Wei Guo House (Inner Richmond) is one of those rare occasions nowadays when a Cantonese restaurant replaces a Shanghainese! (looks good, but not in the scope of this list)
Pan Kee Food (Foster City) replaces Dim Sum USA, and appears to sell frozen/takeout dumplings, buns, etc. like its predecessor
Just now noticing:
China Garden Restaurant (Brentwood) has been open for years, and I’m only now noticing the menu is near identical in content and layout as that of Maple Restaurant (Outer Mission, SF), the latter of which Melanie Wong reported in 2015 has a chef from Tianjin who specializes in Sichuan cuisine.
Red Dragon (Concord) has a Sichuan menu of some sort
I already see “Kung Fu Noodle” listed under Chiu Chow. Pretty astute observation as it hasn’t been “kung fu noodle” for quite some time now and is in reality, a reincarnation of Golden Island, a chiu chow restaurant that used to be in the plaza but closed a while ago.
So, it serves goose slices, chiu chow style appetizers, the chilled crab, oyster pie and other dishes that are tricky to find elsewhere.
A yelper reports that Spicy Queen in Inner Richmond is closed. It has several Chongqing style sister restaurants in NE SF as well as San Mateo and in the east bay owned by Chef Yiwen “Truman” Du and Jenny Wu* . Their ABC license is active until the end of the year
Combing through ABC archives, here are some ownership factoids I wasn’t previously aware of (assuming same names are same people):
An owner of Desi-Chinese Red Hot Chilli Pepper in San Carlos is an owner of Cal-Indian August 1 Five (SF)
more from Clarissa at Goldthread on Regional Chinese food -
from youtube:
Sichuan is known for its love of spice. It’s the birthplace of mala hot pot, mapo tofu, and dandan noodles—all made with copious amounts of chili and peppercorn. How did this region come to fall in love with spicy food, and what are the core ingredients?
This is the fifth episode of our 13-part series on Chinese food called Eat China. In the next episode, we’ll go on a food tour of Chongqing and hit up three Sichuan restaurants you have to try.
The Mountain View location of Chef Zhao Bistro has closed. The San Mateo location still remains.
Openings
Bamboo Steamer (Hayward) a former Dublin Koi Palace chef and his father started this restaurant according to the server, and it appears to be independent and not use foods supplied by KP’s commercial kitchen like Stick & steam or Dim Sum Corner . Spacious, mixture of contemporary bao and dumplings, noodles & rice, XLB, sheng Jian bao, Peking duck sesame shao bing.
110 Shabu Shabu (Dublin) Hot pot (unknown or non-specific region)
Suzhe Eatery (Palo Alto) Shanghainese, in the old Su Hong space, opened by former Su Hong staff according to Elena Kadvany.
An owner of Noodles Fresh has a pending liquor license for Noodles Fresh at 2430 SHATTUCK AVE , BERKELEY, CA, 94704
An owner of Cantonese seafood and dim sum Fusion Delight has a pending liquor license for Kai Xin Dian 2460 BANCROFT WAY , BERKELEY, CA, 94704
An owner of Beijing Duck House has a pending liquor license for Zest Food at 10881 S BLANEY AVE , CUPERTINO, CA, 95014.
An owner of Milpitas’s Jiuding Flavor (or someone with the same name) has a pending liquor license for Dumpling Home at 298 GOUGH ST , SAN FRANCISCO, CA, 94102
Hmmph. That’s why there is this Grand Reopening banner outside the restaurant. When I drove by and noticed it, I thought the banner was from years ago when they moved to this location. Didn’t realize they have reopened.
‘The menu is largely the same but Shi said he’s using new meat, seafood and produce suppliers to bring in more fresh products. He’s going to Chinatown in San Francisco every other day to pick up fresh, not frozen, meat and seafood.’ If the food improves because of this, that’s good news. Jiangnan food really needs fresh produce and it makes a huge difference. We used to go to Su Hong when it was at the old location and there were a few dishes that were quite elegant and subtle. Quality went downhill years ago and we haven’t been back. Perhaps we’ll give the new joint a try.
Hunan Chef, which has been at 525 Cortland since 1996, transferred its liquor license to a new business at that address called “United Dumplings”. Any info out there? There are no northern dumpling specialists open during lunchtime in Mission or Bernal (Beijing Restaurant in Mission Terrace is best bet for Bernal proximity), so fingers crossed that’s what this is.
Chef Hung (Cupertino) is temporarily closed, and is scheduled to reopen on Feb 24, 2020 according to their yelp page.
There’a an active ABC license for Duan Chun Zhen Beef Noodle at 20343 Stevens Creek Blvd (Cupertino). Has this opened yet, and could this be the first US location of a Taiwan beef noodle chain, founded in Hsinchu, Taiwan in 2007?
Everyday Beijing (San Mateo) has closed according to yelp. The previous owners run Peking Alley in San Mateo.
San Tung 2 (Inner Sunset), essentially the overflow restaurant for the original San Tung next door, is closed according to Yelp and their phone has been disconnected. I’d noticed their ABC license was cancelled, but am surprised to hear this given their continued popularity.
Millbrae’s Cafe Salina has closed, and will be replaced by a new venture from Noodles & Things (ed. called Porridge & Things). According to the owner Kevin Lu’s Facebook page, “We are pleased to announce Noodles & Things will be opening a new concept in the Bay Area on January 18 to welcome the new year. We will be serving Chiu Chow Sawo Porridge with live seafood.”
Jiangnan Delight (Fremont), which employed chefs from Jiangnan and Hunan, has closed
@bigwheel042learned that Shandong Deluxe on Taraval has closed. It’s now Happy Family Gourmet. The Chinese name remains the same, and photos of a man and woman making noodles are identical to those used by Shandong Deluxe. Has anything besides the name changed?
I stopped by and confirmed that (Chinese American) Hunan Chef in Bernal closed. As I noted above, a business called United Dumplings is slated to take its place.
Mamahuhu (San Francisco) Brandon Jew’s take on Chinese American classics. Is the storefront open, or are they still just delivery through Caviar? Anyone try it yet?
Upcoming:
Dumpling Time, whose Shaanxi-born owner and Shaanxi dumplings are relevant to the list, has an upcoming third location in Chase Center.
The further popularization of Malatang (the choose your ingredients rather than the skewer type) and the mall-presence of spicy Chinese food might be the biggest trends of 2019-2020.
Tang Bar (Stonestown Mall, SF) where there’s also a Shihlin Taiwanese street snacks
Looking at Tang Bar’s website, “Fresh ingredients, slowly perfected broth, fully customizable options … Tang Bar by Dainty strives to bring the joy of Sichuan cuisine to our customers with every perfect bowl of malatang.” The logo has the same Tianfu characters used by Dainty, an Australian-based Sichuan brand with various restaurant concepts:
What category does this new soup restaurant fall under? Not sure until we see the menu. Its located in the same mall as H-Mart in San Jose, right off 85. I’d be curious to know if they indeed focus heavily on soups.
Oooh, I’ve been waiting all day to read the updates!
Janelle Bitker lead this year’s efforts, and has reviews from original team members Momo Chang and Carolyn Jung. Chronicle staff Soleil Ho and Janelle also have reviews, a mix of surprises and tips from previous write-ups (I’m fan-boying it this year since I didn’t have time to participate)
To respect their hard work, which is behind a paywall, I won’t reveal specific places they wrote up-- but I’ve noticed there are at least two new entries in the dumplings (3 non-Cantonese + 1 dim sum), Taiwanese, and Uyghur categories. Their picks are a good representation of openings in the past year or so, and the fact they added 13 places (and suffered a few rejects no doubt), confirms the Chronicle’s commitment to the project and coverage of Chinese cuisine in general.
