Regional Chinese roundup 3.0 (SF Bay Area)- May 2021 - Jan 2023 archive

Openings

  • Old Pier Hong Kong BBQ and Hot Pot (SF Parkside) malatang & hotpot in addition to the Hong Kong bbq & noodles/soups
  • Hunan Mifen (Sunnyvale) Hunan noodles
  • 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.
  • Shihlin Taiwan Street Snacks (Santa Clara) new location of Taiwanese chain
  • A Yelper reports that Tianjin-specialist Golden Garlic (San Jose) has been replaced by a place called The Skewer Bar. Any more info out there?
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Closed

  • A Heart Szechuan Fish (Hayward)
  • Little Sichuan (San Mateo)
  • 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
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Openings

  • 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.
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Some interesting notes on Zest Food’s menu:

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.

It looks like a good chunk of the menu is identical to Boston’s Friendship BBQ.

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Openings

  • Hunan Mifen has added a third location in Newark, the Sunnyvale and San Jose locations both opened in 2nd half of 2021.

Closures

  • Flaming Kitchen (Millbrae), which had hot pot & Taiwanese food
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A Guilin place with branches in Milpitas, Oakland and San Mateo- Fen.

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Closures

  • 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.
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Ahh. I noticed they weren’t open last time I stopped by that mall a month ago. Didn’t realize they are gone for good.

Looks like they’re closed for good, at least at that location and/or format—- they transferred the liquor license to a sushi restaurant (different people) at the same address: https://www.abc.ca.gov/licensing/license-lookup/single-license/?RPTTYPE=12&LICENSE=632478

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Closures

  • 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.

Openings

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Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

That’s so sad. But then again, I haven’t been there for a couple of years because of the pandemic…

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Jiangnan Cuisine on Balboa has re-opened as Rong’s, reportedly with the same chef, different owners!

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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.

Openings

  • 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.
  • Dumpling Time has opened their San Jose location.

Closures

  • Dragon Gate Bar & Grille documented the closure of the 8 year old restaurant on their Facebook page.
  • Flaming House (Newark) has closed. It had undergone some format iterations, including Hunan style food.
  • Flaming Kitchen (Millbrae) Taiwanese/Hotpot has closed.
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5249 Mission St., Korean-Chinese

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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.
  • JJamPPong, Korean Chinese, was mentioned one thread back. Anyone try it so far?
  • Top Pot opens a Pleasanton location
  • 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.

Closures

  • Pan-Fried Dumplings (West San Jose)
  • Flaming Village Szechuan Restaurant (Milpitas)
  • Fashion Wok (Foster City)
  • A Heart Szechuan Fish (Hayward)
  • Wok This Way (SF Richmond district)
  • Shanghai Cuisine (Union City)
  • Noodle Talk (Sunnyvale)
  • Simmer (SF Parkside)
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Thanks for your continuing updates!!! Any news about Yum Cha Palace in Menlo Park? It appears to be closed…

Closed

  • Soupterra (San Jose)
  • Noodle Talk (San Jose), which specialized in Hunan noodles, and still has two sister restaurants
  • Underground Grill King/King of Noodles Noriega
  • Fang Yuan Kitchen (SF), which served Sichuan items
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Palo Alto Daily Post reported that Panda Dumpling closed due to the person who files ADA lawsuits against many different restaurants.

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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.

What goes around, comes around.

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