Thank you for the good news about Eng’s ZongZi opening in San Jose, we have missed them terribly! Looking forward to trying them 
Growing up, I often frequented Hakka in San Mateo on 3rd Ave. Takeout and grab a daiquiri ice from BR 31 Flavors next door…Hakka has since gone a while ago and the location has changed hands a few times.
- Serious Dumpling in San Jose has four types of Sheng Jian Bao (pork, pork & shrimp, beef and cheese, and vegetarian). I’ve eaten pork & shrimp SJB at the SF Mom Dumpling location, but can’t recall seeing beef & cheese or a vegetarian one elsewhere. XLB include a “pho XLB”.
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Closures
- Suanlafen Noodles (Milpitas)
- Cafe Taiwan (Pleasanton)
- Shihlin Taiwan Street Snacks (Berkeley)
oh no, we really liked shihlin (at least their fried chicken, their lu-ru-fan was mediocre at best)
I hope their stones town location remains open
lobo
Lots of openings
- Dumpling Hours 2, a Brentwood location of the XLB/SJB specialist (Hayes Valley Dumpling Home and Walnut Creek’s Dumpling Hours)
- Dough Zone, the Seattle-based chain, adds a San Jose location
- Chong Qing Noodle House in Alameda
- OX 9 Lanzhou Handpulled Noodles San Mateo
- Chefus Kitchen San Jose, expands the business from virtual kitchen to a dine-in space.
- Xiao Xiao Buns is at the Sunday Outer Sunset Farmers Market & Mercantile and the Saturday Serramonte mall farmer’s market.
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A branch of Dumpling Time opens on Fourth St. in Berkeley today.
https://www.dumplingtime.com/berkeley
Seems a little pricey.
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Openings
- MyeongDong Ja Jang (Pleasanton) Korean Chinese, including liang jiang pi (AKA “double skin”)
- Fan Bistro (Fremont), serves Hunan dishes
- Red Pot (Fremont)
- Legend Hot Pot (Newark)
- Tablehopper announced that United Dumplings is opening a Marina location and that Dumpling Kitchen is opening a Castro location.
- Dumpling Time expands to Cupertino.
Closures
- Yummy Yummy Bao (Milpitas) is rebranded as Special Noodles, joining the Four Sister’s group’s West San Jose restaurant of the same name.
- Cafe Taiwan (Pleasanton) has closed.
- Taiwan Bento (Oakland) has closed.
- Ok Noodle (Newark), which opened during the mid-2010s Northwestern/Shaanxi noodle boom, has closed.
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Lots of action since August. Please add any additional intel- I’m certain I’ve spaced out on others y’all know about:
Noodle/dumpling centered menus
- CA Noodle (Pleasanton) takes over the Cafe Taiwan spot. Speculation time-- some Shaanxi items make me suspect someone from former OK Noodles works/owns here. Amiright?
- Danacious Dumpling (San Jose) to go bao and frozen dumplings.
- Dough Zone a San Leandro location of the Seattle-based chain
- Taiwanese chain Duan Chun Zhen Noodle House adds a Fremont location to pair with the Cupertino location.
- Dumpling and Cajun Seafood (South San Francisco), sprouts from SF’s Dumpling Home
- Dumpling Kitchen expands from Parkside SF to the Castro
- Dumpling Time adds Berkeley and San Ramon locations
- SF Chinatown’s Hon’s Won Ton House’s builds a second location in the old Washington Bakery space, and beyond their long respected Cantonese fare, a “Buns and Dumplings” section of the menu includes Xiao long bao, Sheng Jian bao, Sichuan won tons & dumplings, and jiao zi. IIRC the only other place in Chinatown that has pleat down SJB is China Live, and Hon’s looks akin to the (IMHO experience) better ones you can get at the Four Sisters, Dumpling Home, etc. restaurants.
- Hunan Mifen (Sunnyvale) Hunan noodles
- Noodle Dynasty (Berkeley) Northern & Northwestern noodles
- Special Noodle (Richmond) of the 4 Sisters group opens a new location in the 99 Ranch mall
- United Dumplings expands beyond their Bernal Heights location to SF’s Marina district
- Village Tea House (SF Soma)
**Hot pot, Shao Kao, malatang **
- Discovery Fusion BBQ (San Jose)
- Fiery Hot Pot and Grill (Outer Sunset)
- Simmer Huang a Daly City location of the mainland China franchise. LA Eater covered their LA location.
- Yang Guo Fu Malatang Noodles & Pots, a (I believe) northeastern Chinese franchise opens their first SFBA location in Milpitas.
- Zhangliang Malatang (Mountain View)
Broader menus
- Spices Fremont, which for years had adopted a more Hunan focus than the Sichuan-focussed Spices chain is spawned from, has been renamed Fan Bistro
- Tasty Szechuan (Hayward)
- Szechuan Restaurant (San Ramon)
- Zhen Wei Guan (Millbrae) sister restaurant of Z Pot House, is primarily Cantonese. I recall seeing Mapo Doufu with Sea Cucumber elsewhere, anyone know the chef’s background?
Closures
- I-Shanghai Delight closed their Sacramento location.
- Light Meal Studio (San Jose) Sichuan in Westfield mall
- Li Zhou Restaurant (Fremont) Muslim Chinese
- Joy of Hunnan (San Bruno)
- China Tofu (Hayward), a takeout seller, reportedly closed in Sept. on Yelp, but moved. Any recent info?
- The Authentic Hunan (Fremont)
- Yang Dumpling (Fremont), Northeastern Chinese
- Roll n Noodle (Sunnyvale) Korean Chinese
- Ubest Dumpling (Fremont)
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These places are all closed (I reported some of these closed previously, but I’m too lazy to remove duplicates):
- Hot Point Station (Sunnyvale)
- Hotpot First (Sunnyvale)
- Jiangnan Culture (Milpitas)
- Noodles & Things (Millbrae)
- Peking Duck (Palo Alto)
- Shanghai Garden (Cupertino)
- Xiang Home Kitchen (Milpitas)
- Yi Hotpot (Newark)
- Yuyu Zazang H-Mart (San Jose)
- Boiling Szechuan Hotpot (Millbrae)
- Z & Y Bistro (SF) - this closed early in the pandemic and appears still closed
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In the Chinese Korean category, a place I didn’t see on the list:
JJamPPong
5249 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94112
https://maps.app.goo.gl/zJy86qV6MJ5ttG8HA?g_st=ic
Excellent renditions of jjamppong, along with jajangmyeon, double fried chicken, and other Korean Chinese dishes. They also do special raw marinated crabs. Generous portions. Seems to have been open for ~8 months.
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Saw that it was posted back in Feb (sorry!)
Since May 2021, I count 79 openings, and 76 closures. Because my tracking is limited to businesses with Yelp pages, that count of 79 openings misses a lot of things that proliferated during the pandemic such as pop-ups, food trucks, etc.
Continuing a trend started before the pandemic, dumpling/bao centered restaurants, including those with audiences beyond Chinese/Taiwanese/Chinese American communities, are proliferating and restaurants marketing a regional cuisine are becoming less common. For example, if you strictly look at restaurant names, 2021-2022, 57% of restaurants emphasize dumplings, bao, or noodles in the name and only 9% emphasize geographical region or spicy (i.e., usually an indication of Sichuan or Hunan). In comparison, for 2015 and 2019, 18% and 34%, respectively, emphasized dumplings/bao/noodles and 29-27% emphasized geographical region or spicy.
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A few more openings before we round out the year:
- Chick and Jajang, Korean Chinese in Daly City
- Subverting the more typical direction of expansion, Pleasant Hills’ Oyama BBQ expands to Newark
- Shilin Taiwan Street Snacks opens up a San Jose location
- Seapot opens their fourth Bay Area location, which adds Daly City to the currently open Sunnyvale and San Mateo locations, and a closed San Jose location.
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Sad to read that Hong Kong Flower Lounge in Millbrae is closing, owner is retiring. Their Sugar Egg Puffs were the best around, with a custardy interior that nobody else had.
SFGATE: Bay Area dim sum restaurant set to close after 20 years
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Everyone we ever took there after fetching them at SFO savored both view and house special lobster noodles.
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We could eat that too. If we’re not mistaken, there’s a possibility it’s on a related menu:
China Bee (San Mateo) closed according to the SF Chronicle.
A few more openings to report:
- BBQ 85 (Dublin)
- Four Sisters’ Special Noodle opens up a Pleasanton location
- 168 Chinese Township (Sunnyvale) some Shanghainese and Sichuan/Chongqing dishes
- Cantoo Latin Asian Rotisserie (SF Tenderloin) Venezuelan Chinese
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WOW. The motherlode. A labor of love.
Many thanks for the work that went into compiling this compendium.
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