Regional Chinese roundup 3.0 (SF Bay Area)- December 2018 - October 2019 archive

d’oh, I’ll be out of town, so hope to hear from others about it!

1 Like

I don’t know much about regional Chinese other than to eat them. Hyperbowler would know much more. But I don’t mind the idea of people paying my restaurant bill to hear me talk. Those groupers in the tank look temptingly yummy. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

1 Like

excerpt:

  1. Susannah Chen ‏Verified account @ susannahchen 1h1 hour ago

More

As for the future of Chinese food? @ jonkauffman sees lots of up-and-coming trends like Hunanese dry pot, restaurants focused on basket-steamed fish, places from lesser-known regions like Guilin. (Look out for @ SFC_FoodHome 's updated regional Chinese guide!) <END>

Video!

1 Like

I didn’t know how Luke looks like before watching this.

Same here!

In other news:

  • Gourmet Noodle House on Geary recently closed, and Shanghainese Alley House has replaced it. Their yelp page says, “Grand opening: saozi noodles
    shanghai boiled chicken, Pan fried shanghai pork bun(production on spot),
    Nanxiang xiao long bao pork dumplings, Shanghai style egg rolls).” Interesting that they say the pork buns are made there, but don’t say that for the XLB (FWIW, they have a similar look to those sold by Kingdom of Dumpling).

  • Not for this list, but I’ll mention that Golden Saba has taken over the Oolong Noodles spot. Multi-colored XLB, some Cantonese dim sum.

  • Shaolin Pot has closed

Bummer. I guess when they introduced Wuhan dishes its a sign that things weren’t working. At least its a like-for-like replacement.

Thank you for your list here - as a newbie on this website and Bay Area, I have my weekends planned out for the next year or so. Would you kindly point to the equivalent list for Cantonese/Hong Kong food that you mentioned somewhere at the beginning of this post?

“Some Cantonese sub-categories are included, but let’s focus on Cantonese (i.e., Guangdong) and Hong Kong in other posts since they form the foundation of the Bay Area’s Chinese cuisine, and have lots of specialty shops worthy of their own discussions (e.g., dim sum, desserts, meats, etc.).”

I tried but I couldn’t find one. A directory like yours for Hong Kong and Cantonese food is exactly what I’m looking for.

Welcome to Hungry Onion and welcome to the Bay Area!

Despite occasional goading on my part, I know of no such list here (or elsewhere).

Are there specifics Cantonese dishes, styles, etc. you’re interested in? If so, if you can’t find it in the search functions, start a thread!

Lost in the way too long original post are some search ideas and a link or two:

2 Likes

Ha, very true! Absent mind-reading technology, browsing through @Night07’s profile/posts would be a great primer :slight_smile:

1 Like

Jonathan Kauffman’s shoutout to Hyperbowler and others for assisting on the Chronicle 2019 guide to regional Chinese cuisines in the Bay Area – now expanded to include more than 40 restaurants serving 22 regional cuisines (Guizhou! Hebei!). The print edition will be out on Sunday.

@ jonkauffman

FollowFollow @ jonkauffman

More

So proud of the fearless team of @ pril @ momochang_oak @ Hyperbowler1 for writing new capsules and features, and of course @ CarolynJung and @ madamehuang , whose work continues to play such a critical part of the guide. Also to @ lucchesi for supporting this project in its second year

6 Likes

I understand that this thread is not meant for old style Cantonese banquet houses such as the almost-100-year-old Far East Cafe at 631 Grant Ave in SF Chinatown, but this article by Momo Chang in yesterday’s SF Chronicle provides some context and history on the changes pressuring the more traditional establishments.

excerpts:


There used to be a bell system, which is no longer used, that one could ring for service.

“I believe (it is) the only restaurant left in Chinatown that has retained these private booths,” said Dorothy Quock, who was born in Chinatown in 1934 and is a 28-year veteran tour guide with Wok Wiz Chinatown Tours. “You could bring your mistress, or gang members could talk, or businesspeople who want to make a deal — and no one would bother the patrons or diners unless they ring the bell.”

Today, much of the downstairs business consists of tour groups and school groups. People are asking for more spicy dishes, said Kathy Lee, a manager and Bill Lee’s daughter. Look around Chinatown, and some of the most popular restaurants are Sichuan style; the Ng family’s Uncle H is now named Spicy King. Since more Chinese people have immigrated to the U.S. from different provinces, so too have chefs who cook different regional cuisines.

The E Fu Wonton soup — a Cantonese American staple native to San Francisco Chinatown — includes shrimp, pork, and chicken.

Photo: Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

3 Likes

Unfortunate, because they had some of the best Shanghai noodle specialties since Flying Pan Bistro’s brief tenure as a placeholder for Jai Yun on Clay St. I never found out if they really were connected with the 家有好面 chain in Shanghai, but they didn’t discredit the original by using the name.

Alley House appears to be more of a reboot than a replacement. The owner of record is the same as for Gourmet Noodle House (and the BBQ joint that preceded it), the images “from the owner” look like they were lifted from user photos of Gourmet Noodle House fare, and even some of the crockery appears to be the same.

If they have maintained the quality, I won’t complain, though.

1 Like

Great job @Hyperbowler and team for another good update!

I have to track down a print version at some point. Is there any way to tell from the online site which ones are new this year? I know Jenny’s Kitchen, Wojia, 575 Yunnan, Yang’s are for sure newly added. But I am not completely sure which other ones are too.

Yang’s sounds real good.

@sck, DNM Hot Pot (Inner Mongolia) on Clement and Hakka Cuisine in Fremont were also added.

@Night07, a Cantonese primer would be an amazing (and generous) asset to HO!

In restaurant news:

  • Eater reports that the owners of Dumpling Kitchen on Taraval are retiring and it has closed.
  • The unstoppable @zippo1 reports that Yu’s Idea is closed for remodeling. Their liquor license, attached to former Chili Padi (which shares owners), expires in March.
1 Like
  • 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