I have gone to Fat Wong’s. It’s ok. 3 to 3.5 star sounds about right. Not the greatest but not poor by any means. I liken it to a tapas place in that you can order smallish dishes as opposed to say eating family style at a full menu’d chinese place. My understanding is that these type of places flourish in HK. I get the allure. This would be an ideal place (if opened) for late night snacking after say a movie or clubbing. Light dining.
I have not gone to Dragon Beaux, but do want to. It looks fine, but I do tend to stay away from the Richmond in general due to the parking.
You and Ms. Harriet may be thinking, oh come on, he doesn’t do chicken feet and he is first generation (so probably likes PF Chang’s). Wrong. Yes, I don’t do chicken feet but I actually love chinese food the most and prefer it but I do have a Malaysian wife who likes many kinds of foods. To prove my preference, I had to have my wedding rehearsal dinner in Chinatown in my favorite hole in a wall place. It is not a great place by any means but the place means a lot to me because this is where I was born and raised. I didn’t care about my snooty NY cousins who probably panned the place (I made up for it next day with a full blown wedding at the St Francis Yacht Club). This is probably something along the lines of your place, it is a place frequented by local chinese people. Fairly cheap and it is darn authentic. I love getting the snails when it is in season.
Ok, @harriet, we were running around town yesterday and since we found ourselves in the Richmond, we wanted to go to Hong Kong Lounge since my wife likes the durian pastry there. OMG, sidewalk was completely caked with people out front. This was later een, 12:30pm or so. Sooo, I said let’s try Dragon Beaux. I’ll call my mortgage friend to see how much of a second loan I can get on the spot to fund this lunch… We drive down there, OMG, another small gang of people outside. Fair enough, if that many people are willing to pay for it, it must be pretty good. We proceeded to go to Shai Lai (former Mayflower) which is further down Geary and it was actually ok. One of my cousins always judged a dim sum place by the most simple yet essential dish, the har gow. It has to be just right, the skin has to be not too thick and gooey and of course not too thin that the minute you touch it it tears apart. The har gows at Shai Lai were actually quite good. Unfortunately, that did not transfer to the rest of the dishes. The other stuff was ok. One thing I miss from Chinatown though is the low pricing. My god, when did dim sum dishes (most of them) exceed $3-$4 a plate? I know, I need to get out more and see the real world…
So the story is that you went all the way to Richmond and did NOT try the restaurants @harriet recommended, and you complained about the meh food you got.
No, no, I am just acknowledging that her fav place must be pretty good for people to want to spend that much. The sidewalk was not as packed as HK Lounge was, but I was impressed enough. So, we will try again, perhaps on a weekday when I max out on vacation days again (which is soon). My wife works from home on Mondays anyway so I should be able to take her out for lunch there.
I at least am objective to understand and accept that when hordes of people are waiting to eat at a restaurant and they then rate it highly that it must be fairly good. Why you won’t accept that kind of thinking when it comes to San Tung or any restaurant to that matter is really beyond me.
Anybody wanting a fish simmered in onion, cilantro and tomate sauce? Accompanied by French fries?
OK…too late, I am finishing the cooking and eating it in 2 minutes.
There is a place called Rooster and Rice in San Francisco (I’ve never been so I don’t know whether it’s good or not), but judging from the menu the rice doesn’t look very authentic because it’s just regular rice and not flavored. Good ratings on Yelp though in case you trust their reviews like @sfdragonboy does.
Just perused the Yelp reviews. A lot of the reviews are by our fellow brothers and sisters, so they should know what good Hainan Chicken Rice would taste like, right? Only a few hundred reviews and between two locations, so I wouldn’t exactly call this truly credible yet but what is impressive is that many of the posters are of Elite status. @caiguycaiguy, why don’t you give it a shot to see if any good since reasonably priced?
The only thing bad is that the SOMA location closes early (for working crowd only I guess) and the other location is in the parking starved Marina district. Good luck!!!
Can eat hainanese chicken rice anywhere in Singapore. Is a national dish
Many Malaysian and Singaporean restaurants in South Bay serves hainanese chicken rice. All taste bad. Better just eat yellow haired or white cut chicken.
We drive down there, OMG, another small gang of people outside. Fair enough, if that many people are willing to pay for it, it must be pretty good. We proceeded to go to Shai Lai (former Mayflower) which is further down Geary and it was actually ok. One of my cousins always judged a dim sum place by the most simple yet essential dish, the har gow. It has to be just right, the skin has to be not too thick and gooey and of course not too thin that the minute you touch it it tears apart. The har gows at Shai Lai were actually quite good. Unfortunately, that did not transfer to the rest of the dishes. The other stuff was ok. One thing I miss from Chinatown though is the low pricing. My god, when did dim sum dishes (most of them) exceed $3-$4 a plate? I know, I need to get out more and see the real world…
