Wednesday, April 1, 2015

MIssion Chinese Food [San Francisco]


Being featured on No Reservations a few years ago and recommended by many, we just had to try Mission Chinese Food when we went to San Francisco back in October. Being on several best new restaurant list when it first open in 2012 and helmed by James Beard Award winning Rising Chef Danny Bowien, I had rather high expectations.




Although it started as a pop up, this end up being a rather permanent restaurant. Disguised as the Lung Shan Restaurant signage outside, it's best known for their take on Szechuan cuisine combining traditional Chinese recipes with new added ingredients.
 

Walking in a place like this, you would expect to be created by a Chinese waiter but instead you get a tattooed hipster waiter creating you at the door.


Tea Smoked Eel Roll $10
~ Fresh rice noodle, Chinese celery, salted plum hoisin, braised pork, cognac soy
This was refreshing but frankly I don't think it's fresh rice noodles since it was starting to get a tiny bit dry. That aside this was the most innovation dish among those 4 dishes we tried since the others were pretty standard Chinese dishes that I really don't see anything "new" to them.

Thrice Cooked Bacon and Rice Cake $14
~ sweet tofu skin, bitter melon, Szechuan pepper
Love the heat of this dish with only the slightest bit of numbing sensation with the fatty pork belly, bitterness and the chewy rice cake. Will have to try this at home, never thought of cooking bitter melon with rice cake before.

Salt Cod Fried Rice $13
~ Mackerel confit, Chinese sausage, lettuce, egg
There was not enough salted fish here and I hate to say that I like the traditional Chinese Salted fish much better, so much more flavorful. The one at my local Hong-Kong Café (Cha Chan Tang 茶餐廳) taste a lot better, with better wok-hei 鑊氣 than the one here and it's only $6.99 Canadian which include a drink.


Chongquing Chicken Wings $11
~ Explosive Chili, Crispy Beef Tripe
Look amazing but except for the Szechuan pepper and salt coating on the outside, it was very bland inside. Should definitely marinated the wings a bit prior especially if it's huge size wings like this.




Verdict:
Very very overrated !!! 
Being Chinese, we both have pretty high standard and we both thought that it was nothing special.
I wouldn't say it's was bad but just not worth our precious time.
If you are just tourist like us, I would not recommend this place since there's so many great restaurant to try out in San Franciso... so why waste your time.



Related San Francisco Post:
State Bird Provision [Modern/California/DimSum]
Philz Coffee [Mint Mojito Iced Coffee]
 Akiko's Restaurant [Japanese]
Mission Chinese Food [Chinese Szechwan]



Mission Chinese Food on Urbanspoon




No comments:

Post a Comment