EM H.
Yelp
It was late and my friend, Ray, and I were on our way to the Hilton Union Square and starving. I knew that Chinatown has restaurants open for late night dining. Via yelp search, we found Taishan Cuisine that is open until 3 AM every day of the week. We arrived around midnight on Sunday night/early Monday morning of October 13/14, 2024...right before the rush started.
The venue does not have a private lot, but we found street parking right in front of the restaurant. Upon arrival, we were seated within two minutes. The place was brightly lit and until more and more customers started arriving, I didn't realize that they have two dining rooms. I didn't look around very much, but the cleanliness level looked to be fair. Though, when I asked Ray how the bathroom was, he said, "You don't want to use it," telling me that it looked clean, but you could tell that "something happened in there." That was enough for me to avoid the restroom, no elaboration needed.
Ray observed that most of Taishan Cuisine's patrons were Chinese and this convinced him that the food must be good here. Below are the items that we ordered.
House Special chow Mein ($15.95) - The noodles appeared to be made of those found in instant ramen packages, but I actually liked this dish with the Chinese sausage. I couldn't touch the pieces of pork belly.
Pan fried pork dumplings (6) ($11.95) - These tasty potstickers were served with a side bowl of a white seasoning. Ray thought it was salt, but it was sugar. I enjoyed these dumplings and the sweet addition added another level of flavour.
hot and sour soup ($13.95) - I was not a fan of this. There were some textures that were oddly hard. Ray found it to be a bit too spicy.
Shrimp dumplings (4) ($10.95) - Ray really liked Taishan's har gow. They weren't bad, but I have had better at other places.
Beef w/chinese Broccoli(cauliflower) ($18) - OK. The meat didn't appeal to me much because it wasn't as lean as I expected. When Ray said that a piece of tendon got stuck in his throat, I ate only the veggies from that point on. This dish is not worth the price.
Siu mai (4) ($9.95) - This was Ray's favourite of all the items that we ordered. I found the flavour to be a little off than what I am used to, so I ate only one piece.
Service was not bad, but it was a bit challenging to flag someone down to ask for things. We were one of only three tables of customers who did not speak Chinese. Perhaps the language barrier was the reason why we had difficulty figuring out who were staff members. The waitress who served us was the main server and, thankfully, she spoke English. Ray and I were amused by how she busily tended to everyone...with a young infant in tow, fully asleep in a carrier on her back. Interestingly, there was also a young child, no older than four or five years, hanging out and crying at the hostess counter. He was probably tired and ready for bed since it was past midnight. Needless to say, the environment was very interesting, to say the least.
After we left and made it to our hotel, Ray realized that he forgot his murse at Taishan. When we called them, they assured us that they had his bag, so we quickly returned and easily picked it up. They definitely earned extra points for this in Ray's book.
Would I return? Maybe...if I need to find a late-night eatery in San Francisco and nothing else is open.
