The Spice Jar — Restaurant in San Francisco

Let me start by saying that my wife and I were both super excited to go here because of the great reviews and the amount of dishes.

We went there for a Saturday night dinner and started off with the Vietnamese coffee for her and Nigori Sake for me. She loved the coffee however it was not made with typical Vietnamese ingredients. It seemed like chicory coffee instead of Vietnamese ground coffee.

We also ordered the Korean Wings, Garlic Fries with curry mayo, Pork Bao, and Tonkatsu Ramen. The Korean Wings were cooked really well and were pretty sticky but the taste was incredibly sweet. The Garlic fries with curry mayo were the best part of the meal but again there wasn’t anything that stood out except perhaps that the curry powder used was the Japanese brand.

The Tonkatsu Ramen ( one of the main reasons I went there) was super bland. The broth barely had any flavor. I kept having to add Sriracha to get some flavor. There was no umami, definitely no Tonkatsu. It had pork belly, which would’ve been fine if it was actually good. It was not! I am an avid lover of Ramen. This was not good ramen. The noodles were somehow undercooked and barely edible.

The Pork Bao tasted like balsamic vinegar and sherry with too much sweetener. It had none of the notes of authentic pork bao. You can find authentic pork bao on Clement st. To be honest, the pork was over cooked and incredibly fatty.

The highlight was that the service was incredible. They were very attentive without being in your face. The service was a 5/5 but food was 2/5.

It’s a good place to hangout after a few drinks but not meant for foodies, especially individuals looking for an...

• In Short *

Okay Asian food, seasoned and catered to an American (a.k.a. heavier) palate.

• In Depth *

What's a guy to do when he loves Asian food, has tried most of what Chinatown has to offer countless times, but is too lazy to trek out to Sunset or Richmond? Check out the Mission, of course! Coming with two other friends who weren't particularly hungry (and myself as a light eater), we only ordered a handful of dishes:

Shu Mai - Definitely not your traditional dim sum style shu mai. The ones at Spice Jar are much larger and sweeter, with wonton skin that was oddly papery/gritty in texture, none of which made for a super desirable dish.

Braised Short Rib Bao - If you're perplexed by why you only get one per order, it's because these are also likely to be larger than you expected. Super tender and flavorful short rib, but, be it the meat or the other sauces, the bao ended up also being too sweet.

Spicy Sesame Miso Ramen - Definitely the most solid and tasty dish of the three, with nice springy noodles, albeit a bit plain overall in terms of toppings and accoutrements.

If you're in the area and have a hankering for Asian, this certainly isn't terrible, but trekking a little into Chinatown goes a long way.

Accessibility Info

Venue - There's a large single step/platform to get into the restaurant, so we opted to sit outside instead, which was marginally more accessible, because the way the table legs were positioned made scooting under impossible. I didn't look closely enough at the accessibility of the inside, for those who feel like braving the step (it's really not that bad).

Bathroom...

Super rich, super tasty East Asian comfort food. Nothing healthy about this joint but ingredients are fresh and the flavor is on fleek. The menu is fairly compact but in a very good way, a diversity of choices but no decision anxiety from a multi-page menu. We started with the pork Shu-Mai which were solid, very well prepared but not epic. Same for the crispy spring rolI, they were a bit pedestrian. The mains and sides were the 4-star caliber dishes: we went with the Spinach and Roasted Garlic Fried Rice (strong in flavor, only for garlic lovers), the Mongolian Chicken which was super savory and a tad too rich but overall pretty epic in flavor, and the garlic green beans which had the right balance of garlic and sweetness and salt were also the bom dot com. Service was friendly but the dishes were staggered in an non-ideal way, apps came out together but then there was about a 20 min wait after we finished those before our first entree came out (the fried rice), and then another 10 mins before the other two dishes (chicken and green...