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Maybe "The Mandarin" was authentic, I don't think I went there, but having lived in SF for 11 years I never found any authentic asian food in SF. I found some i

Maybe "The Mandarin" was authentic, I don't think I went there, but having lived in SF for 11 years I never found any authentic asian food in SF. I found some in Fremont. There's plenty in San Gabriel, Alhambra, and other places on the north east side of LA but SF, nothing. No authentic Japanese, no authentic Chinese, no authentic Vietnamese, no authentic Korean, no authentic Taiwanese, no authentic Malay/Singapore/Indonesian.

vmception 6y ago
SF is big on sauces and spices and has a wide variety of cuisine in general and it might have become a very localized taste to stay competitive on the flavor explosion people look for and compare experiences with. 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.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
irjustin 6y ago
What? This statement is so hyperbolic. - 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.
- baby 6y ago
  That style of pho is OK I find, I couldn’t find what I got in hanoi. I was on a quest for a good dimsum in SF and tried a bunch of places until I gave up, maybe I should try these places. Japanese is not just about sushi unfortunately.
  - irjustin 6y ago
    Oh I agree, I think "good dimsum" is very hard to find even in SF. "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.
- baybal2 6y ago
  Most of overpriced Hongkong dimsum is rather so so. Most find that Hongkong cuisine to be an evolution of Cantonese food towards a rather coarse side. Similarly, the rustic side of Malaysian, and Singaporean Chinese cuisines is due to them having origin as food of laborers.
chubot 6y ago
Yeah I also find this hard to believe. The easiest way to find authentic Chinese food and Asian food in the Bay Area is to look around a 99 Ranch market. There's one in Fremont, which I imagine is where you went, but there's also one in Daly City, and one in Milpitas. 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.
seanmcdirmid 6y ago
When I was living in the Bay Area circa 2005, there was a Chinese restaurant in SF called the la meizi, so authentically Changsha/Hunanese that they even served stinky tofu.
swampthing 6y ago
Hmm, restaurants from Japan have opened locations in SF though. E.g. Hinodeya, Mensho, Tsuta. Did you feel even those weren't authentic? Similarly, Crystal Jade (RIP) re Chinese food.
- baby 6y ago
  They only do fat broth, when I was in Japan broth would be much lighter I found, here I die after a bowl of ramen.
  - yibg 6y ago
    Not like there is a single type of broth in japan. There are really light and really rich thick ones in japan too.
    - baby 6y ago
      Yeah, but in the US I often find that this is the most common style
  - spike021 6y ago
    This is all dependent on style. I went to many places in Japan where it was easy to get very fatty, dense bowls. 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.
  - swampthing 6y ago
    Hinodeya broth was about as light as you can get. And I have had equally fatty broth in Japan.
baby 6y ago
Throw every authentic chinese food in sf list you might have read (for some reason they all list bad restaurants) and go to: - 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,

vmception 6y ago

SF is big on sauces and spices and has a wide variety of cuisine in general and it might have become a very localized taste to stay competitive on the flavor explosion people look for and compare experiences with. 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.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

irjustin 6y ago

What? This statement is so hyperbolic. - 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.

baby 6y ago
That style of pho is OK I find, I couldn’t find what I got in hanoi. I was on a quest for a good dimsum in SF and tried a bunch of places until I gave up, maybe I should try these places. Japanese is not just about sushi unfortunately.
- irjustin 6y ago
  Oh I agree, I think "good dimsum" is very hard to find even in SF. "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.
baybal2 6y ago
Most of overpriced Hongkong dimsum is rather so so. Most find that Hongkong cuisine to be an evolution of Cantonese food towards a rather coarse side. Similarly, the rustic side of Malaysian, and Singaporean Chinese cuisines is due to them having origin as food of laborers.

chubot 6y ago

Yeah I also find this hard to believe. The easiest way to find authentic Chinese food and Asian food in the Bay Area is to look around a 99 Ranch market. There's one in Fremont, which I imagine is where you went, but there's also one in Daly City, and one in Milpitas. 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.

seanmcdirmid 6y ago

When I was living in the Bay Area circa 2005, there was a Chinese restaurant in SF called the la meizi, so authentically Changsha/Hunanese that they even served stinky tofu.

swampthing 6y ago

Hmm, restaurants from Japan have opened locations in SF though. E.g. Hinodeya, Mensho, Tsuta. Did you feel even those weren't authentic? Similarly, Crystal Jade (RIP) re Chinese food.

baby 6y ago
They only do fat broth, when I was in Japan broth would be much lighter I found, here I die after a bowl of ramen.
- yibg 6y ago
  Not like there is a single type of broth in japan. There are really light and really rich thick ones in japan too.
  - baby 6y ago
    Yeah, but in the US I often find that this is the most common style
- spike021 6y ago
  This is all dependent on style. I went to many places in Japan where it was easy to get very fatty, dense bowls. 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.
- swampthing 6y ago
  Hinodeya broth was about as light as you can get. And I have had equally fatty broth in Japan.

baby 6y ago

Throw every authentic chinese food in sf list you might have read (for some reason they all list bad restaurants) and go to: - 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,