
I still haven’t figured out how to navigate the menu best, but I plan to change the venue of a future family meal from MY China to here – – walking around Chinatown is more fun, and parking on the roof of the nearby Vallejo Street garage gives one of the best views of the northeastern part of San Francisco
You think most of the patrons on Father’s Day have never eaten celtuce? Was it mostly a Caucasian crowd?
What was in the noodle dish, and why did you expect acidity, when most hand-made noodles are alkaline?
Yes, the crowd as of before noon was predominately, but not exclusively, non-Asian, possibly tourist spillover from the nearby North Beach festival.
The sauce on the buckwheat noodles was minimal and lacking acidity in the form of vinegar, etc. (Btw, the server, who seemed like he was learning the ropes, said they source all their noodles. Is that accurate? Michael Bauer said that the Marco Polo noodles are made by Tony of Tony’s pizza napoletana)
I’m sure none of their noodles are hand-pulled Lanzhou style, or the process would be on full display, a la M.Y. China. It’s possible they are sourced from someplace like Xinfeng Liu’s North American Noodle Company. It would be a nice neighborly touch (globally as well a locally) if Tony G were making the noodles for the “Marco Polo” noodles.
I once overheard a conversation on Columbus Ave. that went something like"
“Ever notice how many cities have Little Italy and Chinatown next to each other?”
“Yeah, now that you mention it. it must have something to do with Marco Polo.”
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I stopped by briefly to try it out late afternoon and was seated at the bar by the bun station.
It looks like they have one large cast iron pan of shenjian bao and one of the (extremely large) Dongbei vegetarian potstickers.
I am always in search of an amazing shenjian bao (for me the ideal is soupy, not too bready, but leavened, and browned well–check out the detailed reports of true Shanghai versions here: http://www.smartshanghai.com/articles/activities/the-shanghai-shengjian-bao-informative-graph)
These were not it
3/4 were juicy, and the meatball inside was tasty and a good texture–not too bouncy or loose, but the bun part wasn’t great. The non-griddled portions were quite thin, not very leavened, and could make for a good version if there hadn’t been huge knots at the bottom, which browned nicely, but since there was so much dough tucked into the interior, just provided a huge gummy mess, overwhelming the crispy bottom, and making it impossible to combine the nicely browned region with the juicy pork insides in a bite.
If they had just made them as a foldover dumpling, like those from Happy Dumplings at a street festival they wouldn’t have had these issues–they wouldn’t be called shenjian bao, but they would taste better.
I liked the celtuce/dried shrimp/tea oil dish even less. Though I read hyperbowler’s criticism I wanted a vegetable, and to me celtuce’s appeal is mostly about texture–it’s lettuce-like taste can use some embellishment. Though the texture and knifework were excellent, the somewhat nutty, somewhat bitter tea oil didn’t go well with the green vegetable, and the dried shrimp didn’t add much. I’ve really enjoyed preparations with brighter flavors, like vinegar, chilies, and garlic, or even rich chicken stock, but the bitter oil and the shrimp drowned out any fresh springiness other than texture.
The elements meant to “elevate” the place didn’t really work for me. Service was awkward, and the drink I ordered was disappointingly sweet, small, and lacking in the herbal flavors advertised.
I think there is a lot of promise: both dishes contained great elements but the final execution flopped. I decided to sate my remaining hunger at DIP down the street.
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The St. Cavish article is a pretty good, if biased, rundown lof shengjian bao, but he missed another important stylistic variation: whether they are browned on the bottom (Shanghai style) or on the pleated side (Suzhou style).
Here are a few more of Shanghai’s finest:
Sichuan Pickled Snake Beans Trumpet mushrooms, pressed bean threads with mala spices. A deceptively named dish – –The iota of pickled beans were delicious, but too scarce to elevate this dish beyond a similar Hodo Soy product available at grocery stores.
Scallion bread. Pretty good, more doughnut like then the standard green onion pancake
Super beefy, And I felt they had a sweet spot in terms of noodle quantity. I was sharing With someone not keen on tendon, so Flesh to tendon ratio was perfect, but if I was eating this by myself I would probably ask for more tendon
Taro water dumplings. These are served 1/4 submerged in water, which the server told me was to help distribute the chili oil on the top and is a traditional presentation in Shandong. Is that true? I found the skin soft inspots, and overly dtense in other spots. Filling was great.
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