Yank Sing

November 3, 2007 - So I've actually been to Yank Sing for dim sum on a number of occasions before. First off, it's expensive. It's not a typical Chinese dim sum place and dishes are, instead of being around $3-5, are around $6-10. So why go there?

The thing to understand about Yank Sing is that it's situated in the Financial District of San Francisco, very close to the Embarcadero. It's a great place for business people to entertain their clients at, a taste of Chinatown without the trek across town, crowds, and rude waitstaff. So Yank Sing is most popular with business people and tourists. It's not a place that locals frequent unless they're trying to impress some non-Chinese visitors. It's just too expensive to go every weekend to hang out. But I hold nothing again Yank Sing because at the very basic level, it is a good restaurant. The food is good, ambiance good, and service is very good.

So this time we went specifically because we were trying to remember which dim sum place was the one with the excellent egg custard tarts that had a nice, flaky, coconutty flavored tart shell. After some discussion we thought it might be Yank Sing so we headed over there to find out. We were wrong again. The dan tat were nothing spectacular actually. Oh well, at least now we know.

So the skinny on what we had and what I thought about it. The shanghai dumplings came first and boy were they perfect! The skin was just strong enough to contain the soup but not too thick to overpower. There was just the perfect amount of soup that squirted out into your mouth and it was delicious! That was the fave of the day. Next came the har gow. Not very good. The shrimp were overcooked and just not that flavorful. Then we had another dumpling that was just so unspectacular that I don't even really remember what it was. The ham sui gok were cold but still good. The dough had a nice chewiness and didn't have a very oily feeling to it and the filling was yummy. It was good. We don't usually get the fried stuff but today we got some fried shrimp with a sweet/sour dip. That was actually better than we expected it to be. The BBQ pork buns were delicious. The bao was nice and fluffy and though I am not a huge fan of cha sui bao because of the filling, I actually enjoyed these.

Ok, we finally worked the massive meal to dessert. We definitely splurged because we couldn't decide. So we got mango pudding, the dan tat that we came for, and the dou fu fa. So I already mentioned that the dan tat were not the nice coconutty ones we came for and were quite ordinary dan tats. They weren't even freshly made and warm or anything like that. Oh well. We ended up taking that one home. The mango pudding was my sister's choice and just what she wanted. It was fine. I'm not the biggest fan of mango pudding. My thing is the dou fu fa. It was smooth and tasty just as it should be but a big minus was that it wasn't hot. I like it when it's nice and hot. Or at least warm! This was cold... wah.

So this was not the best visit and it's unfortunate that this is the first visit to be logged on the blog, but I'm sure there might be a better visit in the future.