San Francisco

Why is Chinese food in San Francisco so disappointing? Also, thank you, Xi'an Famous Foods

dianakuan — Fri, 14 May 2010 22:00:19 +0000

This $4 plate of liang pi noodles ("cold skin noodles") single-handedly made up for all the bad Chinese food I have eaten in the past eight months.

First, a tangent. I spent eight months living and working in San Francisco. Apologies in advance to those in the Bay Area, but really, it seemed impossible to find great Chinese food there. Decent? Yes. Good? Occasionally. Downright atrocious? Far too common.

With such a big Chinese population, San Francisco should theoretically have Chinese food to rival Vancouver and New York. But what I found was mostly watered-down cooking, and too many restaurants advertising themselves as Chinese-Thai-Vietnamese-Sushi (what's up with that?) And yes, I also visited the purely Chinese restaurants, and quite popular ones at that.

A trusted friend who was a native San Franciscan brought me to his favorite dim sum spot in Chinatown which supposedly had the best har gow in the city; everything was overly greasy, including the signature dish. Over Chinese New Year, I went with relatives (who are originally from Hong Kong) to a popular dim sum spot on Geary Boulevard in the Outer Richmond; it was the best in the area, but still left us all craving food that is less heavy-handed. I also tried a few other spots in the Richmond and Inner Sunset, but soon gave up and retreated to the trusted cocoon of Mexican restaurants for casual meals.

Why is Chinese food in San Francisco so disappointing? I posed this question to too many people in the past few months. I expected to called insane for refuting this popular idea that SF is a haven for all foods Asian, an idea that has been pounded into us by magazine article after magazine article. Surprisingly, and fortunately, most had similar thoughts.

Ugly Shiitakes

dianakuan — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:45:05 +0000

Have you ever seen these? They're "ugly shiitakes", which I found at the UN Plaza farmers market in San Francisco.

"They're actually pretty cute," I told the grungy musician-type manning the booth.

"Eh, yeah, people seem to like them better than the regular ones." He shrugged.

As if on cue, three different people came up behind me, each grabbing a carton of the uglies, and paid for them. They were the regulars with a purpose, it seemed. So I bought some too.

Back home, I had a mushroom epiphany. No, not that kind of mushroom epiphany. Rather, it was the realization that an ingredient that has been a staple in the foods I grew up with, that is so entrenched in Chinese cooking, can be improved upon. These uglies are about half the size of a regular Asian shiitake mushroom. They are twice as soft. There is no thick woody stem that you need to discard. You plop a bunch onto your chutting board and chop away.

And the aroma when cooking is more akin to that of cremini or portabello mushrooms, woodsy but without a tinge of musty like when using regular shiitakes.

I'm sure there is a more scientific name for this shiitake variety. They have got to be sold elsewhere, right? Google doesn't help. If anyone has more info, I'd love to hear it.

It will be hard to go back to regular fresh and dried shiitakes after these.

Turk's Turban Pumpkins

dianakuan — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:23:55 +0000

These pumpkins are so oddly beautiful I just had to share. My friend Christa picked them up at Farmer John's pumpkin patch in Half Moon Bay, about 30 to 40 minutes from San Francisco. Having never seen them before, I spent the longest time trying to figure out how they developed to look like two different species squashed into one, with a warty belt around the middle.

These pumpkins have a handful of colorful names, including Turk's Turban, Turk's Squash, Scotchman's Purse, Ladies' Eardrops, and (for the smaller ones) Aladdin's Turban. Apparently, because the sun hits the top more directly, the pumpkins develop top heavy, like an upside-down hat.

Oh, and they don't taste very good, so it's best to just display them around the house, maybe near the punch bowl at your Halloween party.

More pics of these odd- but fun-looking specimens.

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