Day drinking leads to some interesting outings. After a booze cruise around the bay, we did some mid-afternoon drinks at Top of the Mark and other nearby bars. Finally, we decided dinner was essential, so we decided to walk down to North Beach to grab some Italian. Of course, we got waylaid by the plethora of Chinese options heading through Chinatown, and when we walked by Lai Hong Lounge, I realized it had been on my list for ages, so we made a drunkenly executive decision to take a solid break from the drinking and eat copious amounts of Chinese food as it seemed like an excellent idea.
I am definitely a fan of smaller plates to try more items, so I ordered a huge selection for us to try. Of course, that was after an incredibly long wait we had to even place our order. I’m not sure why, the place was not full, but they really didn’t seem to want to come to our table very often. I’m a huge fan of turnip cake and XO sauce, so the fried turnip cake in XO seemed like a no brainer. However, it really was lacking in the exciting XO sauce flavor I like, so they weren’t as amazing as I had hoped. The tamago with tofu sounded great as well, but again, the flavors were just a bit disappointing. Luckily, there was quite a bit of chili sauce and oil on the table, so we could try to amp up the flavors somewhat with that.
We also had some salt and pepper eggplant which was a bit soggy and really needed more seasoning as well. The shrimp balls had some nice crispness on the outside, but on the inside was somewhat lacking. On a positive note with a lot of the food, it came out scalding hot so it was incredibly easy to burn your mouth on most of the dishes! We also tried some shrimp egg rolls (soggy and greasy) and some steamed pork ribs (bland and boring). The barbecue pork buns were fine, but really I wasn’t blown away.
I think the scallion dumplings may have been the best, but it was really working with a huge selection of uninteresting items, so it really isn’t saying much. We also had a bunch of a few other dumplings, but to be honest, none of them were that exciting or memorable. Finally, we had some savory pancakes (okay, but I think I’ve done something similar at home and much better) and fried pork puffs which were okay.
Overall, I was very underwhelmed with the food at Lai Hong, and I was especially disappointed with the terrible service. Once we ordered, we were only ever seen again to dump stuff at the table, and at one point, we had to get up and find someone to get some more water. I had read some good things online, but honestly, I’m not sure I’d be back given the quality of the food or the service.
Score: 2/5
Recommendation: I guess if you insist on eating here, maybe try one of the larger dishes? The smaller ones are a bit lackluster.
Lai Hong Lounge
1416 Powell St
San Francisco, CA
