Californication SF! Part I
And thus begins a special segment of food posts focused on the good eats I had on my recent trip to San Francisco. It was 4 fun filled days of amazing food, beautiful sights and good times. I'll try to be good about posting more often so that these notes remain fresh, just like the dungeness crab there. I regret being too hungry and eagar to the point where I didn't take enough pictures of my meals.
My first meal when we landed was dim sum. I took a very early flight and landed around noon, just in time for the Giants Parade. After a bit of research, I came across two names that appeared quite often: Yank Sing and Ton Kiang. It really just came down to the menu that pushed for us to dine at Yank Sing. Ton Kiang pricing was a bit strange, grouping together prices and select X out of 10. I'm used to just ordering a la carte and the Yank Sing menu had different dim sum that I had to try.
The wait was not too long and we were seated outdoors. It was a beautiful day, which made it all the better. The restaurant was somewhat "Americanized" but in a better way. Facilities were very clean, staff had very attentive service, spoke both Chinese and good English, and there were very good efforts made on presentation. One downside of an "Americanized" dim sum restaurant were the prices, but we'll tell you about our bill later.
As expected, there were the classic and traditional dim sum you'll usually find anywhere but the servings fruitful in meat/seafood. Some different dishes I haven't seen at dim sum were: fried tofu wrapped in seaweed, spinach green dumplings, chicken & lotus root cake, and of course in SF - dungeness crab dumplings. Fried food was never too oily and was very fresh. They even served some dinner type dishes that you wouldn't find during dim sum time such as Peking duck, Shanghai soup dumplings, softshell crab and veggies. Variety was certainly a plus. Dessert had a little bit of everything for everyone. Mango pudding for semi-sweet, orange jello made in the orange peel for the simple folk, egg custard tarts for the traditional dim sum lovers, green tea or mango ice cream cake for the non. There was plenty on the on-line menu that was listed, that we didn't get to see or eat.
The damage came in the aftermath, which was sadly due our fault for not looking at the menu prices before letting our eyes and stomaches take over. Much to our surprise, we were shocked at our $70 bill for two (the picture was probably 1/3 of what we ate). Dim sum has never exceeded $18 per person for me! We then looked at the price list and much to our dismay, the bill was correct (we did eat more dim sum than usual). For example: the har gao we ate was a whopping $6 for 4 pieces (yes they were loaded with shrimp, but still!), softshell crab was around $11 for one crab, a pot of tea was $4, and the mango pudding was $5. Maybe the prices are different between the two locations? On the way out, Tony noticed the Zagat survey that had said the average cost would come to around $37 per person. Sadly they were right. Would I have done it again? Of course! Maybe minus the softshell crab...
Name: Yank Sing
Location: 101 Spear Street or 49 Stevenson Street, San Francisco CA
Popular Dish: Gold Fish Dumplings - not stuffed with fish but rather with shrimp meat, they look like little fish with orange dot eyes. So cute!
Price Range: $28 - $38 per person, $5 - $15 per dish
Menu
Service: (4.5) friendly people with good English, attentive, and even helpful with questions and suggestions! I never get that at dim sum LOL
Presentation: (4.5) There's only so much you can really do with dim sum dishes but they definitely tried and the dishes did reflect what the website shows you
Other Notes: Beware of the $$$, it adds up unexpectedly! Go eat the unusual unless you seriously can tell the difference in dim sum quality, for all else you can probably find for less than half the price at a regular Chinatown restaurant.
