Yi Yuan in Millbrae has closed. Earl Spicy takes over the same location. The Chinese name indicates it is Sichuan and Hunan. Large banner outside says new management.
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- Hong Fu Gourmet (Cupertino), which had an untranslated menu of Sichuan and other specialties for years, has closed.
- Luke Tsai’s ode to San Mateo’s Japanese Chinese Yu Raku Justifies a new sub-category in this list. See also older CH thread.
- No. 1 SF BBQ is now Top SF BBQ and has moved to 2311 Clement St.
Openings
- I Chef (Cupertino) hunan
- Original owners of Hakka Restaurant on Carrillo have opened Zhong Shan Hakka Cuisine in Parkside SF’s former Zhong Shan Restaurant’s former space
- Eng’s Zongzi (Mountain View) frozen zongzi, jiaozi, and wontons
- Bao Chinese Eats (Willow Glen, San Jose) gua bao and cheese tea
I’m just catching up with this video now. Are there any Bay Area restaurants that serve these dishes?
Chili House in SF has what I believe are xian bing, they call it in English beef pork pancakes on the menu.
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Internet spotty, can’t watch video. For xian bing in the South Bay (I can’t think of places elsewhere):
Jenny’s Kitchen (San Jose, I love them), Ding’s Kitchen (Sunnyvale), Tastier Panburger (Cupertino), ASJ Restaurant (San Jose)
Other kinds of meat pies in SF, I prefer Beijing Restaurant to Old Mandarin. Worth looking through “Beijing” section in Original Post too.
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Royal Feast has xian bing, fish being my favorite version. I can’t think of any East Bay places off the top of my head, but I’d love to hear of one.
I understand he took the fish xian bing 馅饼 , pictured above, off the revamped menu 
, and I hope someone will correct me.
Here’s a lousy pic of the standard menu and trays of bing at Jenny’s kitchen, which always has the chive pie (Chinese chives, eggs, vermicelli) and the “pork onion pie”, which is a xian bing as well IIRC despite the Chinese name. Depending on the daily whim, I understand she has other fillings in the xian bing, but the yeast or regular green onion pancakes, multilayer pork pie), or various “rolls” (green onion pancakes wrapped around stuff) are no second fiddle.
A related kind of item is at Fuji huosho
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Easterly replaces Bamboo Garden in Millbrae. I did not know about this restaurant, but from hyperbowler’s Hunan restaurants thread, it looks like this is another branch of the Hunan restaurant chain.
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That makes it the 4th “scheduled” Easterly, although so far only the original one is open. With the massive expansion effort, not sure if the quality can hold up.
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Wow!
- As @Kirk_T said, Easterly (Millbrae) opens the third of its locations, and the international chain mentioned in the 2019 Hunan Roundup plans two more
- @Mr_Happy discovered that Cheng Hu, formerly of Tai Chi Jian Bing has opened up a street cart on Market St. in Soma
- Mumu Hot Pot opened up their third location in Foster City. It’s an offshoot of Boiling Hot Pot (SF, Fremont)
Closures:
- Mingle’s Mango
- Boks Wok - Galleria Market
- TLT BBQ (Fremont)
- Capputea (Taiwanese), which replaced Hanlin on Kearny in Chinatown, has closed according to Yelp.
Wow that was fast.
- Berkeley’s Famous Bao closed their Shattuck location according to Yelp. The original location on Telegraph appears still open.
- Dumpling Alley replaces 100% Sweet Cafe on Clement in SF’s Outer Richmond. Black truffle XLB, chicken zucchini & black truffle xlb ( their creation or someone else do this too?), steamed duck buns, pan fried leavened buns, a few noodle dishes, homemade soy milk.
- Westfield Oakridge (San Jose) and maybe already in SF Westfield, Noobowl, food court Sichuan labeled dishes finally hit the mall. I’m guessing the biang biang noodles aren’t true to their name.
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First we have the overly-grandoise-sounding Kingdom of Dumpling, Dumpling City, etc. Now we have names on the other end of the spectrum- Dumpling Alley?!
I passed by Eng’s Zongzi storefront the other day in Mountain View. They have been selling zongzi from a home kitchen in Fremont. I will stop by some time.
With Peking Alley (San Mateo) and Alley House (SF Inner Richmond), it was only a matter of time before “alley” became paired with dumpling. Gotta give Yuanbao Jiaozi props for stirring things up.
Could I commission someone to illustrate the first Hungry Onion children’s story, in which the King of Dumplings, last of the House of Dumplings in the Dumpling Era, takes a Journey to the Dumpling from the Kingdom of Dumpling to visit Dumpling Specialist, “Panda Dumpling,” who lived in the House of Dumplings, in Dumpling Garden neighborhood of Dumpling City, right next to the Dumpling Depot, and was famous for growling “iDumpling” whenever New Dumpling music put them in a Happy Dumpling mood while eating a Yummy Dumpling? (sorry, to quote Gary Larson, “it was late and I was tired”)
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- Some changes at MK Noodle (Dublin). They’ll no longer be doing knife shaved noodles, but will have instead have in-house machine cut noodles. The two Shanxi-specific dishes are the Shanxi style noodles (pork, egg, wood ear mushroom, yellow and green onion, black (mature?) vinegar), and Shanxi pork, similar dish without the noodles or vinegar. I think the owner said they’ll be introducing some new, non-Shanxi, dishes too.
- Yummy Yummy Bao (Milpitas) from the owners of Hunan Cuisine (San Jose) / Love My Buns (Fremont)
Some maintenance things:
- I split a bunch of Taiwanese restaurants into a category called “Taiwanese bento/steam plate, not tea-focussed”.
- I’ve added “Sells frozen dumplings too” to a number of businesses.
- Closed restaurants are now listed on the Graveyard of SFBA regional Chinese restaurant thread, which I’ll periodically update. There are currently about 250 closed restaurants that were deleted from the regional list when they closed, or which closed prior to the list’s 2014 inception (I’m only listing places with yelp pages, so nothing is included that closed before 2004)
Closures
- Spicy Garden Restaurant (SF SoMa) HO has closed.
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just opened, according to Berkeleyside and one review so far on Yelp:
MA LA ZUI TASTY BOWL Formerly Duck Duck Chicken (DDC) Café, this new Chinese spot with Sichuan-style dishes (and spice levels) features a picture-driven menu, $11 lunch specials and customizable stir fries. Ma La Zui Tasty Bowl , 2017 Shattuck Ave. (between University and Addison), Berkeley
some specials:
01 Sliced beef and ox stomach(夫妻肺片）
06 Chinese Pickled Fish (酸菜鱼）
B25 Sauerkraut Fish 老汤酸菜鱼
13 Chuanbei cold potato noodles(川北凉粉）
15 Duck blood cake (毛血旺）
G14 Beef Burrito 牛肉卷饼
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Closures
- Bao Bao House (Milbrae), and the Hu Tong Jian Bing pop-up is collateral damage. The replacement will be Noodles & Things, which promises Chiu Chow daa laang.
- Miaos Café Deli, the Shaanxi place in Fremont
Openings
- iPot Plus (Millbrae), relative to the Irving St. location, the “plus” refers in part to grills attached to each table in addition to the hotpot heating elements.
- Zhangfei Hot Pot (Fremont) Sichuan hot pot. General Zhang Fei’s name also appears in a Sichuan dried beef dish locally available at Albany’s China Village and 680 corridor descendants Sichuan House and Sichuan Fortune House).
- Good to eat Dumplings, Taiwanese, has full time hours in Oakland as well as still doing popup events.
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