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Lichee Garden knows family-style cooking
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Lichee Garden chef-owner Chak Siu prepares egg foo yung.
SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - Annie Siu, the dining-room half of the husband-and-wife team that has owned and operated Lichee Garden since 1980, recognized me when I walked in the door. I used to live in North Beach and Lichee was the family canteen for won ton soup and egg foo yung.
Five years later, Lichee’s nimble kitchen, still mostly manned by chef-owner Chak Siu, continues to turn out deeply satisfying family-style dishes that please both Chinese and Western palates. The prices are amazingly cheap.
Yanek Chiu, my Hong Kong-born dining companion, suggested a revisit. He ordered a Cantonese soul-food dinner starting with river-turtle soup ($12.75), a dark brown mixed-meat broth with pieces of chicken feet and pork, hearty but muddy.
No vegetable could have been brighter in flavor or appearance than thick, sinuous ribbons of fresh mustard greens with meaty whole brown mushrooms ($8.75).
A clay pot of tofu with diced chicken and the pure umami of dried fish ($7.50) was completed by rice. I ate bowls.
If you’re a deep-fried taro fan as I am, don’t miss Lichee’s signature pressed duck with taro ($6.75), a thin, crisp layer of duck topped with creamy lavender taro puree all encased in a crisp taro crust. It’s one of those cooking miracles. Eat it all while it is hot and crispy.
Annie Siu recommended a new dish, wok-fried slices of short rib with bone ($8.75). Too chewy for me, especially when you can have similar bone-in slices of house-special pork chop ($5.50) with its addictive, black vinegar and raw sugar glaze, a beloved Lichee classic.
A meal for four with take home — $51.
I revisited with a table of Caucasians, arriving a little early to pre-order the menu with Annie Siu, perennially on the floor. Seven of us feasted on a crisp-skinned half-chicken ($8), cut into pieces through the bone, the most delectable bits, the boniest.
I drank bowls of shredded winter melon and dried scallop soup ($7), adding white pepper and salt to taste. We had house-special pork chops and shrimp egg foo yung ($9.75), which Siu suggested because she remembered how much my husband loved it; and a heaping plate of ong choy ($6.95), long-stemmed Chinese watercress that tastes like tangy spinach.
We spooned minced squab with pine nuts into iceberg lettuce cups smeared with hoisin sauce ($12.50) and ate them like tacos.
We finished with a whole steamed rock cod ($25 per pound), its flesh almost chewy with freshness, scented with ginger, scallions and a pouf of coriander. I advise sucking every morsel of succulent flesh from the head. The meal for seven came to around $100.
The dining room, with its low ceiling, evokes an old-fashioned Hong Kong tea house with wood paneling, dark green carpeting and tables covered in well-worn olive green linen. I’ve always found it commodious, with many tables for parties of two or four.
Two new developments: Dim sum lunch has been replaced by an astoundingly inexpensive menu of noodles and rice plates; and Siu’s son, Jason, whom I knew when he was little, has just graduated from Lowell and is trying to decide between Cornell or Georgetown. Rest assured that his parents will be working at Lichee every day for at least four more years.
Patricia Unterman is author of the “San Francisco Food Lovers’ Pocket Guide” and a newsletter, “Unterman on Food.”
Lichee Garden
Location: 1416 Powell St., San Francisco
Contact: (415) 397-2290 or www.licheegarden.ypguides.net
Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily
Price range: $5 to $11.75
Recommended dishes: Won ton soup, egg foo yung, pressed duck with taro, crispy roasted chicken, house-special spareribs, mustard greens with brown mushrooms, shredded winter melon soup
Credit cards: MasterCard, Visa
Reservations: Accepted
Comments from Examiner Readers
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Examiner Reader said:
There's also Anh Hong in Berkeley, Ca. The best place I've ever went to. People there are so friendly. If you ever want to have a birthday dinner or just dinner with friends & families this would be the #1 place to have it. It's a fun place to enjoy with people you love!!!!!!!
5 agree | 1 disagree
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Yoga Mommies From Hell said:
"Postnatal yoga moms with SUV-sized strollers" and their dim-bulb, investment banker/software technician husbands are slowly colonizing and ruining this city. I'm really, really tired of their desperate attempts to remain hip after they've reproduced their odious selves in miniature, and named them Dakota, Paris or some other ridiculous monniker (yeah, that's for you, sf gate mommy files nimrod). One of them was pushing her way to the start line at the AIDS walk with scant regard for anyone in her path. We put her right in her place, and her self-entitled pleas for help from other walkers were completely ignored, signalling once again that San Franciscans are over the cult of the urban mommy. Please, please move to the suburbs where you belong.
2 agree | 2 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Joey and Eddie's -- I've only been there for dessert, but it was sooo bad. Pistachio panna cotta and cannolis. Huge portions, but way, way WAY too sweet. Total lack of subtlety in the flavor. I think they must order pre-packaged desserts? I don't know, but the dessert was so bad that it scared me off of trying any of the food (although I love this chef from his recent days at Pesceria!).
6 agree | 8 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
let's move to another restaurant already. It's not like there is a shortage in this city.
9 agree | 8 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Lichee Garden is by far the best Chinese restaurant I've had in town. Immigrating here from Hong Kong four years ago, I often miss out on the "authentic" Chinese food except at LG, where you can never go wrong with any dishes. I suggest you to try all Unterman's recommendations (as those are the common orders I make), and try the salt and pepper crab (the best fried crab I've ever had). I go to LG about twice a week with my family, and always enjoy the atmosphere and service from Annie. Always ask for what the chef's recommendation of the day is, and always be willing to try new dishes. The House Sparerib is classic with the perfect sweet and sour sauce. And trust me, LG does not use the same sauce for everything (that's what House of Nanking does). Just order a variety of dishes (like Unterman). I always leave LG with a smile.
11 agree | 11 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
ugh - think Untermann has lost her tastebuds. This is just another in a long line of reviews where she seems to have eaten at the restaurant on the one day it sparkled. More likely, they know who she is and pull out all the stops. I've eaten there two or three times when in North Beach, and never been impressed...sticky floors, aged linens on tables (with original spots, I think) and nothing special on the menu you can't find in a million other Chinese restaurants. You want good Chinese food around Chinatown? Head to Great Eastern - they can even get me to eat the chicken feet appetizer, their food is THAT good!
10 agree | 9 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Gee would you have said a table full of Asians, African Americans, Pacific Islanders, or just is a "table full of caucasions" not offensive? Imagine - "I revisited with a table full of Africans..."
8 agree | 7 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Lichee Garden has sticky chairs and floors. Their food taste the same no matter what it is. They seem to use the same sauce for all their entrees.I equate their food to McDonald's. For authentic tasty chinese food, go to Great Eastern or R&G lounge.
10 agree | 6 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
i misss their dim sum from tea times??
7 agree | 6 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
I will have to try the pizza place but from the picture the crust does not look thin it looks california thin.
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Examiner Reader said:
layaly have the best middle_eastren food in the bay.there food is delicious and have consistant recepie. what you taste today you'll taste tommorrow. it's a winner. I love the hookah lounge, they sereve very good hookahs & have very unique Tobacco Flavors. the hookah lonuge opens at 8pm -12am & 8pm - 2:00(fri & sat)on the weekends.i recommend this place cause it's a winner
12 agree | 7 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
My mother would beat me like a rented mule if I took her to a baseball game for Mother's Day.
9 agree | 9 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
I visited Namu on a trip to San Fran a year back when the restaurant had just opened. The space is minimal and hip, and the food fantastic - the black cod was superb!
10 agree | 10 disagree
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Francis Kim said:
actually namu never closes early. the restaurant that always closes early was written right next to the namu article. I believe everyone is getting confused. And on thursday, friday, and saturday they stay open till 1am!!!! that is awesome.
10 agree | 10 disagree
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M.S. Jackson said:
Ms. Unterman's laughable dialectic suggests she is feeding on some of the large sausages at the Soul Food joint and getting more than her fill!
10 agree | 10 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
I suspect they close before the posted closing time to save on staff costs on nights when the amount of business does not cover expenses. I give them another six months.
10 agree | 15 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Go early in the evening because they'll close early if the mood stikes them. Even if you have a reservation.
39 agree | 57 disagree
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