Yu became a partner in 1998.įood blogger Kristina Cho orders some dim sum at Good Luck Dim Sum in the Inner Richmond in San Francisco on Jan. The small grab-and-go spot opened in 1995, co-owner Anyi “Andy” Yu told the Dumpling Report via our Cantonese translator, Samson Lee. On a recent rainy Wednesday, during the Bay Area’s atmospheric river storms, Cho and I met for lunch at Good Luck, which had an uncharacteristically short line due to the inclement weather. It’s a teeny restaurant on Clement, between Eighth and Ninth, in the Inner Richmond. Without hesitation, Cho divulged that she’s a Good Luck Dim Sum devotee. Music | Nirvana's Cow Palace show was once panned. Local | This mysterious Bay Area beach is covered in broken ceramicsįood | Is San Francisco tiki bar the Tonga Room actually good?Ĭulture | This SF restaurant was the blueprint for ‘Bob’s Burgers' With a decorated road to food success, and many events and projects on the horizon - including a second cookbook - I wanted to talk with Cho more about her dumplings - and, naturally, learn what’s her favorite dumpling spot in the city. “Dumplings can still be really simple and still be really great.” “That’s also something I’m working on this year,” Cho said. With vibrantly orange-pink pieces of fatty salmon and crisp red bell pepper contrasted with verdant cilantro and green onion, the dumplings look festive, with a dash of mirin for sweetness and sambal for spice. “I just want my food to be light and happy.” The salmon and bell pepper dumplings are kind of like a light, refreshing dumpling,” Cho said. “I’ll really channel a vibe I want for the new year. To celebrate the upcoming Year of the Rabbit, Cho’s been busy in her Richmond kitchen in the East Bay creating yet another dumpling innovation. Cho’s cookbook, according to its publisher HarperCollins Horizon, is currently the only one entirely devoted to Chinese bakeries and cafes. She won two James Beard Foundation Awards: one for Baking and Desserts Book and the other for Emerging Voice in Books. That year, brought Cho more than she could have imagined. The prices are of the requisite spareness I ordered more than enough little treasures for this little piggy and was only about five dollars the poorer.When the Year of the Ox arrived in 2021, it landed so close to Valentine’s Day that Cho was inspired to make a bold-red, heart-shaped dumpling with an intricate folding technique she’d been “tinkering with for weeks.”įor the Year of the Tiger in 2022, the reasons she created an indulgent soy-butter scallop wonton were two-fold - to celebrate the successful release of her cookbook, “Mooncakes & Milk Bread: Sweet and Savory Recipes Inspired by Chinese Bakeries,” the previous year, and her upcoming wedding.įood blogger Kristina Cho sits down with some dim sum at Good Luck Dim Sum in the Inner Richmond in San Francisco on Jan. If you’re looking for brave innovation, search elsewhere because that is the farthest thing from a Dim Sum restaurant’s humid brain steamed or BBQ’d pork buns, Siu Mai, Har Gow, pot stickers: the comfortable staples of any self-respecting counter Dim Sum spot are all found here, as they are at Wing Lee and Happy Garden (greater variety, however, can be found at the latter restaurant, being a sit-down establishment with a more capacious kitchen). The signature tarnished formica tables round out the aesthetic (a generous term) of Good Luck’s interior, whose utilitarian aspect suggests that the bulk of their business is To-Go. Customers are swept along and herded vis a vis sharp words and abrupt gestures that would make the Soup Nazi blush. On a meter measuring brusque and ruthless efficiency, it lies somewhere between Wing Lee and Happy Garden, but much closer to Wing Lee. Rounding out the spectrum is Good Luck Dim Sum, located on Clement somewhere between the two establishments previously mentioned. Happy Garden is comparatively solicitous, being as you sit down and are served by a waiter, albeit one with enough aloof indifference to wound the self-esteem of a siamese cat. The women of Wing Lee have stripped their operation down to its essentials: “Want food? Have money? Ka-ching! Move along.” Swift and brutal, they handle customers like workers tightening screws on a fast-moving factory assembly line in a silent movie. I’ve been to quite a few dim sum joints in the past couple of weeks and I’ve inevitably arrived at certain comparisons.
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