Oh that makes sense. and… wait, where did he say his brother in law came from Montreal?
He didn’t. But @Oliverb is from Montreal and I assumed that his BIL at least was familiar with Montreal and Montreal’s Chinatown. You can blame brother @sck for planting that thought in my head. 
John Chinn’s dragon beard candy shop on R. De la Gauchetière, the main drag through the “Quartier Chinois” is as famous a Chinatown landmark in Montreal as (if not more so than) Grant Avenue’s Golden Gate Bakery is in San Francisco.
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Yeah perhaps hes not even a Canadian. Perhaps he’s from …Sacramento!
I agree that Z&Y has a deft touch with oil. Most of the issues I had with a recent meal involved toning down of spice heat, but the cooking was good overall. I need to return and specifically ask them to ramp up the heat.
I think you meant “Jiangnan Cuisine” rather than Shanghai Cuisine. That place deserves lines out the door.
Note that Mister Jiu’s bar is far more crowded than China Live’s. That’s a good or a bad thing depending on what kind of scene the OP’s BIL is interested in.
I like both that one, and the Shanghai Noodle House too on Geary that you wrote about.
Scene? Then you really can’t beat a place like New Woey Loy Goey or New Lun Ting. I haven’t been, but Kam Lok may be just as fine. The OP’s BIL may even pick up a swear word or two while eating.
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Correct, I meant Jiangnan Cuisine. The chef’s cooking style is so similar to my wife’s (she is Wuxiren by way of Shanghai) that it seems to epitomize home-style Shanghainese to me.
Mr. Jiu’s cocktails are TOO popular. While it’s theoretically possible to eat at the bar, it’s usually packed two deep with people waiting for their table and techies who could care less about the food enjoying their $15 cocktails.
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Nothing fancy but one of my favorite is the New Woey Luy Kee on the corner of Jackson and Grant in the basement. One of the oldest places in Chinatown.
Actually I quite like their steamed meat patty (I think… with duck liver sausage if I’m not mistaken) and their steamed catfish with black bean sauce.
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You are right about that. Its roots go back to 1903 or earlier. In the early 60’s Woey Loy Goey kept me alive with its 10 cent baked pork buns, and an occasional splurge for its mountainous platters of roast pork over rice.
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Sorry for the late response and thanks for all the great feedback!!!
I’ll just respond to everything in this post…
We love Dragon Beaux for dimsum (hands down favorite within city limits) but haven’t been for hotpot yet. We can only do lunch because my BIL is driving up north somewhere and just stopping in SF for a couple of hours, so dinner menus and dinner hours are not option.
BIL is from Orange County btw… My wife’s a California girl through & through!
The very first meal that I ever ate with my wife (before we were even dating!) was at Jai Yun. It was literally the night we met. I think it since moved locations but it would still be fun to go back sometime and see what it’s like. It’s not a lunch choice though.
As far as Chinatown crawl… it sounds like fun and my wife and I have done that before (we’re on Van Ness and Clay so it’s a stone’s throw) but I’m not so sure that would be my in laws speed; at least not for this quick visit.
I have to say that I probably won’t ever go back to R&G though. I had the house special crab last winter and I never got so immediately sick from eating out before. I couldn’t even make it home on the bus; we had to hop off because I was feeling too nauseous. I could still taste it, ugh. It could’ve just been the heavy fried batter and oil. Maybe I’d go back but I would never touch that crab again… or anything fried for that matter.
Z&Y is always good, we’re regulars although my wife thinks its gone downhill in the past couple of years. She likes spicy but tones it down. My one main hang up with Z&Y is the amount of cilantro they dump in everything, even when I request them not to. I know its part of Chinese food culture but its also public enemy number one in my culinary book. Anyhow, I find Z&Y, like most SF Chinese, can be really good if you order selectively and really bad if you don’t. Our last visit we had a really disappointing Peking duck.
Chili House - ordered lunch there the other day! I got tantanmen, prok mapo tofu, and their spicy + Beijing dumplings/potstickers. Everything was pretty good for a delivery order and I’d definitely like to try it in person.
Mr. Jiu pretty sure is dinner only and I could be mistaken but I was under the impression that it was pretty expensive/fancy… not that there’s anything wrong with that, but we’re going to be down in New Orleans next month, so I’d prefer to not splurge on this meal. I’ve heard good things about their cocktails though and I’ve been meaning to just swing by their bar w/ my wife on a Sunday evening when it’s not too busy.
BTW, I LOVE Cantonese Lobster w/ ginger shallots… it’s the only truly good thing about Chinese in Montreal! Well, that and late night dining!! My friends who now all live in Toronto --which I agree has far superior Chinese and Asian food in general compared to MTL-- used to have a loft space on St-Laurent and they’d screen 16mm films on weekends. We used to regularly stumble over to Keung Kee (Cantonese upstairs above Beijing Rest-old Chinatown institution) at 1:00 in the morning when it was just the staff lounging around the dining room and order lobsters and beer!
There’s supposed to be a new hot spot for Chinese pancakes in MTL these days, although I’m not all that inclined to to go for Chinese when we visit. I was surprised to find that Ottawa actually has pretty good Chinese. My wife and I drove down for something a few years ago and had some really kickass dimsum in Ottawa’s one and a half block stretch of “Chinatown”. I forget the name of the place but it was a real cramped, greasy hole in the wall and some of the dishes rivaled the best we’ve had in SF!
OT but is there any place that does Cantonese lobster sauce (and does it well?) in this city? It could be served with shrimp or whatever.
Oh, I forgot to post the frustrating conclusion to this thread…
I sent many of these suggestions to my BIL the other day and he wrote back:
“I would rather go to a place that has a cool/hip/memorable environment.”
Is China Live a “hip” environment?? It’s no Empress!!
I guess he’s set on CL but c’mon, it’s a room you eat in, man!
What’s good other than the pork buns, deserts and cocktails?
See, my Sacramento guess is not that far off!
China Live then.
But then again, New Woey Loey Guey is pretty memorable to anyone who’s unfamiliar 
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After all the research you did!
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China Live -
From my research, the dishes to go for seem to be:
- Dongbei Vegetarian Potstickers
- Verdict isn’t out yet on Sheng Jian Bao; too doughy?
- Peking Duck w/ Kumquat Glaze in Sesame Buns
- Char Siu Baked Buns
- Pork Belly Lotus Buns
- people on yelp seem to like the Crackling Fragrant Garlic Chicken…
To avoid:
- XLB
- Marco Polo Zhajianmian Noodles (bland?)
How am I doing so far and what’s missing other than a few mai tais?
What about deserts? What’s good?
I too had a disastrous Dungeness crab experience at R&G. I didn’t get sick, but it was all but inedible. I generally recommend Great Eastern for Cantonese as being more consistently good across the menu and less expensive.
You are correct, Mr. Jiu’s is not open for lunch. For the record, it’s not as expensive as you might think if you order judiciously. My daughter and I ate quite well for $110 exclusive of drinks, T&T. Here’s my report from last Christmas:
Glad you backed me up on Montreal Chinatown for my love of its perennial lobster “festival.” Back in the early 90s one restaurant featured two whole lobsters for $13.95 CDN. At the time, the rate of exchange was about 1.6, so that was less than $9 USD. We pigged out on that trip.
Take your BIL to Li Po for a Chinese Mai Tai. Nothing hipper.
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They had a decent Taiwanese-style beef noodle soup when I was first there (forgot what they called it on the menu). The shenjiangbao were sub-par (not enough grease, for one thing) but fun to watch being made, with the traditional huge cast-iron SJB pan and the wooden lid. A real bit of Shanghai nostalgia there.
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Couldn’t get this to upload last night, but here it is for your memory.
I knew that stretch of St.-Laurent pretty well because I often stayed at the Travelodge around the corner on Rene-Levesque. When I got in late (which was always, coming from SF) I would usually end up at Pho Bang NY or the Golden Fries place in the other direction, for a MIchigan or two. Wish I knew about the lobbster & beer place.
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Oh! The next time you visit your BIL in OC, you can school him in Sichuan food at Szechuan Impression in Tustin. I liked them way more than Z&Y.
Unless your brother is an SJB obsessive like many of us on the board, you should get them.
Whether as part of a dish or just as an aside, make sure to taste the house black vinegar from the table
In terms of cocktails, I’m the wrong person ask. I will point out that i’ve had their cocktail with Sichuan peppercorns Twice, and neither time have I tasted Sichuan peppercorns.
Many of their desserts rotate. Soft serve is always excellent. Below is the Sesame Soft Serve, Mango Shaved Ice from July.
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Thanks on all counts!!
Are those tapioca balls or lychees in the sesame soft serve and is it super sweet?
