Taishan Cuisine — Restaurant in San Francisco

The North Beach bars had just closed when I decided I was hungry. I found a spot nearby that closed at 3am. I walked through the door and I wasn't quite sure what I had walked into. It was a restaurant, for sure, but the woman casually meandering towards me seemed unsure if she would hand me the menu she was holding or not, so we were both confused. "Are you open?" "Yes. To go?" "Yes. May I see a menu?" "Yes." The time was 2:30am, and we were starting to approach normal. I sat down alone at a table for six and soaked up the ambience. Besides myself, there were five other people in the dining room spread out at different tables, each greedily shoveling bowls of food into their face. Near the kitchen sat a young woman holding a baby and feeding it from the five or six bowls spread out on her table. To my right sat two women with their backs to me having a very audible conversation in a language I couldn't understand. Sitting near the register was a man wearing a food stained apron devouring bowl after bowl of something that made him happy causing him to smile at me and repeatedly saying "thank you" and nodding his head. And of course, there was the woman who had greeted me with confusion, who by now was sitting down at her own table of bowls to inhale their contents. All of these people seemed to be engaged in a discussion that took place between slurps and chews. It seems that I stumbled upon the end of shift staff meal, and they gave me the same attention as they would a napkin holder. Only the cook (I assume) kept a left eye on me as the entire room, sans me, ate and conversed and ate and conversed. I signaled I was ready to order and the cook alerted the "confusing woman" . The "confusing woman" took my order and repeated it out loud for everyone to hear, at which point the young woman with the baby threw her napkin on the table, stood up and handed her baby to the "confusing woman", then disappeared into the kitchen. The "confusing woman" sat back down at her table and began feeding the baby. The cook, who hadn't stopped eating, smiled at me and said "thank you". Not only had I stumbled into a staff meal, but also a family dinner. I sat quietly at my table listening to the clangs and splashes of my House Special Taishan Noodles being prepared. The time was 2:50am when my food, and my bill, arrived at my table. The aroma was hypnotic. I peeked inside the box to find a heaping mound of noodles barely contained by the box. I paid my bill and over tipped. I stood to leave and they all turned to say thank you. When I got to my car I immediately grabbed the chopsticks and tore into the mountain of noodles. As I chewed each savory mouthful, I realized how completely satisfied I was. And not just from the noodles that I was spilling all over myself and my car, but the entire experience. I felt like I had been invited into the home of a family that treats strangers like cousins. Will I go back? Hell yes! But first, I need to finish the enormous portion of noodles I was served. It's day two and I'm still barely halfway...

TL;DR: poor service when you're nice & there busy; to say the least, avoid Saturday at all cost. Full edition: Been there twice. There weren't a lot of people the first time, and everything was fine. Food was good, portions were generous, service was fine, nothing much to complain about. The second time, on a Saturday, the restaurant was full, and ha, we were told to "wait" but the server gave us no clue about "where". Okay fine, we silently sat at a table whose last customers just left. Then the server who went to clear the table said to us, "move out of my way", in Cantonese, which I can bearly understand. We understood they were busy and found another place to wait, and finally after 20 minutes, when three tables were cleared, we were asked to sit in the smallest one because the other two parties were larger. Okay fine, I understand. Then those two parties were given menus (one of them had to ask for it though), but we were totally forgotten, and we had to ask for the menus ourselves. Not surprisingly, they took a while to come back to us and took the order, and then we were completely forgotten once again! One of the two parties mentioned above were already served four dishes, and we are still stuck with a pot of tea. We got impatient and tried to nudge them, and guess what, they completely messed up what we ordered! We had to tell them again, and we had to be explicit that we were annoyed before they can finally take us seriously and rushed to cook our dishes-- and heck, the dishes were indeed rushed. I mean I can imagine they would be nice if cooked for the right amount of time, the steamed rice was just cooked enough to be edible and was still pretty hard to chew, and the chicken still had some red near the bone. I'd say could do better than this at home. And finally, the waitress added 15% tip to the bill herself without asking us for permission (which is fine if it were a party of 6+, but we only had 3 people). With this kind of experience, I didn't even want to give a dime for tip. Will never come again on Saturdays, and probably wouldn't...

brought my taishan native companion with me and there’s just a lot of disappointment when it comes to this place.

my biggest issue with this place is that everything is not seasoned enough and one note. ninety nine percent of the stuff we tried were too bland and does not have any wok or depth in flavor. the sauce to pour on the rice is not salty enough, practically had zero flavor, the meats were also not fragrant and bland at best, and vegetables in the claypot were in the menu photo yet we did not get any. so it’s just bland and disappointing food.

what was good or not bad were crispy bottom and the soup we got on the side. i recommend the signature snail soup. perfectly flavored and good for you. the crispy rice was unexpected as the clay pot itself was not hot to the touch so quite bizarre.

atmosphere itself was chilly, very squeaky door and it is LOUD, and plenty of flies bugging us. service was fine but they never really asked if we liked our food. so idk if they know that their food is really mediocre.

i think at the end of the day, if you advertise something, you got to do and execute it right. do not list so much on your menu but underdeliver on those promises. if anything really specialize in a few things and make them...