Yank Sing

Visiting Hang Ah reminded me of what a good restaurant Yank Sing happens to be. Although I’ve had excellent dim sum in other, cheaper restaurants over the years, none has been quite as enjoyable as Yank Sing. The serving is relaxed, not frenetic or boisterous. There’s a quiet elegance to the restaurant and that makes it my first choice for recommendations. I need to revisit a few other restaurants specializing in Chinese small plate dining to determine who has the best variety and price, but Yank Sing is worth its generally higher prices for a memorable, low key, dining atmosphere and the high quality of its food.

Ha Gow is almost always the first dim sum I select from the cart. Yank Sing makes it easy to order because the shrimp is always plump, plentiful and very fresh. How can something made with so few ingredients  taste so good? It was surprising to see a salad on the carts one afternoon so my dining companion and I decided to try it. Nice for the crunch factor, but not for a second go round. Considering the myriad  of dumplings available, those with fresh vegetables are another favorite, as was the pea tendril sample in this last photo. It looks like a pot sticker, but it was steamed.

  

Eggrolls don’t really thrill me anymore, they seem greasier than need be, but these were decent, as were the pork and cabbage filled Pot Stickers. The Phoenix Shrimp were encased in a shrimp mousse and deep fried. A nice little surprise, since I had not seen those before. The sweet chili sauce was a nice addition to the plate and worked well with the shrimp.

  

These chicken and vegetable dumplings were a generous size and provided a nice change from shrimp and pork, although I forgot to ask their official name. Something I had not tried before was the Pork Rice Noodle, a nice little package of pork, green onion and rice noodle sitting in a very flavorful sauce. I have since tried the Beef Rice Noodle at Yank Sing and liked it just as well. This last dumpling, the Mandarin with Chives was made with shrimp, garlic, cilantro and chives; another great little dumpling with good flavor, even better when dipped in soy sauce and chili oil.

 

This Shanghai Dumpling came as a complete shock; it was filled with hot broth as well as pork, ginger and green onion. This “soup dumpling” traditionally called a Xiao Long Bao originated in Shanghai, and was made by placing the meat filling in aspic, that melts when the dumpling is steamed.  What an entertainment. These may have been skipped for years, because they looked flat and only partially filled, but I’ll be ordering them from now on. Add the fried taro, in the next photo, to that order. There’s something about the pasty texture of taro root that really appeals to me. I liked this one, but really prefer the fried taro that is wrapped around a filling of ground pork. They’re heavy , so you definitely want to split an order of these. One is plenty.

Here’s a full admission, I very well may be addicted to Egg Custard Tarts. I cannot sit down to dim sum and leave without having one order, sometimes two if we’re sharing. I think they are the perfect sweet ending to a dim sum lunch and would not turn them down if they were served all by their lonesome. The custard is really egg rich and the dough is flakey and light.

http://www.yanksing.com/our-cuisine/index.html

101 Spear St San Francisco CA 415 781-1111 Open daily 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.