- dumpling specialist
- chongqing xiao mian
- mr zsechuan
- jiang nan
- the pancake house
And that’s it, these were hard to find for sure.
Vietnamese is uber hard to find, but yummy yummy is really good, bunbo at cordon bleu is legit too. I like the buncha At tin.
If you’re saying that there is no good korean, oh boy you’re in for a treat, go to Daeho!
For thai: zen yai is uber legit, be sure to ask for “thai spicy”
Then go to 85C get some good taiwanese pastries, and then to little sweet to go get a hong kong style coconut drink with sago.
For Japanese, just avoid the over hyped places, go to kuishinbo!
Also, go to yemeni kitchen, pakwan, doppio zero, gusto pinsa romana,
- Pho in general in the US is pretty close to Pho in Ho Chi Minh. i.e. Turtle Tower doing Chicken Pho is pretty good and close.
- Dim sum is dim sum. The places in Chinatown serve a Ha Gau or Siu Mai and largely the same in Hong Kong... how is it not authentic?
- Japanese... Nigiri, sashimi is.... authentic? To say there's zero authentic Japanese seems too. Seriously, sashimi how is it not authentic? It's "just" a piece of cut fish.
If you're speaking about quality then 100% I agree. The quality/etc... is not nearly as amazing as the origin locations, but the flavors aren't drastically different.
Come to Singapore where all foods have sugar added which considerably changes the flavor profile.
To claim zero authentic in SF...
[EDIT] To qualify my side - authenticity should be a very low bar, which should be ingredients, quantity and process should match to generally create a similar flavor profile.
It shouldn't matter who, where, what the place looks like.
"Good dimsum" != "authentic dimsum". That's all I'm trying to get at with the parent comment.
For the bad dimsum restaurants in SF, I could point you to a dimsum place in HK that's equally bad as long as the flavor profiles match.
There are lots of bad restaurants in HK. Does that make them not authentic? Of course not, so quality does not equate to authenticity.
The original article is talking about authenticity because that was a real problem. The flavors were changing as they came to America, by a lot.
Similarly, the rustic side of Malaysian, and Singaporean Chinese cuisines is due to them having origin as food of laborers.
There are TONS of authentic Asian restaurants around each of those locations. Like more than you can believe. Unless you think that all the grandmas eating there are on a Saturday night or Sunday morning are all confused about what they're eating.
(You can't make a good Asian restaurant with ingredients from Costco or Safeway, so you have to follow the supplier ...)
What I will say is that if you are a "tech person" who lives in SF, it's pretty hard to find an authentic Asian restaurant. If you live in SOMA or the Mission, there is almost exclusively the over-sauced Americanized stuff that people here are mentioning.
You have to "try" -- the "default" is to eat bad Asian food. It's hard to get over to Geary St. on a weekday. There's stuff in Chinatown that is good, but honestly I've found it hard to sort through.
Another easy way is to tell is to see if there's a whole fish on the menu... Americanized places won't have that.
One surprising/nice thing about the rise of the delivery apps is that it's made some of the food from the western part of the city more accessible. It opens up some different flavors/cooking.
I’ve had a variety of cuisine from chefs that had the same restaurant in their home country, I also went to their home country and tried the same dish at the same restaurant and found it comparatively bland. Off the top of my head I can only think of a ramen spot in Japan.
Similarly, Crystal Jade (RIP) re Chinese food.
I can remember specifically a very small hole-in-the-wall place in Yokohama that seats maybe 8-10 people (although I suppose that's par for the course for ramen shops). You could choose how rich you wanted the broth to be.
There are many different preparation styles.