Top Authentic Food in San Francisco Chinatown

San Francisco Chinatown is the oldest and largest Chinatown in all of the United States and it is a must do for any tourist visiting San Francisco today I'm going to take you to five of the most pop or rated authentic Chinese cuisines in Chinatown some of the restaurants and shops have been here in Chinatown for well over a hundred years and it's definitely a great place to go to find authentic Chinese cuisine but because of the tourist element even some of the mainstays are starting to Americanize their food I've scoured some of the top foodie blogs for the best restaurants and their signature dishes and we're gonna go visit them and see how spot-on they are I've got my list and ton of cash because as you know some of these restaurants don't take credit cards so let's go our first stop is at begonia Bistro which is open by executive chef Jimmy Kwok who is a Vietnamese born Chinese and he and his partner named Wong wanted to open something that was a little bit more contemporary the recommendation here is to try the picking duck so let's go in and order this is the picking duck or in Chinese Beijing yeah so beautiful 1/2 order is 20 bucks it comes with five Bao or Chinese bread that you can stuff the duck in and it also comes with some green onions and hoisin sauce as condiments let's go ahead and make one you're gonna get a bun here which opens up like a sandwich and then grab a piece of duck make sure to get a piece with crispy skin on it look how thin that skin is there's very little fat on it which is perfect get some green onions and then a little bit of hoisin sauce that you're gonna spread on the inside of the bow just like this to assemble it stick the pieces of duck in it the skin then debone the lean piece of meat and of course your scallions you can put more or less in depending on your taste and I've got a little sandwich so it looks just like this that's really delicious the doctors on a leaner side which I kind of like it's sort of up to individual tastes but for me I like it better because you can actually taste the duck and it's not so oily and fatty the ballsy or bun is super soft they're like fluffy hello boys get a couple of napkins that look at messy overall I give that duck a solid seven and a half I had to take away some points because I was expecting the skin to be super crispy given that there wasn't any fat cut with it but ended up not being so crispy but otherwise the taste is pretty good the one thing I wasn't too super happy about was that they charged me for water service dollar 25 per person which is what they would normally charge for tea here at good Mong Kok bakery which is on Stockton and they mainly specialize in some items go there's no seeming inside so you're just gonna have to go to the counter and order everything it is cash or money so make sure you've got lots of that on hand to buy the recommended item to buy here is the toss a ball or the barbecue pork bun there's always a crazy line here to buy things at any time of the day that you arrive here and they open as early as I believe 7:00 a.m. but they will close down the store once they've sold out of items so definitely try to get in here before lunchtime [Music] these hog out looks so delicious and they are huge here are my pork buns they look so beautiful and yummy look at that beautiful barbecue pork filling inside and you could see in here that there is a great combination of both the lean pork back here as well as the strip here which is a fatty pork which gives it that really nice rich texture and this bread here has a really beautiful springy texture to it you can tell it's going to be really soft and moist when you bite in so try bite it's really nice bread beautifully yeasty and it has definitely a little bit of the sweet taste that you come to expect from this type of bread very very light and texture that barbecue is super delicious the sauce is nice and tangy and the thing is just exploding with pork inside our next location is tony ching chong yet this is meant to be a fast-food style noodle eatery and in addition to all the bowls of handmade noodles they also offer shouts ooh which literally translated from Chinese means little eats so these are side dishes typically cold although they'll have some hot side dishes as well the food is made in a Chongqing style chosing is a southern city in China that used to be part of the same province but now it's its own municipality so you can imagine that the food is probably really really spicy this is the menu it looks fantastic and the recommendation is to get their house special Cho machine Shan Mian or choking hot numbing spicy noodles Szechuan peppercorns are not known for being hot spicy but they have a numbing effect over time in this container is a chili oil so if your noodles are not spicy enough you can add more here are my noodles they look yummy it's a very simple dish essentially noodles in the chili oil broth there are large chunks of cabbage in here and some scallions but other than that there's not a whole lot else [Music] that's really good it's not super spicy so if you like things were really really spicy I would definitely take advantage of a chili oil over there but I kind of like the bite that it has right now and I love the noodles they're really fresh and they're springing they're not chewy so sometimes with handmade noodles they make them thicker and they've got that chewy context consistency to it but this probably reminds me a little bit more of almond in terms of the texture it's actually quite right for a chili royal broth so it's definitely well browned even boilie tasted really good let's take a bite of the cabbage here the cabbage is really nice it's very soft and that's definitely been boiled in the soup for a while and it's absorbed the flavor of the spicy soup rock it would be really careful about inhaling while you're eating your food because that chili really goes down the wrong direction that was excellent and I definitely give my bowl of noodles at 10:00 the quantity for $7 was amazing I think with tax it was like 9 bucks the service can be a bit abrupt but you've got to expect that from a Chinese restaurant it's definitely something that I would recommend behind me here is Golden Gate Bakery and it's a Hong Kong style bakery that has attained almost like a cult-like status for its crispy flaky egg custard tarts the bakery is supposed to open at noon although honestly they kind of open at random times and there are days where you're gonna come by and they're not even open at all there's even a website and associated Facebook page to track the openings of this bakery there's a fresh batch that just came out of the oven I'm so lucky they have this original style as well as Portuguese style which is caramelized on top if I got my half a dozen here and they sell them 225 a piece or 27 for a dozen and they only take cash so still nice and warm from being out of the oven so check out how beautiful that looks that custard is so golden and it's so crispy the tart portion of it you can see it's just flaking off as I'm holding it right now so I'm gonna take a quick bite hmm oh my gosh that pastry is so light and flaky it kind of reminds me a little phyllo dough of that type of texture and consistency and I love the custard inside it's got a very creamy and rich texture to it without being overly sweet or feeling very heavy so it's perfect combination of textures you can definitely taste that egg yolk enus in the custard as well it's so light it doesn't feel like a dessert I can probably eat six of these easy no problem without feeling heavy or filled up okay I can totally see how Golden Gate Bakery gets its reputation for those flaky crusty light pastries and I would absolutely give that a 10 so if you're down here and Golden Gate Bakery happens to be open and the line is not too long definitely pick up some egg custard tarts and I only bought six but highly recommend that you buy twelfth we're at our last location behind me here and it's Sam was it's a classic that has been around since 1907 it's probably one of the oldest restaurants that I know of here in Chinatown the Chinese name San hug dolphin Yin literally translates to three harmonious porridge and noodles the original Sam was closed in 2018 due to health department requirements and this new location opened in 2014 the recommended dish is Chuck a Chinese rice porridge the rice has been slow cooked in broth so that the grain is broken down and has a soft thick consistency to it I order chicken and mine some fresh green scallions on top and this is a preserved egg or a hundred-year-old egg it's a duck egg that has been fermented for several months the yolk is gooey and creamy and the white has a gel like rubbery consistency to it like stinky cheese it's an acquired taste slightly bland and fermented with an acidic after bite you traditionally eat just with this this is yo cow or Chinese donut pop it into your jug here it will soak and become soft giving the porridge a bit of texture and salty flavor to it that's really nice and comforting it's just the way that jerk should be I think even though this dish is simple to make can't let it fool you it's very very difficult to make a good jug because you have to boil the rice with enough ingredients in it spices seasoning broth in order to give it sort of a richer deeper taste to it otherwise it just tastes like watery rice joke is typically eaten either for breakfast or very late at night and what is known as shall yet which literally translates to evening but it literally means evening dinner so this is like what you would eat if you are coming back late at night from the clubs or the bars and it definitely makes great gruffly so one final note although I didn't order it this time the full fun or rice noodle rolls is also highly recommended here at this restaurant they make it themselves from scratch back here is Sam Lowe's and across the street we are back now to Portsmouth garage this Chinatown is pretty spread out and covers about 24 square blocks and there are literally hundreds of restaurants here we have barely scratched the surface today in terms of really good authentic Chinese cuisine I'd love to hear from you on what dishes I might have missed for my list today and if you do stop at any of these places I'd love to hear your feedback on whether you enjoy them or not from prosperous Bahraini Chinatown land of good food peace out geek sirs [Music]

Channel: Zeene InRealLife

Views: 109,537

Keywords: San Francisco Chinatown, San Francisco, Begoni Bistro San Francisco, Good Mong Kok Bakery San Francisco, Chong Qing Xiao Mien San Francisco, Golden Gate Bakery San Francisco, Sam Wo San Francisco, top authentic dishes San Francisco Chinatown, Top Chinese dishes San Francisco Chinatown, San Francisco Chinatown food, San Francisco Chinatown dimsum, San Francisco Chinese food, Zeene In Real Life

Id: DDEx1LZjG8U

Length: 12min 35sec (755 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 19 2018