I went to Sing Siu Zai Min in West Portal for lunch. It’s a Japanese Chinese fusion restaurant that has kind of an eclectic mix of Japanese items like ramen and karaage along with Chinese dishes like dandanmian and har gau, potstickers, and xiaolongbao.
I had a bowl of the brisket king ($22.95), which was kind of a fusion of a Japanese ramen and a Cantonese beef brisket noodle soup. On the Japanese side it had kikurage / wood ear mushrooms, menma / fermented bamboo shoots, which both provided some crunch, and a half of an ajitama / marinated soft boiled egg. On the Chinese side were the flat rice noodles (you can also have it with wheat noodles) and a generous portion of braised brisket. A very good bowl of noodles. Flavorful clear broth, and the brisket was quite tender and fatty. It came with a little bowl of sweet pickled daikon.
I also had an order of the pan-fried pork bun ($8.95) aka shengjian bao which unfortunately were not nearly as successful. The wrappers were thick and fluffy, and the ratio of wrapper to filling was off, too much wrapper and too little filling. Not much juice at all either, and the bottoms didn’t have much crunch. I wouldn’t order these again.
I would go back for another bowl of the brisket noodles and maybe to try some of the other noodle bowls.
