The world’s Chinatowns are always fun places to be. Little points of continuity across the globe where you step from London streets of high street stores, New York blocks of coffee shops and pizza parlours into the East. Immediately the scenery changes; the first hints are the shop signs changing, the Chinese alphabet beginning to dominate. Store fronts change too –deep brown, red Peking ducks hang, glistening in windows while they twirl on twine and Chinese bakeries spring up on every block, bags of fortune cookies and moon pies winking at you from the windows. Suddenly you are no longer in New York, London, San Francisco. No, now you are a guest looking in at a culture markedly different from that a mere 2 blocks behind you.
 The San Francisco China Town is no different to this. The largest one outside of Asia as well as the oldest in North America, it sprawls over 24 blocks, a hive of activity and one which I was excited to see. I peeked in markets where Asian mothers and grandmothers haggled over exotic vegetables and scurried past the reek of the fish markets, pungent at dusk, my sister squealing
  from liquids leaking into flip flops. 
I joined the queue for a particularly lauded Chinese bakery and ate a custard tart, fresh from the oven that the proprietor pressed on me eagerly, which was slightly different in texture to the British type I am familiar with but equally delicious. The aforementioned Peking ducks flapped at me from the windows and I pondered on whether one might survive the 10 hour drive the next day along Big Sur to Santa Monica.

As for the restaurants – well, there were thousands. Many we discounted due to the presence of photos on their laminated menus (always a no) and due to the flyer touts roaming the streets plying custom. We had a place in mind that needed no peddling, the locals they knew. Zagat rated, in the Michelin Guide and headed by a chef who has cooked for President Obama we were right to have high hopes for Z & Y Restaurant. On arrival all signs were good; a healthy while not discouraging queue snaked from the door and on peering into the dining room we were happy to note that we were some of the few Westerners present, a fact confirmed by the nice Chinese lady we were seated next to.  The lady also directed us to a few menu items which she said were especially typical and worth a try.
We ordered Pot Stickers, fried dumplings served with a filling of savoury pork, vegetable and spicing, together with Steamed Pork Dumplings to start with. Both were divine. The Pot Stickers were juicy with firm, salty pastry and a tasty filling, eloquently spiced. The Pork Dumplings were also great – soft, gooey dough pastry, white and almost translucent like a jelly fish, filled with little pork balls and lots of juice. We fell upon them like starving animals.

Next came Crispy Chicken with Jalapeno (a strange fusion dish that my father insisted on ordering) – which scorched the inside of my mouth off and left me unable to taste the rest of it, though it looked nice. It was at this point that the nice Chinese lady’s young son pointed at my dad and asked her why his face was so red.  In my opinion, that level of spice just isn’t good. I like spicy food a lot but there is a level where it changes from being a seamless, pleasant contributor to a dish, to being a hindrance. In my view, this was crossed.

The spicy pork in ‘flaming chili oil’ was okay too – the pork itself was nice texturally, soft and juicy, cut in very thin strips almost like kebab meat. The stew it came in was less memorable – hot and richly spiced, but a little watery and with a red layer of chili oil on top, an inch and a half thick. It was not literally flaming. Sad.  This came recommended by our rather friendly waiter (if you know what I mean) and I enjoyed it, but wouldn’t necessarily order it again. I am more than willing to attribute this to my Western palate however – maybe it really was exceptional. Just not to me. 

The best dish we tasted and one that I would certainly travel for was something entitled in English as Chicken with ‘Explosive Chilli Pepper’. Now, what this literally meant was a larger platter of chicken deep fried in a crispy spiced batter served inside a mountain, literally a mountain, of small, dried red chillies. No exaggeration, no joke; the mountain completely dwarfed the chicken. You had to hunt through the dried chillies with your chopsticks, hunting for chicken pieces and hoping that their seeds had not rattled out into your mouthful. Luckily that nice Chinese lady pointed out to us that we were not expected to eat the chillies. The waiters and chefs were expecting a good laugh with us, I suspect.  It was delicious – savoury, salty, deep in chicken with a bite of chili that was not as severe as its visage promised.

We enjoyed there a good meal – I can’t call it great though one of its dishes was. I would certainly go back but would order slightly differently. I would insist on the tea smoked duck that the waiter persuaded me from, the slow cooked pork would undoubtedly feature as would the pot stickers and pork dumplings that we devoured so bestially. I think too that when I return to London, that Peking Duck dangling in a window will meet with the inside of my bag and a pressing appointment with the inside of my stomach. 

www.zandyrestaurant.com/