2022 January 6th
Blog by: Maelynn Le
All photos were taken by Maelynn
Photo: Sara serving dim sum at Yank Sing in San Francisco, CA
DIM SUMBODY say Dim sum? 年快樂 (xīnnián kuàilè) is Happy Chinese New Year! My favorite time of the year! Chinese New Year is approaching very fast and it's on February 1st this year. Chinese New Year also known as the Lunar New Year, is the celebration of the New Year on the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. This festival hints that it's starting to become the beginning of spring and a fresh start to the new year. Traditionally in the Asian culture, it's celebrated with friends and family as they celebrate with fireworks, decorations (red being the main color) red envelopes, cleaning to get rid of the negative tension in the house hold, dragon dances, and of course, delicious food! I'm always down for some delicious Chinese food, especially dim sum since we eat a lot of it during this time of year! Here are some of my favorite dim sum/Chinese food places in SF that I enjoyed and recommend celebrating the New Year at.
If you don't know what dim sum is, it's a range of small Chinese dishes that are traditionally enjoyed in restaurants for brunch. Traditionally, they would have carts rolling around for you to choose which dishes you want and then you pick from there. They then keep track of what items you have purchased. Nowadays, they give you a many and you mark down the quantity of each item you want. Some fo the classic dim sum dishes are dumplings like shuimai, har gow, wontons, Xiao long bars (XLB), vegetable dumplings, potstickers, etc. There are other classic dim sum dishes like baozi, sticky rice (zong zi), turnip cake, pineapple buns, BBQ pork buns, etc.
Harbor View
Harbor View is located at the Embarcadero right across from the Ferry Building. This restaurant serves traditional/contemporary style dim sum dishes you commonly see. This dim sum in SF was a splendid feast! All of the items I showed cased were vegetarian and you wouldn’t believe how delicious they all were! Omg one of my dishes was the glutinous dumplings because they had a nice crunchy texture with flavorful fillings especially the one with the carrot hehe! 😜 The pineapple bun was also one of my favorites because of crunchy, golden texture with that sweet soft crust on the outside but sweet and delightful to eat!
2. Pallette Garden and Tea
Located at Ghirdeli Square, Platte Dim Sum and garden has a great selection of dim sum! This place does more modern/upscale dim sum and really reinvented some of the classic dim sum dishes and made the dishes upscale/modern. I really have to say this is vegetarian dim sum heaven in my eyes! I loved all of the items I got and they all tasted so delicious, I can’t choose which one is the best lol! 😆 I will say that boba cake was absolutely delicious and satisfied my boba and cake cravings! I also recommend their chow mien because I felt that this chow mien was cleaner and lighter. What I mean by that is that most places I've tried chow mien are really oily and heavy. I only tasted oil and the oil takes over the beautiful flavors the chow mien really has. This place delivers on chow mien and I'm super happy that the flavors of the chow mien really stick out the way it's suppose to. I really want to come back so badly and taste other items on the menu!
3. It's Dumpling Time
It's dumpling time alright! Of course you gotta have delicious dumplings for the Lunar New Year and what better way to celebrate by coming to here. With locations around the Bay Area, including at the Chase Center where the Warrior's play, this restaurant is the stuff to get some dim sum! I love their vegetarian items including their sweet baos and vegetarian dumplings! My favorite sweet bao* has to be the custard one because I just like custard in general and love how thick it is. Their vegetarian dumplings are also a great one to get since they have a great amount of filling in there compared to some of the meat dumplings I had in the past. They also have a huge XLB! It’s so big, that you need a straw to drink it! I heard that the XLB was juicy and flavorful according to Edmund (@fremontfoodies) since he came with me!
4. United Dumpling
In the Bernal Heights district is where all of the dumplings Unite! Almost any kind of dumpling you can image is at United Dumplings because that's where all of the dumplings unite! For real though they have excellent selections of Chinese food and dim sum! One fo the dishes I absolutely love is their vegetarian stir fried noodles because of the noodle texture and the flavors the noodles has! I also recommend their vegetarian dumplings because they have a nice spicy wasabi kick that is spicy but the flavors are still present in the fillings! The texture of that dumplings really really nice and I love the dumpling skin on them! Everything I got here was perfect ! Did you know this is a woman owned business too?!? They Are the best at what they do and it’s just incredible to see what women owned businesses can do!
5. Yank Sing
Yank Sing has 2 or 3 locations (I don't remember) but the one I went to was near the Ferry Building at the Embarcadero. This place was super awesome and brings back old memories when the dim sum carts use to roll around before COVID hit! I'm so glad this place is one of the few dim sum places in SF that still have the cart service! It brought back old memories and it was just a nostolgic moment for me! Exceptional service by the ladies and men who were pushing the carts around and making its way to customers. I really loved their turnip cake, fried taro balls, and mushroom dumplings. I highly recommend those items when you come here. The best classic dim sum items are here at Yank Sing!
6. Baos
Legit small hidden gem dim sum place at the Mission district in SF! This place is truly special for their handmade baos, dumplings, and food! I was so in love with everything especially with the vegetarian XLB! There are not many vegetarian XLB in the Bay Area and I do really think that these were amazing XLB that YOU MUST try! The soup of it was warm and the filling of them was amazing! If you want some vegetables, their salt and pepper vegetables are no joke when it comes to flavor! The flavor of those veggies are dynamite because of the amount of seasoning that was on! The breading was just right, it wasn’t too thick, and the batter was just crunchy! If you are a sweet tooth, get their sweet bao special of black sesame, egg custard, lava, and red bean! You should also get their coconut bunnies which were so cute and had that excellent coconut flavor you are looking for! More coconut flavor would of been better but loved this dessert!
7. Chili House
Chili House SF is located in the Richmond District in San Francisco, CA! They are known for their authentic Chinese cuisine that is so delicious! They are also known to be one of the best Chinese restaurants in San Francisco.All of these dishes were great but my personal favorite was their pumpkin with salty egg yolk! The pumpkin with the egg yolk was literally my favorite dish I had! It had a nice salty egg flavor that was delicious. The pumpkin was nice and tender as well. It paired really well with the salty egg yolk flavor that I was so curious to try! This dish is one of my top recommended items at this restaurant. I also loved their braised eggplant. I have had braised eggplant in other places and I felt when when I had it, it was mushy and there was almost no flavor in them. This braised eggplant dish was like the best eggplant dish. Literally, the eggplant wasn't mushy and there was a nice sweet and spicy flavor in the eggplant dish. This was absolutely an addicting dish that I really loved. I would definitely order this eggplant dish again and again!
Comments