Apt Li Xiang (Milpitas) Taiwanese chain in the former Kung Fu Noodles space (was also a Chaozhou restaurant for a while. Menu includes beef noodle soup, dumplings, Shanghainese dishes such as XLB, pleat-down Sheng Jian Bao.
Root Chinese Restaurant (South SF), the Bay Area’s only restaurant with non-noodle based Jiangxi style dishes, has closed. The East Bay’s Noodles Fresh is from Jiangxi and has a few dishes made with Jiangxi rice noodles.
Open
Tasty Pot adds a Concord location, which had previously been reported in the Mercury News
As noted in my last post, The Skewer Bar (San Jose) opened in the old Golden Garlic space.
Future
Myeongdong Ja Jang is opening in the Pacific Pearl shopping center in Pleasanton according to ABC records and a story in Whatnowsf
Hunan Mifen adds a San Jose location to their recently opened Sunnyvale location.
An owner of neighboring Beijing Duck House has opened Zest Food in Cupertino and featured shaokao/skewers. This has been a long time in the making-- I first noticed this in ABC records in December 2019.
88 Bao Bao expands beyond their Dublin location to a location in Castro Valley
Elena Kadvany at the SF Chronicle reported about recently opened Bǎo Bèi, a Taiwanese and Korean project from former Maum chefs Meichih and Michael Kim
In the former Little Hot Pot location, Hot Pot Bros (Fremont) opens with hot pot, malatang, shaokao/skewers … and a robot server.
Fen is the name of the San Mateo location of Classic Guilin Rice Noodles (which has locations in Oakland/Milpitas)
Closures
Pan Fried Dumplings San Jose is reported as per Yelp, leaving a Newark location and sister restaurant Yummy Yummy Bao.
Pop Pot, a Taiwanese style hot pot restaurant in San Jose, has closed per yelp.
Grilled Chicken Skeleton, sometimes listed on menus as “chicken racks”, isn’t too common in the SFBA. The seasoned bones with some meat to chew would be a smaller investment that the fried bones that accompany the roast duck a few doors doors down. Any ideas how this differs from the pan-fried chicken carcass?
What’s the seasoning for the 9 varieties of 锡纸系列 Foil Pot? One of the variations is corn cheese, which maybe is the same as the Korean dish.
Yelp indicates Oakland Eden Silk Road has closed and I’ve confirmed that their phone number is unactive. It was the last remaining SFBA location of the Herembag chain, notable for their Uyghur dishes. They had first opened in Fremont, and former employees went onto open businesses such as now-closed Sama Uyghur and, what’s now the only SFBA Uyghur restaurant, Küsan Uyghur Cuisine, which has a main San Jose location and a San Francisco virtual kitchen HO. For more background, see Momo Chang’s 2020 article.
Happy House (San Jose) which was part of the Northeastern Chinese LiLian Gui XunRou DaBing chain.
Mountain View’s Chang’an Artisan Noodle has closed.
I’m saddened to report that a Yelper saw a sign at San Carlos’s Panda Dumpling announcing their closure. HO members were fond of their XLB and other dishes.
Gangnam House, whose name was a play on the Jiangnan region, has closed.
well that was real unlucky for them. KTSF reported that a driver yesterday at 1pm accidentally rammed the car from the parking lot into the restaurant. Damaged the window area and part of inside. They were closed on Mondays so no injuries fortunately, but they will only open for takeouts for the time being.
Crab Lover (Cupertino) has closed, and been replaced by a part of the Porridge/Noodles & Things group, which has Chiu Chow appetizers and soups and things (h/t/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/SFhappyeaters). English name is “Special Noodle Soup”, at least according to ABC records.
North Oakland/Temescal’s Korean-Chinese Koryo Jajang has been replaced with Gangnam Jajang. I’m flooded with memories thinking about meals I had there when I lived in Oakland, and am glad to see a similar format restaurant continuing.
Soon, I’m going to link all the Chowhound links in the original post to the corresponding posts on archive.org. In the meantime,
Openings
Pan-Fried Dumplings is now Special Noodle (West San Jose) , self described as “XLB , Soup pan fry pork buns , Chinese street snacks and super delicious special noodle bowls.” The receipt suggests it’s still part of the same “Four sisters” group.
Tong Dumpling now has San Jose location. They have a few Shandong items on the “Chef’s Specials” section of their menu and their Cupertino location had/has? some Shandong specialities too.
Dumpling 85 (San Ramon) sheng jian bao, a few types of XLB, three noodle dishes (lanzhou beef noodle, ginger scallion, zha Jiang). Whoa— the beef pancake is a pan-fried/sealed/stuffed xian bing!
Highland Noodles (Milpitas) replaces Flaming Village Szechuan Restaurant. I can’t find a menu… the Chinese name, and Yelp reviews, mention Lanzhou hand pulled noodle soup, and I’m seeing pics of Northeastern-style sweet and sour pork.
Special Noodle Soup (Cupertino) replaces Crab Lover and has some Chiu Chow Appetizers. Menu echoes Noodles/Porridge & Things, but none show a relationship on their respective websites.
I don’t really have anything positive to say about this man who filed all these ADA lawsuit. My car mechanic closed up his shop because of his lawsuit, and now Panda Dumpling.