M.Y. China

I’m always a bit dubious about restaurants in malls, but quite soon after moving to the bay area, my husband ended up at M.Y. China for dinner one night. Ever since, he said we needed to return, if only because they had a great cocktail list. So finally, when I had an early evening event, we decided to meet there for dinner so we could finally give it a try.

It’s at the top floor of the Westfield Center in downtown San Francisco, so it’s fairly easy to find. It’s also decorated gorgeously. The semi-communal dining tables were a bit of a turn off though, but I can see how they were useful as it allows for adaptable sized tables (they were just a smidge too close). I also learned that the M.Y. stood for Martin Yan, of “Yan Can Cook” fame in the 80s, and I know that my mother had the cookbook when I was growing up. So I was intrigued to see how the food could be since the chef was so famous.

We started with a couple of cocktails, but I was told that the cocktails a few years ago were better, as these were definitely very sweet and fruit forward which is the opposite of the type of cocktails we like to drink. They were nice if you like that sort of thing, but as we don’t, we ended up switching to a bottle of wine after the cocktails. Sadly, they didn’t have the vintages that were labelled on the wine menu, so we ended up with something other than what we really wanted. Honestly, not having updated wine menus is a huge pet peeve of ours.

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Foodwise, we knew that dumplings were going to have to be one of the first things we ordered. We opted to get the trio of dumplings ($15), with two of each of the pork and crab dumplings, pork dumplings and squid ink and black truffle dumplings. We also ordered the salt and pepper calamari ($14), half a roast Peking duck ($24), Sichuan wok seared beef ($22) and twin scallops fried rice ($14) so we could try a selection of things.

First to arrive was the calamari. It wasn’t very impressive looking as it was just thrown on the plate. And while the coating and sauce were both very nice, the squid itself was incredibly chewy and overcooked. It wasn’t an amazing start to the meal to be honest. Next up were the dumplings. They definitely looked very impressive, but they steamed the dumplings inside of ceramic wooden spoons. In my experience ceramic maintains an excess amount of heat, and the spoons were so hot they could not be lifted. This meant that the dumplings were impossible to eat for quite some time. And when we did finally manage, the flavor definitely wasn’t great. They were some of the most underwhelming dumplings I’ve eaten in quite some time.

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Up next was the Peking duck. In the UK, they love to do duck pancakes, which is like a crispy, shredded duck served with thin pancakes, cucumber, scallions and hoisin sauce. I was hoping for something similar, and similar it was. The duck was roasted and sliced though as opposed to shredded. Also, it was served with bao buns instead of pancakes, but I was eager to dive in. And it was really nicely cooked with crispy skin. It perhaps could have used a bit of seasoning. But it was quite pleasant and tasty.

During this course, the rest of our food started to come out, so we had dumplings that were cooling, half our duck, plus the beef and rice on the table at the same time. It was very crowded, and I think I would have preferred a bit more time between items being delivered in order for us to finish and have room on the table. Both the rice and the beef looked great, however, and I was excited to dig in.

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The beef was underwhelming though. There wasn’t much of it, and I guess I was expecting more of a sauce. There also seemed to be a lack of Sichuan peppers that were promised on the menu. I didn’t get a whole lot of numbness associated with the peppers, and I really just wanted more of that Sichuan flavor I love. The fried rice was nice, but again, it could have used a bit more seasoning to make me super happy.

Of course, I had to look at the dessert menu, and I couldn’t pass up the egg custard buns. We also decided to give the Umeshu wine a try as it was something we hadn’t had before. It turns out it’s got notes of plum and almond, and it was actually quite an enjoyable after dinner drink. The custard buns were very runny in the middle, just as I would want in a custard bun. However, the custard was slightly too sweet, but honestly, the buns were probably my favorite part of the meal.

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Sadly, M.Y. China did not live up to expectations on the cocktail front and was incredibly underwhelming on the food side of things as well. The flavors were just kind of bland compared to what I would expect from a Chinese restaurant, especially one with Sichuan food on the menu. It was also on the pricey side for what we received, so I can’t imagine we’ll be back at any point in the future for another try. Sadly, this place did not change my expectations of dining in a mall, but perhaps there is another restaurant out there that can.

Score: 2.5/5
Recommendation: Dessert! Or at least the custard buns!

M.Y. China
845 Market St., Suite 480
San Francisco, CA 94103