GrubGirl.

Shanghai Dumpling King
3319 Balboa Street
(between 34th Ave & 35th Ave)
San Francisco, CA 94121
(415) 387-2088

One of the Chronicle’s listed bargain bites, I had to go check this out for myself, since not all of those items on the list are cheap enough for my tastes. Conclusion? Very darn good. Four people, 5-6 dishes, $10 each.

We ordered their signature steamed dumplings, some special potsticker-shaped dumpling in hot oil, a lion’s head meatball soup, some fried sweet bread with evaporated milk dip, a fried rice cake dish, and then another type of ball (looked like cooked mochi) in spicy oil.

Grubgirl doesn’t want to pay for jook, but she doesn’t really know how to make it “just like Mom,”… so she found this recipe from Kathy Gibbons that offers up a method. We’ll give it a try here in our test kitchen and see if the folks in Northern Michigan can hold their own!

Update: It was pretty darn good, in terms of water-to-rice ratio! I must admit that I used Trader Joe’s “Better Than Bouillion” (blush). A really authenic cook would use plain water, and throw a chicken neck bone into the slow cooker. But alas, my craving was too much and I cut a few corners.

(415) 564-3481
Continuing on the Chronicle’s bargain bites path, I went with a couple friends to check out this restaurant. Did it really qualify for cheap eats, by San Francisco Chinese food standards? We went for a Saturday lunch, it was a nice day, and so we drove way out there to Vicente and the 40s.

First observations:

• No one else was there. It was high noon. Where were the diners? Hmmm.

(This applies to meat eaters only, at this time)

Two simple tests using 2 dishes:

1) Siu Mai meat
This test measures the quality of ingredients being used by the restaurant.

These come in the small steam baskets and consist of something like a wonton skin wrapped around pork, with a little carrot cube place on top.

What form is the pork in? If it’s a pure ground pork meatball, then the restaurant has cut corners here. You should be able to see and taste individual cubes/chunks of real pork meat, along with real chopped mushrooms, dried shrimp, and maybe some bamboo shoots.