Dishola: Reviews by the Dish

Nice setting and location, great service and variety. It is in the top 3 of my favorite places for a steamed pork bun. A Must try!

Mon Kiang's pork bun has what I'm looking for in a pork bun. The dough is really soft and fresh, and the meat is soft, sweet and salty - but not overly so. The times I've had their buns, the flavor has been uniform as well - the dough has a nice, yeasty quality to it, and is most definitely fresh and the meat is done in small strips as opposed to say, ground up, or super chunky. I love these buns.

I'm not a fan of the meat doughnut--the dough was the bready variety. That said, it had a sweet taste to it that reminded me of Portuguese sweet bread, which I do like. I also thought the filling was a bit heavy on the five-spice.

I remember this place as a "place where they put tons of hoisin sauce into the feeling" which makes it a version of oriental sloppy joe. Not my first choice.

Golden Gate was mentioned many times as being the place with the best Cha Shao Bao. It's definitely popular and in the busiest part of Chinatown. Theirs were good - a bit sweet on the inside, and saucy. The dough was a little mild for my taste (I love that yeasty flavor) and the insides seemed a little light on filling.

I found You's buns to be too much on the saucy side and the dough was too bland. I was hoping for more of a burst of flavor, and instead I got squares of meat in what reminded me of a Kraft-style barbecue sauce.

The setting is quite civilized, but... they dont have steamed pork buns :(

Wali has a full on pastry case and active bakery going on inside. They also have this hilarious sign on the wall that if two people share a coffee, they will be severely punished. As to their pork buns, Wali opts for the chunkier style of meat and used a thick, red sauce on the inside. I'm more of a fan of the "pulled" style myself, and prefer less over more sauce, but these were definitely good. Wali only carries the baked n' glazed Americanized cha shao bao.

If I was to go back to SF China Town for a pork bun, this would be the place. It is pretty much almost about seemingly perfect - all the salt is in the meat, the steamed bun is exactly as you expect it to be - white moist bread.

I like the setting too - you may be sharing your bun crumbs with the fearless pigeons walking right there on the floor inside the building.

Good place, good food.

Eastern's buns are pretty awesome. Apparently, they're the oldest bakery in Chinatown too. We got schooled on the true nature of the Cha Shao Bao by the owner, which made his buns even that much better. So this dish is specifically Cantonese and the baked variety that one often finds down in Chinatown is not really Chinese. I found that this bun's only detraction was that it was a little bit dry. However, with sriracha, all problems are solved plus I love sriracha on this dough. Eastern's BBQ pork filling was really nice, not too too sweet or salty.

I liked that they were super fresh, but I agree with elsigh that they were a little dry. I did like the dough and thought the proportion between dough and filling was quite good.

It seems to be more of a dim sum sit-in restaurant than a Cha Shao Bao shop. Quite crowded. Perhaps they serve good dim sum, dunno, but the buns were a bit dry.

Following the suggestion of a few folks on the street, I barrelled my way into Kay Cheung, which was teeming with patrons. I ordered 1 cha shao bao to go, and waited for quite a while. It was pretty entertaining though as new trays came rolling out and people banged into one another in the rather packed space. Their cha shao bao were of course the steamed Cantonese variety, and were less salty and perhaps a little sweeter than some other buns we tried. I was a little disappointed that it seemed a bit on the dry side, dough and filling.

Dol Ho was packed, with a line already out the door when I got there at 9:30am. That alone was good enough reason to stop. The steamed pork bun was definitely tasty, though I felt like the meat filling leaned toward the fatty side - which was awesome for some bites and not-so-awesome for others. But damn was this place entertaining to hang out in. It almost felt like a competition to get to the two overwhelmed ladies behind the cash register running back and forth from the kitchen with togo pink bags stuffed with little dim sum containers. The tables were almost entirely all taken, and the custom here was interesting - as folks came in, generally older Chinese men, they would walk to the back and get a pot of tea, a plastic teacup and some chopsticks and wait until the cart-lady came by with little silver tins that looked like they had steamed ground meat in them. I saw bones in there too, and so it looked like a one-cup-meal with rice. I'll try to discover what this dish is.