C.Q. Taste — Restaurant in San Francisco

My group of five decided to go try during Aug'24 Clement St Night Market. My group had mixed feelings because the food was good but the service wasn't. Not sure if it's because they were overwhelmed from participating in the night market. I would try again when it's not the night market.

We enjoyed the Dry Fried Chicken wings but there was no individual plates so the sauce dripped on the table - no wonder the table cloth felt sticky. ChongQing Special Duck Mixian Soup was good. It was piping hot when it came out so the bowl was held in something that looked like a dog bowl, which I thought was funny. We would have tried the chicken version if the order wasn't messed up - duck doesn't have shiitake mushrooms, but chicken does! We tried the ChongQing Style Roast Beef Mixian Soup. They allowed the noodle swap to Hong Kong noodles and as mild spicy as possible. The Dan Dan noodles were ok. Too spicy. A few members loved their sweet tea but the others thought it was too sweet haha

Now the services. As mentioned, a staff didn't know their dishes and mistaken the duck soup for the chicken so the dishes were swapped and later corrected. The Dan Dan noodles were forgotten and another table who came later got Dan Dan noodles before ours - plus we asked for as mild as possible but I think they forgot that detail when the dish was forgotten... The food was not served at the same time, excluding the forgotten dish, the first person who got their food had basically finished eating before anyone else...

After a lackluster meal at Izakaya Links, who no longer serve their Japanese curry tacos, this saved our mid-week date night.

Maps seems to think there are Thai noodles to be had, but there are not. But fear not, there is still delicious noodling afoot.

QQ (chewy) noodles the likes of which I haven't found in CA outside of LA. Perfect amount of numbing spice such that it's lip-smacking but not making my nose run. Moist, fatty, tendon-y, fall-off-the-bone, stick-to-your-ribs ribs.

Open relatively late for post-restaurant-pocalypse. Cute decor with flowers on the ceiling, as seems to be "in" at Chinese restaurants these days. Good service, fairly bilingual, or at least we didn't run into any language barrier issues.

The only downside was their san jin bao filling was more like cha shu bao filling, but that's not food from their region so it's more my fault for ordering Shanghai food at a Chongqing restaurant. They should just take this off the menu.

We were already half-full from our previous meal or we would have ordered more. Next time. (Oh, yes, there will be...

Not sure what the fuss is about. Line out the door, long wait time? Should be good right? Nope! Service was awful, seated us at table obviously not meant for customers, incredibly wobbly and covered in junk mail, random items, and paperwork. We said it was too wobbly and the greeter objected until I physically showed him and then he made us wait longer as we watched people come in after us and be seated. When we finally got our table it was then 20 min later, probably 45 min for he full wait time. The waiter/greeter (same guy) scoffed at me when I let him know my desired spiciness level and told me that mild was enough for me (rude.). The dish was flavorless and not spicy at all, tangy at best. When we ran out of our tea, another waiter took it and never brought it back, while the table next to us got a refill even though they didn't want it.

Tldr: tasteless food, terrible service, rude staff. Would not recommend and would...