Regional Chinese roundup 3.0 (SF Bay Area)- November 2019 - April 2021 archive

Regional Dining Discussions SF Bay Area, NorCal, Tahoe
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You can try Dumpling Depot in Palo Alto. They for sure supply their own restaurant in Sunnyvale. You can call them up and see if they supply others.

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I tried calling them a few weekends in a row already. But no answer. I already have my takeout order all mapped out but alas no luck. If somebody goes to that mall, can you please take a look to see if they are open?

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A few new closures as per yelp. We’re into August, and there seem to be fewer closures in 2020 than in previous years at this time. It seems more likely that Yelp and their users are underreporting closures than that Covid-19 is having an ironic protective effect on Chinese businesses.

  • The phones are disconnected at Wei Guo House in Inner Richmond, and they’re reported closed on Yelp.
  • Both of Berkeley’s Famous Baos are reported closed on Yelp, one had been reported closed a while back.
  • Fire Up Hot Pot (Daly City) is reported closed on Yelp.
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Media

Resy.com released a series called Chinatown USA, and SF pieces include:

Openings/replacements

  • Next Dish now delivers to the southern part of SF. In addition to dishes they make in their own commercial kitchen, they also offer South Bay treats from restaurants including Jenny’s Kitchen; groceries; and produce.
  • The Night Market in South SF has re-opened after two years,
  • Shanghai No. 1 replaces Xiang Home Kitchen in Milpitas
  • Noodleosophy expands beyond their San Mateo location into Cupertino
  • One Plus (Berkeley) has Jian bing and boba

Coming soon

  • Lion Dance Cafe is opening soon in Oakland, and describes their menu, including shao-bing sandwiches, as “Flavors from our teochew-singaporean family recipes, nostalgic hawker favorites and the legacy of the chinese american diaspora.”
  • Sizzling Gourmet in Cupertino has transferred their liquor license to Grandma’s Kitchen at the same address
  • The former owners of now-closed Chef Yu in Sunnyvale have taken over the liquor license for Famous Dumpling House, under the name Heritage Noodles

Closures

  • One Boiling Pot Mixian Noodles on Taraval has closed
  • Xiang Home Kitchen (formerly CBI Boiling Fish and Kumino Fusion) in Cupertino is closed
  • Cambowan, a Cambodian Taiwanese restaurant in San Mateo has closed
  • Little Hot Pot, a buffet style place that was anything but “little”, in Fremont, has closed
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I just got takeout from their sister restaurant in Cupertino. I passed by their Milpitas location a week or two ago checking out the Chiu Chow joint in the same mall, and got interested. I will post about it.

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I finally made it into the mall to look into whether the Chiu Chow joint, Kung Fu Noodles, were closed. They had a sign at the door that says the drainage pipe was being repaired and they were temporarily closed. I’ve seen similar signs at other restaurants. Perhaps its a situation where they were originally having some issues with their equipments and COVID just didn’t make it profitable to continuing repairing and operating.

I hope they are able to reopen. But the mall was pretty dead when I visited at around 9pm on a Friday or Saturday.

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Thanks for the updates!

BTW, here are a list of currently opened places that cancelled or have expired liquor licenses:

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Any idea what the costs are to renew an expired liquor license? If there is no additional penalty, then it makes sense to let the license lapse if they aren’t doing dining in. BTW, is liquor allowed in outdoor dining?

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M.Y. China temporarily closed on March 17th, and I’m sad to report that their phone is disconnected and their previously well supported webpage has been deleted. Does anyone know more info?

I learned of a few new places via the SF Happy Eaters Facebook Group:

  • There’s a new (Hunan) Ping’s Bistro location at the former Family Taste location in Fremont. The website 39miles.com confirms the link between Hunan Impression, and the two Ping’s Bistros and Shang Cafes.
  • Chefus.com, an almost year-old venture from Allen Shi, whose LinkedIn profile suggests he moved on from NextDish, does lunch/dinner delivery and catering throughout the Bay Area. From their website, “Cloud Kitchens technology: Our 5,000 sq ft. workplace makes over 500+ of our menu items. We take ownership of our food and ensure the highest quality of care to make every dish great.” They partner with Sayweee, Nextdish, Grubmarket, and Bentocart.

Also, some closures:

  • Bamboo Y Kitchen (San Jose), a Wuhan-style restaurant, has closed.
  • iChef, a newer Hunan restaurant in Cupertino, has closed.
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  • The fire that devastated Oakland Chinatown has closed Huangcheng Noodle House
  • Sama Uyghur (Union City) has closed according to Yelp, and has a for sale sign in the window.
  • TheChiHuo, a sponsored-content food site geared toward Chinese speakers from abroad, got a bump from Padma Lakshmi’s Hulu show Taste the Nation and I am happy to see their long-dormant SFBA coverage has actually been active since March in an SF Instagram feed.
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  • Jin Li Yuan’s Fremont location has closed per yelp
  • Famous Dumpling House, whose sister business Pan Kee Food closed earlier this year, has closed as per yelp. As noted earlier, the former owners of now-closed Chef Yu in Sunnyvale have taken over the liquor license for Famous Dumpling House, under the name Heritage Noodles.
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  • Dumpling Home on Gough in Hayes Valley has finally opened! Gallery looks great, and it looked busy when I drove by now. What’s the restaurant’s background? Is the name a coincidence, or is owner “Wei Liu” the same person as an owner of Milpitas’s Jiuding Flavor?
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  • According to its Yelp page, Chuan Yu (Oakland Chinatown), a new Sichuan restaurant in the Sakura Bistro space, is descended from General Tso Kitchen in Inner Richmond.

  • Bao Little Hotpot (Milpitas) has closed. It was the sister restaurant to Taste Good Beijing Cuisine.

  • QQ Noodle’s Cupertino location has closed according to Yelp, leaving only the Milpitas Square location of the Shaanxi specialist. Their defunct Fremont location (2007-2018) preceded the Bay Area’s Shaanxi wave by several years.

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That’s unfortunate. Even though I don’t head to that part of Cupertino much, I’ve always enjoyed their noodles.

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Ah, General Tso Kitchen has closed according to Yelp so it sounds like they changed locations to Oakland. The GSK space had previously housed a Xian and Shandong restaurants.

My Pot, near Laguna Honda in SF, has closed.

On the bright side, some openings:

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