MmMmmGood

People are always waxing on about how delicious San Francisco’s Chinese food is. Perhaps because SF has the largest chinatown outside of Asia. However, I have to say: SF has NOTHING on Vancouver! I’ve sampled a few dimsum’s (chinese brunch/ lunch/ tea) in the bay area, and my definitive “go to” place for yum cha (just another term for dim sum) is Palo Alto’s Tai-Pan. Yes, this place is a whiles away from downtown SF (think a 45 minute drive) but if you’re craving some siu mai, lo mai gai, or lo bak go, this place hits the spot.

Palo Alto is actually one of those places I would love to live; the burbs are always sunny and it’s just a happy area what with the sunshine, the gorgeous houses, the tech-y enterprises… plus did I mention the sunshine? Where SF (great city still) is always a bit chilly and a wind tunnel, Palo Alto is always temperate t-shirt/ light jacket weather. Palo Alto is how you imagine California to be. Plenty of people get confused about San Francisco when travelling…. “but it’s California!” Trust me; there’s a difference between Nor Cal and So Cal.

Returning to Tai-Pan however, the restaurant is spacious and elegantly decorated. Never have I been in such a spacious Chinese restaurant.

I’m taking this picture in the foyer; there are a number of tables in the main dining area then there are private rooms in the back.

This is the teapot. Usually chinese restaurants have a nice white teapot which is (for me) sort of impossible to pour from without spilling on the table. This pot is foolproof because the handle is humongous and the tealeaves are nice and contained in the filter. When you go to dim sum, the waiter usually asks what sort of tea you would like. I’m partial to bo lei (cantonese) AKA pu’er (mandarin) and teet goon yum (cantonese) AKA tie guan yun (mandarin).

See you wong cheung fun; it’s just a pan friend rice noodle roll. Pretty basic but really delicious, this dish comes with some (oyster sauce?) on the side for dipping or spooning over your roll.

The classic chinese spring roll/ cheun guen/ chang yuan/ 越式春卷, this is filled with chicken, vermicelli, vegetables, and mushrooms, $7 USD. Mybad for not photographing the inside of the roll.

I love chinese radish cake/ lo bak go/ luo ba gao. This is made out of daikon and I would describe it as akin to a chinese potato cake with meat, dried shrimp, and green onion. Yummy.

I wanted to order lo mai gai (the rice in the leaf wrap) but accidentally ordered stir-fried sticky rice, 生炒糯米飯. For $12, this was really satisfying and after a few bites of this I started feeling pretty stuffed.

Pan-Fried Tofu with stuff shrimp/ 乾坤炸釀豆腐. This was $12 and we ordered it because we saw the table next to us order it. It tastes pretty much exactly as it sounds: shrimp stuffed pan-fried tofu. What could be bad about that?

Siu mai/ shao mai/ 烧卖/ pork dumpling. This comes with four, but as you can see from the missing two, I hungrily dove in, this blog temporarily erased from my mind. This is my favourite I order at every restaurant. Only average at Tai-pan, it’s still passably good with a nice (mystery) meat/ fat/ wrapper/ roe ratio. (The best for Siu Mai are Vancouver’s Kirin and West Lake). There are other restaurants where I need to choke these down or won’t eat them… snotty sounding? Maybe, but when you’ve had good dim sum you just can’t go back to mediocre dim sum!

Boon tong gao/ shark fin dumpling in soup. You can rest assured ordering a boon tong gao at Tai-Pan. There’s very little (if any) MSG, the dumpling is filled with shrimp and mushrooms, and there is a generous serving of real sharks fin. Yummy. All this for $8, you can also easily split it between two, even three people.

One more shot of the dining area. As regards to the service, the mass of servers/ people working at Tai-Pan are friendly and helpful, and speak English, Cantonese, and Mandarin (as per usual). The restaurant is without a doubt more pricey than your typical dim sum restaurant, but considering the slim pickings for really tasty dim sum in the Bay area, I would a) plan a foodie trip to Vancouver straightaway or b) deal with the price, and enjoy the atmosphere and the delicate flavours and textures that Tai-Pan has to offer.

Visit Tai-Pan online HERE!