Just walked by it and Noodles and Things was in operation. Looks pretty interesting, will probably try it soon
- Mingleâs Mango has relocated from San Jose to Fremont, which puts it in stiffer nearby competition for best XLB in the SFBA.
- the short-lived second location of Berkeleyâs Famous Bao closed in July, and it now appears as per yelp that the original on Telegraph has also shuttered. Anyone know what happened to these Shaanxi inspired noodles places or what the replacements will be?
No Info on what is happening but really bummed. They had my favorite version of Liangpi. 
Seemed pretty busy in there every time I went in at Lunch.
1 Like
I was over by the Durant St. local today by chance. Couldnât stop but it looked like they were open. Saw People inside and they had the Videos of Shaanxi Farming and Cooking running on the Screens above the Registers. May be the Yelpers got confused between the 2 locations?
@BierMonk, thanks for looking into Famous Bao. According to Yelp, both locations are open again!
- Best Noodle (Milpitas) Sichuan, an opening I forgot to post a few months back
- The Duo Entourage (Burlingame) has closed
- Eden Silk Road has closed their Tenderloin location. That location had taken forever to open, partly due to permitting issues IIRC.
- Bao Bao Noodle Bar on Balboa, in the original Shanghai Dumpling King location, appears to have changed its name to New Dumpling King.
Yunnan-style rice noodles are also known as Crossing Bridge Noodles. According to the sign outside Ten Seconds, the dish was invented in 1806 by a woman who would cross a bridge every day in order to bring noodle soup to her husband, a scholar studying for his exams. But by the time she crossed the bridge, the toppings had become soggy â so instead, she brought the broth, noodles, and garnishes separately to keep all the ingredients fresh.
Ten Seconds
145 W Joaquin Ave.
San Leandro
1 Like
Dumpling House in the Castro has opened. It serves beer and wine, which is atypical for dumpling restaurants in SF, and the liquor license is assigned to the previous restaurant at that location, Pho 335, so it appears to be the same owners. Mixture of steamed Cantonese and northern boiled dumplings, XLB (regular, crab, black truffle; Yelp photos indicate rolled by hand in bulk instead of to order), Cantonese buns and noodles, zha Jiang mian.
Smaller menu than nearby Mama Jiâs (which apparently now has Fern Root noodles).
I wonder where the chefs and inspiration came fromâ one owner of Pho 335 was a first time business owner (culinary background unknown), the other has a Vietnamese background according to Hoodline. Thinking how XLB have expanded from Shanghainese restaurants, and become a dim sum staple, Iâm tangentially reminded that the Missionâs World of Noodle (pan-Asian, but part of a Vietnamese chain) and Chinatownâs (Vietnamese-owned dim sum) Golden Saba have XLB, as did non-Asian owned Chino and even Trader Joeâs. Wowâ- 310 yelp hits for XLB, 303 hits for Xiao Long Bao.
1 Like
- In the former Porridge House, Customize Malatang opens in Newark. Yelp photos show Edison bulb illuminated interior, iPad menus, salad bar style malatang, desserts like apple in hot spun toffee (cotton candy-looking thing), and a theme of vertically plated non-malatang dishes suggesting a missed opportunity for Instagram in the 90s.
Iâm not familiar with malatang. I just googled it, but can you tell us how it works? It sounds like an individual hot pot, and you choose the ingredients you want in it. Is that the case? Sounds fun. Thanks.
Hopefully someone can add to my limited knowledge/experience. Hereâs what I understand:
The first I saw malatang was at Beijing Restaurant ~2012. Did places in the South Bay have malatang before this? During their late night hours, you would choose items to put on a skewer, and theyâd cook them in a pot of spicy/numbing broth common to all customers (the soup is for cooking/seasoning, not drinking).
Customize Malatang is a different style, which I havenât eaten personally, but IIRC is more common in the SFBA than the skewers type. For this type, you choose items from a list or by the pound, including things that wouldnât fit on a skewer, and each is cooked in the kitchen (items cooked in same broth, but separately to account for necessary cooking durations ). Then, they bring a pot of everything already cooked to your table in an individual pot. This is different from hot pot in that (1) youâre not doing any of the cooking, and (2) compared to some types of hot pot, the cooking liquid is for seasoning not drinking. Can someone elaborate on whether this style of malatang is individual, communal, or either?
2 Likes
- The Korean Chinese category mainly consists of restaurants whose owners are ethnic Chinese but whose families lived in Korea (there are also some places in Korean supermarket food courts). For the restaurants, some menus like at Great China integrate Chinese and Korean Chinese dishes, others have separate or untranslated menus with Korean Chinese specialties, others only serve Korean Chinese dishes. Iâm adding a new category for Korean restaurants with Korean Chinese dishes. Pollo Pollo (Pleasant Hill), owned by the same family as Ohgane, Mixed Grain, Bowlâd etc. according to the Mercury News has a mostly Korean menu, but also jjampong, regular and seafood Jajangmyeon (handmade noodles!), sweet and sour pork, glazed potato (is this the same as the Dongbei dish.). Yelp photos show danmuji (yellow pickled radishes), but pickled onions instead of the typical raw onion and chunjang dip. Dong baek in the Tenderloin has jjampong, Jajangmyeon (homemade noodles), and udon.
- Korean Chinese Roll n Noodle opened in Hankook Supermarketâs food court in Sunnyvale (thereâs also Kyopo in the Super Kyopo Plaza and Yuyu Zazang at H Mart S De Anza (San Jose)); I donât know if thereâs a Korean Chinese place at the other H Mart currently)
1 Like
There was a Korean-Chinese place inside the 2nd HMart in NSJ when they first opened, but it got replaced a few months ago by the nuevo Hot Dog place.
Another one inside Korean markets that closed was Bokâs Wok inside Galleria Market (due to Galleria itself closing this year)
For reference, Great China and San Tung and Sam Wang in SF are all started/owned by Chinese from Korea.
As the newer generations of Korean-Chinese immigrants are less and less inclined to continue in the restaurant trade, more of these types of restaurants are being taken over by Koreans, and the popular Zhajiangmian (Jajangmyeon) and Chaomamian (jjampong) noodle dishes are being incorporated into regular Korean restaurant menus.
1 Like
- âBeijing dim sumâ takeout Dim Sum USA (Foster City) has been re-opened for a while according to Yelp.
- If youâre in Tracy and have a hankering for liang fen, Midori Fine Asian Cuisine (Tracy), a Chinese American / pan-Asian place has Sichuan Jelly Noodle on the menu (though, not much else of interest to this list)
- Noobowl, which is already open in Westfield Oakridge (San Jose), was slated to open in Westfield SFâs bottom floor foodcourt in Spring 2019. The San Jose location has some Sichuan noodle dishes, a few appetizers, and Biang Biang noodles Yelpers maintain arenât hand-pulled (or as wide as typical biang-biang). Not sure what the holdup is. Keep an eye out.
1 Like
- Linda Zavoral writes that 42 year old Su Hong in Palo Alto will close on Sept. 29th. They had knife shaved noodles and Shanghainese dishes.
- K Tea Cafe (Sunnyvale) has a bunch of Jian bing. I may start Jian bing as a new category since the variations often donât fall into regional as much as chef-created variations (e.g., see Jian bing coverage on goldthread2)
- Northwest China Cuisine (Fremont) has similar items as at local Shaanxi and Muslim Chinese (Hui rather than Uyghur) restaurants including âhouse special pull strip noodle and cold skin noodle [liang pi]"), and some Sichuan dishes too (lots of lamb, no pork). Some photos mention Ningxia province. An untranslated menu item ĺĺłĺŽĺ¤ä¸ĺé (roughly, Hui taste Ningxia variety potâ), explicitly refers to the Hui people, who make up more than 1/3 of NĂngxiaâs population and are facing discrimination from the Chinese government.
- Zumpling (Los Gatos) serves drinks, six types of pork dumplings, a vegan curry dumpling, and thatâs it! The crescent shaped boiled dumplings are formed by a machine and are also available frozen. Is the âKimchi porkâ pao cai as the Chinese name suggests, or Korean style kimchi as the English name suggests?
1 Like
excerpt:
Noodle Home offers another dish, one that Marvin describes as âtotally Xiâan,â that I havenât found anywhere else in the East Bay: paomo, or pita bread in lamb soup. Itâs a dish thatâs especially popular in the Muslim quarter of Xiâan. Traditionally, diners are supposed to tear the âpitaâ bread into tiny pieces in an empty bowl, which gets returned to the kitchen where the broth, glass noodles, and meat are added. âYou give [it to] a customer here, they canât do it properly, and itâs not gonna taste very good,â Marvin said. Instead, the pita bread here is chopped up with a machine that slices it into uniform cubes.
Noodle Home
2690 Castro Valley Blvd., Castro Valley
510-885-1068
Hours: Mon.-Fri. 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m., 5 p.m.-9:30 p.m., Sat.-Sun. 11:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m.
2 Likes
