Regional Chinese roundup 3.0 (SF Bay Area)- December 2017 - December 2018 archive

Regional Dining Discussions SF Bay Area, NorCal, Tahoe
41

And no wonder why servers steer people away from the dishes for locals.

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42

The project is in today’s print edition of the SF Chronicle (mention on the front page!).

There’s also an interactive version of the project on the Chronicle website.

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43

The online version looks great! I’m going to have to figure out a way around the paywall, though.

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44

Looks good, though I disagree with their characterization of Tibetan cuisine as Chinese, even though technically it comes from a region of China.

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45

I didn’t see China Village in the Sichuan listings. I wonder why.

46

Another omission would be San Tung under the Shandong category. Only Great China was listed.

47

They couldn’t list them all. How about Bund Shanghai under Shanghainese, Silk Road under Xinjiang, etc.

48

Carolyn Philips still has Yum’s Bistro on the list. I guess it was written before knowing the recent pending retirement of the Boson Yum?

49

I wouldn’t read too much into a place not being included! Things such as menu overlap, geographical distribution in the Bay Area, and, of course, food quality during visits played into whether a restaurant made it into the guide’s final 36 restaurants. A few places closed after they were written up, and there wasn’t time to visit alternatives.

50

Which ones?

Some would probably have a heart attack at the inclusion of Taiwanese as part of the article titled ‘Many Chinas, Many Tables’, with the first sentence of the introduction ‘Bay Area diners can now taste many of China’s regional cuisines’. Perhaps a better way to interpret the intent is this is a project about Chinese food, whether it falls under China or not.

But yes I’d agree with you Tibetan is probably closer to Central Asian than Chinese food, until the central government directing more and more ethnic Han people to move there in recent years.

But what is Chinese food really? I’d argue there isn’t such a thing as Chinese food. ‘Chinese food’ is merely a byproduct of geopolitics. China happens to be one big country. But if each of the provinces is its own country, then it wouldn’t make sense to call the food Chinese food, just like it doesn’t make sense to call e.g. French food European food.

But even though China is a big country, I cringe every time people say they want Chinese food. I think this project, along with Hyperbowler’s regional Chinese list here, will illuminate that Chinese food is not uniform group of food.

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51

The cuisine generally referred to as Taiwanese is mostly a mashup of foods from various regions of China, especially Jiangnan and Fujian regions. I become apoplectic when some fool identifies xiao long bao as a Taiwanese specialty. It’s equally ludicrous to label xian doujiang Taiwanese, IMHO.

Maybe it should be called “Chinese Taipei Cuisine.” That works in the Olympics.

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52

  • The Little Fresh (Inner Sunset) Owner from Tianjin. Small menu, mainly Sichuan dishes

  • Lavender Hot Pot (Newark) All you can eat hot pot. One of the varieties is “Fujian Ginger Duck Soup Pot”. Is that available elsewhere?

  • Tie Ge Restaurant (West San Jose) Shaokao (skewers) and hot pot

  • Liuyishou Hotpot (San Mateo) Chongqing hot pot. International chain with 1000 locations around the world.

  • Bamboo y Kitchen (San Jose) Wuhan specialities. I’m curious is this is where the chef from shuttered Qiwei Kitchen wound up.

53

According to Hoodline, Little Fresh is in the old Alice Taste of Shandong location and is takeout and delivery only. I’ll definitely be following up with a meal.

New:

  • Xiang Yuan Xiao Long Bao (San Leandro) Shanghai style. This and Allie Daddy’s, which serves shaokao, are the only two San Leandro restaurants on this list.
54

HoDaLa (Taiwanese) opened recently in the Outer Richmond

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55

Thanks for the alert! Also in western SF…

  • Yuanbao Jiaozi (Outer Sunset) Northern dumplings, does not appear to be related to any other businesses. Dumplings available boiled, in soup, or pan-fried (off the top of my head, only Tasty Place in Millbrae gives those three options).
56

Bamboo Y Kitchen, Wuhan cuisine in San Jose

57

Whoa, how long has ABC been incorporating articles from Hoodline? Congrats to them for gaining that partnership, and for bringing attention to smaller restaurants in the South Bay (I’m hoping to see in depth South Bay pieces like they’ve done for Chinese restaurants in San Francisco, currently for the South Bay they seem to be summarizing information gathered from yelp’s “hot and new” category)

58

The place is like an hour and a half from SF though! Mercury News can gain some readers by writing more about these restaurants though.

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59

  • AI Noodle ( Cupertino ) Closed. No news what is replacing Cupertino Village Taiwanese restaurant

  • Hakka Cuisine (Fremont)

  • No. 1 SF BBQ shaokao/skewers on Clement In the inner Richmond

  • Similar to Fresh Elements or Tastee steam kitchen, Pop kitchen Specializes in steamed seafood, cooked at the table, with a porridge underneath. I’m going to create a new category for this under Guangdong

60

Do we have other Hakka-specific restaurants in the Bay Area? They do have Hakka dishes like braised pork with preserved vegetables, salt-baked chicken, etc.

Then people are going to keep asking you why you aren’t categorizing other Cantonese food!