Xiao Long Bao — Restaurant in San Francisco

A relative newcomer to the dim sum game, I always ask locals for their favorite restaurant. On Clement Street, a neighborhood of tasty undiscovered the lights for many Northern California Inns, easily rivalling Chinatown, there are several dim sum restaurants, they're almost always called "bakeries" the difference between good and great dim sum is how fresh it is and the quality of the ingredients. Braving the line that was kind of long, I admired the Xiao Long Bao's "open architecture" basically a giant glass case, or three of them to be precise, with row upon row of delicious Chinese dumplings, baos, pancakes, rolls, and other treats. it is a great help from non Mandarin speakers like myself, to have phonetic pronunciation of the different dishes which were easily handled here. Ordering my normal array some Shumai, (shrimp and pork) some Har gao (pork) a standard pot sticker which I always order as a test of any dim sum place, and a bean paste ball for dessert, filled with sweet bean paste inside of a chewy rice flour ball crisp on the outside is Sesame Seeds. first thing you noticed at this place is that it was all made like 25 seconds ago. So fresh, it is obviously never been frozen, and never sat around. Flavor difference especially for the shumai is absolutely incredible. This is what good dim sum should be. The pot sticker was the same, with a perfect fresh pop and chew, and finally the bean paste ball was done to perfection crispy chewy and sweet. I usually have this with a Diet Coke or Pepsi as it is the only soft drink with the industrial strength to cut through the level of Grease I'm inflicting upon my heart. Lol. All in all I have to say the locals were right! This is some of the best dim-sum I've ever had. Highly recommended. Also, just walk around Clement Street once in a while and test some of the places out. You won't be...

No I think the chive on his post us but I think I’ll give us the results you have to wait in line and then you get kind of overwhelmed with the names of all the bows and then when you get there you forget what you wanted to order because you got distracted by the window about did I mention there’s a lot about this but I really came here for a shallow bowl. Oh other thing to mention is I didn’t see many rights I think this is the right threat is over boy so don’t worry about the rats are a T right however I could see how a rat would get in there because it was very open and when I came in I almost got ran over by a bucket of chili and that would’ve been really bad because you can’t really get chili or close so I am luckily avoided getting chilly at this place yeah that’s a good point to make I think the chili in the massive plastic bucket coming to the outside was a nice touch now let’s talk about the decor decor with bleach there were like some very long tables which were very hard to talk to someone while you’re eating. Now the only well the main complaint I have is that the chive dumplings were good but the shallow mobile or called and came in these little tent thing and it seems like they didn’t need to be yeah and the name-ish shallow bow so I thought it would be better but I was disappointed which is why am giving it three stars note I’m not giving it three stars because I saw a rat I’m giving it because Michelle about was cold and wasn’t enough soup dumpling like that other soup dumplings I’ve had in the past and I know a lot of soup dumplings and they have a lot of soup dumplings so so...

6/19/2025 update: Whenever I'm in the neighborhood, I always have to come by and grab some shrimp rolls $4.60 (order of 3.) Their regular egg rolls $4 (order of 3) are good too. Alternating between each one gives a good contrast of flavors. The next thing you know, all six rolls are gone. It would be nice if they had some red sweet and sour sauce or maybe some sort of ginger vinegar egg rolls sauce for dipping. But it doesn't really need it. The wait was only about five minutes today at 1pm. Great job everyone at Xiao Long Bao.

Original review: Xiao Long Bao is a take-out only dim sum restaurant. No indoor dining. We stand on the sidewalk and eat in front of the restaurant anyways, so no biggie. The other two dim sum take-out restaurants on Clement are more busy. So, if you are in a hurry, go here. The other two places are better, but not worth me waiting another 15 minutes. Our favorite items here are the fried crab meat dim sum and their crispy shrimp egg rolls. Both are filled to the brim. The beef pancakes are good if they are fresh. We came at noon-ish and the pancake wasn't crispy anymore. Regardless, I do recommend this establishment to...