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San Francisco/Bay Area restaurant reviews by Chris NorrisArchive for Dim Sum
Sino Restaurant, San Jose (Santana Row)
Sino Restaurant, San Jose (Santana Row)
June 2008
Way Good. Sino Restaurant is located on Santana Row and is a Chinese restaurant started by the founder of Strait’s Café, a local restaurant specializing in food from Singapore and Malayasia. There are several Strait’s Cafes in the Bay Area, including one just down the block from Sino on Santana Row, as well in Palo Alto and San Francisco. We’ve found Sino to be every bit as good as Strait’s Café. Two great aspects of Sino are the outdoor seating, although somewhat limited, and absolutely wonderful dim sum. In fact, Sino is serving some of the best dim sum we’ve experienced south of San Francisco. We’ve tried about a dozen different types of dim sum at Sino, and found all of them to be exceptionally good. The Shanghai dumplings in particular completely take us back to eating dumplings in downtown Taipei earlier this spring. Not many foods do that!
Great Eastern Restaurant, San Francisco
Great Eastern Restaurant, San Francisco
Feb 2008
Way Good! Great Eastern is a Zagat rated Chinese restaurant located on Jackson Street near the outskirts of Chinatown. On a recent Sunday we walked from our digs at the Mandarin Oriental to the Great Eastern for a dose of dim sum. Since it’s a popular restaurant, the wait was every bit as long as we feared, although the people watching helped the time to pass. The dim sum service at Great Eastern is not by the usual carts zooming through the aisles, but is ordered on a sheet that you mark up yourself and give to the waiter. We ordered the usual assortment of six or seven traditional dim sum plates and paid $38 for everything including two beers and a tip. Are the tables and walls clean? No, not really. But it was mighty fine dim sum.
Noodles, Bellagio, Las Vegas, NV
Noodles, Bellagio, Las Vegas, NV
December 2007
Way Good. Noodles, located at the Bellagio, is one of our favorite Asian restaurants in Las Vegas. Noodles serves top-notch Chinese and Malaysian dishes and occasionally has dim sum with traditional cart service. The walls at Noodles are stacked high with, appropriately enough, jars of noodles of every imaginable kind. And although there is usually a line at the entrance, it moves fast and is worth the wait. The food is casual, fast, affordable, and extremely tasty.
Noodles of Asia, Venetian, Las Vegas, NV
Noodles of Asia, Venetian, Las Vegas, NV
December 2007
S’Ok. Regardless of the limited menu, Noodles of Asia at the Venetian Hotel is good, with great noodle soups and a pretty decent selection of appetizer sized items on the menu. Unfortunately, there are are no dim sum carts. We’ve tried several different noodle soup selections and liked them all. The barbeque duck and pork appetizers are mighty fine and the traditional steamed dumplings and such don’t disappoint. And the other items on the menu? Well, they don’t always come together.
Tian Sing, San Francisco
Tian Sing, San Francisco
October 2007
Hmmmm. Tian Sing is a Chinese restaurant located just off the theater district and north of Market. Which means, its not in Chinatown, not even close. After eating there, I think that is about the only reason you might go twice. If my Midwest friends and family were visiting in the City, AND I wanted to show them dim sum knowing that they might not tolerate the chaos of a True Dim Sum experience in Chinatown, AND I didn’t want to stand in line waiting half an hour for a table, then Tian Sing isn’t a bad choice. The penalty is an unbelievably understaffed dining experience with sparsely populated carts and only brief sightings of wait staff. On the flip side, the place is clean and when you can get food, its quite good. I’m guessing that ordering dim sum selections off the menu would have a more predictable outcome, since fewer interactions with the MIA staff are required. If you can tolerate a line, go to Yank Sing a bit farther down Market and get great food in a non-Chinatown environment. Or heck, just live a little and head to the source of real dim sum in downtown Chinatown.
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Pearl City, San Francisco
Pearl City, San Francisco
September 2007
Hmmm. A not terrible Dim Sum joint in The City. Most of the crowd is Asian, which is always a good sign at a Chinese restaurant. What’s not such a good sign? Well, how about when all of the people in the waiting area ‘coincidently’ are NOT Asian? Pearl City has the rest of the Dim Sum experience of dirty tables, carts that rocket by, and a wide selection of choices, all of which were good. Total charge for SIX plates and 2 Tsingtao beers? A lean Twenty Seven bucks! Hard to beat that in San Francisco. Regardless, we showed up on a Sunday about noon and Pearl City had a pretty long line. The restaurant next door had an even longer line. Turns out it’s Zagat rated Great Eastern. Next time I’d probably stand in the longer line.
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Yank Sing, San Francisco
Yank Sing, San Francisco
August 2007
Way Good. Laura and I consider it the very definition of a good time to spend the weekend in San Francisco, staying out late, sleeping late, and spending the time in between eating, drinking and shopping. Sundays, noon-ish, are reserved, always, for dim sum, which we hunt down in the Chinatown section of the city. But this time we decided to try something unusual by eating at a dim sum restaurant NOT in Chinatown! Enter Yank Sing.
Yank Sing is the yuppie’s way to have Dim Sum. Located in the financial district, it clearly is situated and designed to appeal to the “just closed a deal, got a mega-bucks meeting at 1pm, let’s ‘do dim sum’ crowd”. That said, the dishes are all somewhat unique: sea bass, mushroom dumplings, and some carefully prepared versions of shrimp & crab dumplings that are mighty tasty and a bit above the usual dim sum fare. If you are looking for a dim sum experience that actually involves experiencing the sights, smells and sounds of china town, or if you want to actually see a Chinese person who is NOT your waiter, Yank Sing is not the place for you. Head to Chinatown for that. But, if you’ve got business downtown and want some darn fine dim sum, regardless of ambiance, a power lunch of dim sum can be yours at Yank Sing!
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ABC Seafood
May 2007
Way Good. With San Francisco so close, its difficult to find Chinese restaurants with dim sum offerings that can hold up to the standard of The City. ABC Seafood manages to come pretty close, and they even have huge sets of fish tanks at the entrance so that you can meet those dumplings “on the fin” when you first arrive! Great for both weekends and weekday lunches, with large selections of dim sum, and fast service. Wanna great “after church” experience? Take the fam to ABC, order some Tsingtao beers, and start choosing from the carts. Order a plate of lemon chicken and chow mein to keep the kids happy if the you have dim sum non-participating young ‘uns.
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New Asia in SF, CA
March 2007 Way Good. This is Chinatown Dim Sum at its finest. New Asia is a huge restaurant – the sign says it will hold 1000 people – and I believe it! Its loud, raucous, and the aisles are jammed with waiters & carts rushing from table to table. Your table will probably be dirty, the walls are stained, and the service will be without frills, but the Dim Sum is Fabulous and you will feel like you’ve lived a little! Seven dim sum dishes, tea, two beers and the tip didn’t break $40.
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