I love having traditions with some friends, and one group of friends and I love to get dim sum. So while one of them was in town, we knew that dim sum of some sort was going to have to happen. We did a bit of browsing around the internet, and she thought that Golden Saba Seafood had reasonable reviews and probably wouldn’t be over the top with regards to price, so we headed here for lunch before she headed out of town.
Shrimp toast 
BBQ Pork buns and Shrimp Har Gow
The menu isn’t solely dim sum, as they have quite a bit of full-sized dishes on the menu. But we decided to order dishes from the dim sum and small plates menu. Prawn toast is one of those things that I really miss about living in the UK, so I was excited to see shrimp toast ($8) on the menu. It was really different than the UK version, as the toast in the UK is usually regular bread, while this was more of fried bread type dough. And it was delicious, so we were really happy we ordered it. We also had to get the obligatory barbecue pork buns ($6), and these definitely satisfied the itch. The shrimp dumplings ($6) were also top notch.
Chicken potstickers 
Pork and shrimp xiu mai
Next at the table were the chicken potstickers ($7) and the pork and shrimp dumplings ($6). I really enjoyed the potstickers, and they came with a crispy lattice of something stuck to them which really added something to the texture. They also went really well with the homemade chili sauce. The pork and shrimp dumplings were a great and inexpensive version of the dish.
Six Flavor Xiao Long Bao 
Pan Fried Chive Dumplings
Finally, for savory dishes, we had the six flavor soup dumplings ($12) and the pan fried chive dumplings ($6). The soup dumplings were the most expensive thing we ordered, so I was really hoping they were going to be fantastic. And while they were nice, I didn’t really get much of a difference between the six flavors, as they were mostly just in the wrapper. The other soup dumplings on the menu are nearly half the price, so they might be a better option in the future. The chive dumplings were fantastic though. They were really tasty and had just the right amount of chewiness to the dough. And $6 was a fantastic price.
Sesame balls
Of course, I made everyone order sesame balls ($4) at the end, because I’m a sucker for them. And these were pretty good versions (I think I’ve made better, but they are also a pain, so they are much easier to buy than make.) Overall though, I was really happy with the meal. The service was decent, but the price for some delicious dim sum was really perfect. It’s a place I’ll definitely come back to!
Score: 4/5
Recommendation: Shrimp toast, chive dumplings and potstickers, but I think you can’t go wrong with much on the dim sum menu!
Golden Saba Seafood
646 Washington Street
San Francisco, CA 94111
