So there are comparable numbers of Chinese residing in the San Francisco Bay area and the Los Angeles area. Chinese migration to the United States can be divided into two major time periods. First was the period of free immigration, followed by Chinese exclusion, running approximately from 1850 to 1965. This wave of migration was almost entirely Cantonese, and within that group, largely from rural Toisan and environs. It was also centered in Northern California, with some, but relatively little migration to Southern California. The second period dates from the effective repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1965, and runs until the present. Initially these migrants came from Hong Kong and Taiwan, but in the past two to three decades has been primarily from Mainland China. Based on these patterns, the San Francisco Bay area has a greater Cantonese influence, while in the Los Angeles area, the population trends towards the non-Cantonese.
While Cantonese food was obviously the dominant, indeed once the only regional cuisine in the United States for many years, migration from the Chinese Mainland has now turned Cantonese food into just one of many regional cuisines found in the United States. And while San Francisco was historically the undisputed king of Chinese food, Los Angeles surpassed it sometime during the 1990s, even as to Cantonese cuisine. As far as dim sum goes, cartless dim sum came to Los Angeles first, and even as late as a dozen years ago, Los Angeles had the best dim sum in the United States. But then something happened. Los Angeles dim sum stagnated while Bay Area dim sum thrived, as a series of superior Bay Area dim sum restaurants opened up. And in the past year Los Angeles dim sum has actually regressed with some dim sum restaurants turning to third party, mass produced, economical dim sum. It's gotten such that I don't want to eat dim sum in Los Angeles, and each Bay Area trip I try to see how many more of their dim sum restaurants are better than there is anything here. Before this trip started, my inexact count was that there were almost 20 Bay Area dim sum restaurants that I would rather eat than any of the San Gabriel Valley's dim sum restaurants. While this trip was not confined to dim sum, the dim sum restaurants were of most interest to me, as you can tell from the following pictures of everything I ate on this trip, in chronological order.
First stop was Nom Nom Bistro in Millbrae, chosen because it was a very popular newly opened restaurant just two miles from San Francisco Airport. Nom Nom is a Hong Kong style cafe with some dim sum items on the menu.
The item which immediately caught my eye was the Hakka style stuffed bitter melon. Best bitter melon dish I've ever eaten
Equally enticing the Hakka style mugwort cake.
Swiss chicken wings were great.
As was the vegetarian goose.
Double boiled egg white milk.
Hot tofu pudding.
Next stop was HK Lounge Bistro, the successor to Hong Kong Lounge 2, which burned down several years ago. Surprisingly they chose to reopen in the SoMa area, which led to the perception that they may had become less authentic and more hipster, and indeed that's what I had expected. Actually, my beloved crispy baked BBQ pork bun was no surprise, as the Hong Kong Lounge 2 version of this item was probably my favorite. However this fish cheung fun was fabulous. Not only was it the best fish cheung fun I had ever eaten, but the rice noodle by itself was the best of any. Most of the diners were Chinese. This is clearly a high quality Chinese restaurant. The total tab for these two was about $38.50, but well worth it.
Exploring the streets of Chinatown, I found this tanghulu at Sweet Pop on Grant Avenue.
Next stop on Geary Blvd. in the Richmond District Chinatown was Taisan Huakee, one of the growing number of Taishan style restaurants opening up in San Francisco. The beef and egg steamed rice was awesome.
As was the yellow eel claypot rice.
Salt and pepper tofu.
And snow pea leaves.
Day 2 started with a trip to the remodeled Pearl Bay Tea House in San Leandro, which is the first dim sum palace menu to include (on the cover no less) a separate section of Taishanese items. We did skip the poached pork kidney and pork liver, but the "Country Style Meat Dumplings" were good. Note that "country style" and "traditional" are often code words for dishes from Taishan and neighboring Kaiping
And the giant "Authentic Toishan Style Steamed Bun". Note fork for scale. Historically the Toishan steamed bun was much smaller, and is filled with chicken, Chinese sausage and hard boiled egg. I never saw one of these until I visited San Francisco, as they were rare in Los Angeles.
Then the Kaiping style sesame roll which are fun to unroll.
Something totally new was the Shunde fried fish cake.
We also had a couple of straight Cantonese items, like this baked yam bun.
And finally the traditional steamed bean curd roll.
I then headed straight over to the new Pearl Bay Manor in Dublin for a couple of items not on the Pearl Bay Tea House menu. What a spread! Lichee shaped shrimp balls, pan fried durian buns with cheese, purple sweet potato pancakes and coconut buns.
Another stroll through Chinatown takes me to Ha Tea (not Hey Tea) for this pineapple smoothie.
Dinner at the recently opened LetsSweet Cafe in SoMa with a lot of good selections, starting off with fish shu mai.
How about fish skins?
Moving on to the entrees, here's the silky shrimp egg and rice.
Stir fried spaghetti and meat sauce.
Hainan chicken rice.
It was back to Millbrae and the newly opened Won Kok Millbrae, replacing the longtime Asian Pearl. Usually when an old line dim sum restaurant is replaced, the successor marks a significant upgrade, and this certainly was the case here. This baked sesame mochi bread was the best thing I ate on the trip. Indescribably delicious, as they used to say.
Not to mention the purple crispy shrimp rice noodle roll.
But the most revelatory stop on my trip was not a dim sum parlor, but rather Blue Sky Cafe in Belmont, a Hong Kong style cafe so popular that I passed on going there on my most recent trips to the Bay Area not wanting to fight the crowds there. This time I lucked out and got there with one open table, happy to finally try the highest regarded Hong Kong style cafe in the Bay Area and get some clues as to why despite having such a big gap over Los Angeles as far as dim sum was concerned, there were more and better Hong Kong style cafes in the San Gabriel Valley than the Bay Area. This Fujian style egg tofu was great and the portion was huge. But my biggest discovery came before this dish was served. Rather the discovery was in the menu. Blue Sky Cafe was not a cha chang teng with a mix of Cantonese comfort food and western dishes. Its menu was primarily Cantonese entrees with a small number of western dishes. So no wonder why Bay Area Chinese flock to the San Gabriel Valley to places like Cafe Baccali, Alice's Kitchen, HK Macau Kitchen, Delicious Food Corner, and more. These places hardly exist in the Bay Area!
Last night in San Francisco saw a light dinner at J & X Bistro, a newly opened Jiangxi style restaurant on Jackson St. in Chinatown. I passed on the Jiangxi and Sichuan dishes which would be overly spicy, and rather pricey, in favor of this salt and pepper tofu.
Plus an avocado oat milk at Great Tea, which took over the spot on Washington St. on the edge of Portsmouth Square which was the longtime home of preserved plum and fruit shops, and before that a burger and noodle place called Mee Mee Burger.
The biggest surprise of the trip turned out to be right across the street from the Royal Pacific Motor Inn where Zhen's Kitchen took over the historic space long occupied by Hing Lung. Stopping by before checking out in the morning, I was stunned to find that the space had been converted into a mini dim sum and seafood palace, complete with full color check off dim sum menu, with items like my beloved crispy baked BBQ pork buns.
Delicious fish cheung fun
And the oddly named deep fried chicken shaped meat dumpling. I kind of guessed this might be a hom sui guk, and indeed this was a delicate version of that dish.
At this point, I probably wouldn't add Zhen's Kitchen to my list of Bay Area dim sum restaurants better than anything in the San Gabriel Valley. But if it was in Los Angeles, I'd go there all the time.
And one last stop before leaving Chinatown was Fruitful Dreams on Jackson St. for their short tanghulu stick.
Even though I want to try as many new dim sum restaurants as I can to have a comprehensive list of Bay Area restaurants preferable to anything in the San Gabriel Valley, for my last meal I went back to Treasure in Belmont, to see if it was as overwhelming as it when it opened last year. Here's the black sesame bun, black exterior with black sesame filling.
Here's the tri-colored velvet swans.
