City View

5/17/2008
San Francisco, Financial District/Chinatown: 662 Commercial St - (415) 398-2838
Price: Mid-Range
Rating (1-10): 7

Full Review:
The "Best Dim Sum" can be a contentious topic, like best bbq, best ramen, or best pizza. At a certain point, it's a subjective judgment that hinges on personal taste, social context, and also chance. The fact is, there are a lot of places that will send you off with a pleasantly/painfully full stomach and you'll have gotten your fix. What sets one place above another is in your mind's eye. At City View, the food was at a quality that I could not help but be pleased with - but what impressed me most was the friendly service and cleanliness; both things that I do not find often in my dim sum runs in NYC. City View had the best service I've seen in a US Chinese restaurant. As a result, I could relax, feel like I wasn't being rushed or pressured in any way, and feel like they actually wanted me there.

None of the food disappointed, save for the soup dumplings which, though tasty, actually had little if any soup. Shrimp wrapped in clear noodle was flavorful and firm texture, not leathery or tough. The pork dumplings were particularly delicious. Shumai also good. Gyoza were average. And the deep-fried sesame balls and a quenelle-shaped rice cakes with pork filling - extremely good. The chicken feet were tender with intense marrow/fat flavor of chicken. I feel confident in saying that anything you get, you'll like. I think you'll inevitably feel a bit heavy after eating a lot of dim sum, but I didn't leave City View feeling unhealthy. Best of all, I didn't get the feeling of having eaten a bag of salt, like I often do with cheap Chinese joints that kill it with msg.

To be fair, City View charges more than most dim sum restaurants in New York's Chinatown: I ate for $25/person, but you could probably eat just as much for $15/person in other places. What you pay for - and get - is a clean environment, welcoming, friendly service, and quality, tasty dim sum that tastes as good as any out there in SF or NYC. Whether it's the best I've ever had, I don't know. It's entirely possible that it tasted better in my head because I enjoyed the service and the surroundings, and so I wanted to like it. To be honest, it doesn't matter because I appreciated City View, whatever the reason.