-
Henry Hunan’s Grant St. location is reported as closed on Yelp. Jonathan Kauffman wrote in 2015 about their (at the time) untranslated Chinese menu that had Sichuan and Hunan dishes that departed from the Chinese American tilt of the other locations.
-
Xi’an Taste in Newark has closed.
-
Smoky Man (SF Outer Sunset) has closed
-
I’ve learned that the trio of Sizzling Pot Kings we have are part of a chain that started in San Diego, and now in Seattle and Chicago. That means, to my knowledge, the only local chain that has extended outside the Bay Area is Tasty Pot, which originated in San Jose (according to Luke Tsai), and now has 17 locations in North America; and a few places that are in the Davis/Sacramento area.
The former site of Yu’s Idea at 366 8th Street in Oakland Chinatown now has a sign on it reading “Eden Silk Road” and a notice of change of stock ownership dated March 2019. Today I saw two workers emerging from the unlocked gate in front of the space and when I asked them when the restaurant would open, they replied that it would be soon, this month.
Here is a link to 9 photos taken today:
1 Like
I guess the owners of Yu’s Idea, who had two previous concepts at that location, finally called it quits!
Interesting to see Eden Silk Road expanding— adding Chaozhao hotpot and a few other random things, maybe to bank off neighboring Little Sheep, their San Mateo location seems to be having an identify crisis. Say what you want about the chain itself, the former workers have gone onto open Sama Uyghur and Kusan Uyghur.
Also:
- Ten Seconds Yunnan Rice Noodle (San Leandro) Shi Miao Dao chain, specializes in Yunnan’s Crossing Bridge Rice noodles. The formula seems to be a soup (original crossing bridge, pickled pepper, etc.) accompanied by 10 small dishes (corn quail egg, pickled cabbage). They also have a dish listed as “Chinese Miao Style Beef” (Miao referring to the ethnic group)— I can’t recall any other menus with a similarly named dish.
- Sarah Han at Berkeleyside reports about New Dumpling in El Cerrito, a jiaozi specialist owned by a family originally from Shenyang (kudos to Sarah for a very informative review, and heh, reporting on a restaurant that, as of last night when I checked, wasn’t yet on everyone’s radar via Yelp’s “Hot & New” feature. That may be the first time in the history of this list that a news site has done such a thing.)
- Flaming Village Sichuan Cuisine (Milpitas) opened in the former South Legend space. They have separate Chinese language and English menus, which is atypical these days. In a cursory look may just be a space saving issue rather than having different content, but I note Jiangnan mentioned on the Chinese but not English menu.
2 Likes
There were several Yelp reviews of New Dumpling as of this morning. I went there for lunch today, and it was ok. They’re still in “soft opening”, and it took a long time for the food to arrive.
1 Like
Although Eden Silk Road in Oakland Chinatown at 366 8th Street hasn’t opened yet, there has been slow but steady progress on refurbishing the site with new fixtures, fresh paint, new tile on the archway at the street entrance and new signage. A few weeks ago, handwritten signs in English and Chinese were posted at the front gate advertising help wanted for kitchen workers.
Today I saw a man inside the restaurant near the front door and from outside the closed gate I asked him when it would open and he replied, “next week.”
2 Likes
The San Mateo Eden still has the beer and wine license, but has been replaced by Chef Sho which, according to the windows, has hot pot, shaokao (skewers), and 江湖菜 which (translation/idiomatic help needed here folks), may refer to a genre of Chongqing cuisine.
Chef Zhao in San Mateo uses the term 江湖 (literally rivers and lakes) for his 江湖水煮魚 (water boiled fish) and Spices SF uses it for their NUMBING SPICY “GANGSTA” CASSEROLE(麻辣江湖鍋).
Ha, I am humbled in that sense but thanks for the shout out. I think it would be fun trying to put together a primer for that though the only issue being that some places I haven’t gone for a while so who knows what changed. If I have some time I can start one haha.
2 Likes
King of Noodles now is operating (sharing?) the kitchen in the Underground Grill King 2543 Noriega, San Francisco karaoke/restaurant space according to a Yelp page. To my knowledge, this is the first business affiliated with Kingdom of Dumpling/Noodles to have alcohol.
1 Like
Michelin has released its first book to focus on a particular cuisine, in this case Cantonese.
Sadly, the Amazon page doesn’t allow you to view the pages. I’d like to see what they have for California.
1 Like
I wonder how much is just rehashed material specific to Cantonese cuisine from their various geographic guides:
Fine Cantonese Food by the Michelin Guide 2018-2019: Asia, Europe and USA
Featured Establishments in the United States
San Francisco
Mister Jiu’s (One Star)
Hong Kong Lounge II (Bib Gourmand)
Lai Hong Lounge (Bib Gourmand)
M.Y. China (Bib Gourmand)
Yank Sing (Bib Gourmand)
Hong Kong Flower Lounge (Plate)
Koi Palace (Plate)
Chicago
Jade Court (Bib Gourmand)
Minghin (Bib Gourmand)
Phoenix (Plate)
New York City
Congee Village (Bib Gourmand)
Dim Sum Go Go (Bib Gourmand)
East Harbor Seafood Palace (Bib Gourmand)
Golden Unicorn (Plate)
Great N.Y. Noodletown (Plate)
Hakkasan (Plate)
1 Like
It’s a decent list for SF, but I wouldn’t characterize Mister Jiu’s as Cantonese. It’s a bit of a stretch for M.Y. China as well, IMHO. Their best dishes are the northern-style noodle and dumpling dishes.
1 Like
- Chan’s Kitchen in Oakland Chinatown is reported closed according to Yelp. Hmmm… from the storefront, appeared to be open a few days ago.
Yelp pulled their ‘Closed’ sign. I walked by today at noon and a handwritten sign on the door said ‘Temporary Close,’ a metal metal gate was slightly open and all the chairs and fixture were in their proper places. I didn’t see any staff, workers or patrons but my guess is that they are doing some internal upgrades.
1 Like
Thanks!
On a similar note, A One Kitchen, in San Bruno, has a new Yelp review mentioning hot pot and what looks like chopped meat in a chicken leg shape stuffed with melted yellow cheese.
Melted cheese? More likely a take on bang bang sauce (mayonnaise and yellow curry).
From what tradition is bang bang sauce mayo and yellow curry? I know of only the Sichuan version with scallions soy, vinegar, sesame, chili, and Sichuan peppercorn.
