- We are driving down Grand street in Chinatown
in San Francisco, California.
And Chinatown is, among other things,
the most densely populated area of the United States
outside of Manhattan.
It is also the oldest Chinatown in North America.
It was originally the port of entry for
Chinese immigrants in the 1850s when they
were arriving primarily from Guangdong Province
which is in southern China.
Where we're going right now is a place that claims
to be the oldest dim sum restaurant in Chinatown.
It's called the Hang Ah Tea Room.
There are so many delicious things.
We're going to head over to Hang Ah right now
and we're going to try some dim sum for breakfast.
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- Back in the days, about, you know, after 1849,
wherein San Francisco was founded,
this was the first street of Chinatown.
So, as the immigrants wave and the population grow,
Chinatown grew from Sacramento street
all the way to Broadway.
It becomes the largest Chinatown in America.
- Now my understanding is that when,
so, this was the original port, like port of entry--
- Yes.
- For Chinese immigrants and they were coming
mostly from Guangdong Province.
Is that right?
- Yes, there's a couple villages within Guangdong Province,
they can't really make it.
The land couldn't grow much,
and they're not next to the ocean so they
aren't fishing as well.
The allure of coming to America was to pick gold,
to bring gold and find gold and bring it back home,
and build houses.
And we're here since 1920.
- Now is this in your, is this your family
in the whole time or?
When did you come in?
- So, we stumbled across this opportunity back in 2014.
What we know of, is there's at least
about four or five families that ran this restaurant.
And what really grabbed us, is almost like a calling,
that we thought, hey, how cool is it for us,
the Chinese American
to have the first dim sum restaurant in America?
And we're able to basically put our stamp
in this community, and in San Francisco,
to say, hey, you know what, let's revitalize this.
Let's bring this spot back to the greater public
to know, hey, this is part of history.
When you come to San Francisco, when you live here,
you can be part of history and experience
what it was like almost 100 years ago.
- So, where do the recipes come from?
- So the recipe is passed down from
generation to generations.
So, part of what our learning curve was to learn
how to make every single thing.
And the claim of fame for this restaurant
is the barbecue pork buns.
It's very unique, it's different from
other Chinese restaurants.
- The char siu bao? - The char siu bao.
- So, why is it different here?
- It's much more airy, fluffy, you know we make
everything from scratch.
- Well, I'm really looking forward to trying
these char siu bao.
I love char siu bao.
- And we love to have you guys.
And now you guys are part of San Francisco history.
- That's right. - And probably US history.
- Amazing.
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- So my understanding is that the char siu bao is very good.
- We are known for our barbecue pork buns here.
- Okay, so I will have an order of that.
- One order of the barbecue pork buns.
- I think I'd also like some of the har gow.
- One order of har gow.
- The shumai. - Shumai.
- What do you think?
Should I get the fun guo too?
- If you like it a little bit spicy, then definitely.
The inside has minced pork, there's cilantro,
peanuts, Chinese vegetables.
It's a little bit spicy with a crunch to it.
- Okay, I like that.
That sounds great.
Potstickers.
- One order of potstickers.
- Oh and we'll do fung jow too, we'll do the chicken.
- Okay!
- And then, anything else?
That's a lot.
- It is quite a lot for one person.
And something to drink for you also?
- I think tea would be great.
- Okay, be right back with tea for you.
Great, thank you.
- I'm going to have towers, towers of dim sum.
Dim city.
Dim city 2000.
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Did you grow up in the neighborhood?
- Yes, I did, my grandparents owned a grocery store
on Stockton and Clay, right up the block here.
- We lived in Chinatown when I was growing up
until I was about five.
Used to play in this playground all the time.
If I think back to all the way neighborhoods used to be
when I was growing up, which isn't even that far back
as some people know, they're just much different these days.
- Dim Sum is kind of described to people who've never had it
it's like a lot of little things, a lot of steamed things
and like little snacks.
- You know I would say it's kind of like a
Chinese like brunch-tapas type thing.
- Right.
- They're quick about it here.
- If you go to the place with the cards,
it's like right away.
So I think, who doesn't love that?
Especially these days, everyone wants everything right now.
So, (laughs).
- What's your favorite dim sum item?
- Well pork buns, they make pork buns here.
Learning how to cook, making dim sum items,
I learned that that's
probably very time consuming.
- Very labor intensive.
- Yeah!
- Do you have a favorite?
- I have a favorite depending on where we're at.
- Right.
- In here I think my favorite is the steamed pork buns.
- You like the pork buns too.
- Well Susie and Chachie, thank you so much for taking
the time to talk to me, I really appreciate it.
- Thank you!
- Nice to meet you guys.
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So why don't we start with the bao here.
Tender, slightly sweetened pork, stuffed into this
fluffy white bao.
And the result is a really nice sweet-savory combo.
And these are, these are good.
I gotta make myself a little sauce.
This is very essential to the dim sum experience here.
Gonna do a little soy, we're gonna do a little vinegar,
and I'm going to put some of this chili oil in it.
Dim sum means a little something to eat
that's sort of vaguely what it means.
A lot of these things were sold, in conjunction
with tea houses, little snacks to go with the tea.
Like shumai, shumai literally means
sell something on the side
This is pork filling, and then sometimes this is,
the little orange dot is sometimes roe,
sometimes it's carrot.
It's sort of like a thin, tender wrapper enveloping
slightly sweetened ground pork.
Let's move on to har gow, shrimp dumpling.
Stretchy, vaguely chewy, dumpling wrapper stretched around
plump bits of juicy shrimp, that is what har gow is.
Shumai and har gow are the two classics.
That you generally get when you go to a dim sum place.
But, there are more like the fung guo,
this one I believe is also stuffed with ground pork.
Also this slightly glutenous wrapper, and it's sort of
closed a little bit like a clam shell.
A lot of these dim sum specialties are just kind of
stand alone little snacks.
But these are good, it has the minced pork, peanuts
and scallions, also delicious.
Lets go on to potstickers.
Love potstickers.
Kind of like crimped wheat wrapper, filled generally with
ground pork, cabbage, scallion.
I love potstickers.
Every New Years, we would make potstickers,
and we would do it manually, we would chop everything,
no food processors, and what we would do to prevent,
you know, because you start crying when you're chopping
onions, we'd cut eye holes out of a little piece of bread,
and put it on our face, and wear little masks.
It looks ridiculous.
It looks like some Eyes Wide Shut shit.
But it worked, to not make you cry.
It's like a very nice compact, slightly greasy, slightly
burned and browned and bubbly from the bottom of the pan.
Love it.
I'm gonna move on to the fung jow. To honor my grandmother.
She loves chicken feet, these are declawed chicken feet.
There's no meat it's just skin, and
then you kinda just,
gnaw on it, which is what my grandma likes.
And you have to take bones out of your mouth
as you're doing it.
And it tastes very, like, sticky and gelatinous.
It's like a layer of skin, and then like a layer of tendon
and it's kind of goopy, but there's
a little bit of firmness to it.
If you like skin and cartilage you'll love chicken feet.
Chicken feet! Try some.
I'm not sure what this is. This has the similar, fluffy
leavened, wheat-ened outside of the siu bao,
but this is filled with
egg custard, this is what I thought.
This is the cha siu bao outside, filled with a sweet
egg custard inside, this is nice.
A milky, sweet, smooth, creamy flavor.
The soup dumpling, or the xiao long bao, and ideally,
you want the wrapper to be thin, but not too thin
because you don't want it super thick, but at the same time
you don't want it to break.
'Cause you don't want the soup to get out.
What is the proper way to eat a soup dumpling?
I'll tell you.
I'm just gonna put a little vinegar on it,
if it was really hot, you bite into the side
and suck out the soup.
And then from there, you just eat the whole thing.
That is my preferred soup dumpling eating method.
We have one more thing,
and that's the little sesame balls.
When I was a kid I thought they were baseballs.
And now our family, we still call them baseballs.
You can see sweet red bean paste on the inside,
you can see that sweet doughy layer
and then on the outside, it's crunchy sesame seeds.
It's great.
I love the baseballs.
This is kind of the spread, this is dim sum.
This is like brunch instead of bottomless mimosas
and avocado toast, it's shu mai and har gow,
and bottomless oolong tea.
And this place, Hang Ah, one if not the oldest restaurants
in the biggest Chinatown in the United States.
So, we love it, I love it, thank you.
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I really hope you enjoyed this episode of Dining on a Dime,
from Hang Ah Tea House, in the heart
of San Francisco's China Town.
If you'd like to watch more, just click here.
- Ladies first.
- No, see you're the expert.
- You make a little bubble.
- Oh you're making the little bubbles in there?
- I'm gonna put in the air.