What I Ate: June 4, 2010 (Hong Kong Lounge, Dragonfly Restaurant)

Lunch: Rachel, Tina, and I headed into San Francisco to have a dim sum lunch at Hong Kong Lounge (5322 Geary Boulevard, San Francisco, CA‎ - (415) 668-8836‎). We had a huge assortment of dim sum (first time I've over ordered at dim sum and was unable to finish all the food).

The good stuff that we had (roughly from best to least good):
Pork Siu Mai - one of the best examples of shao mai out there
Dried Shrimp & Shrimp Siu Mai
Pan Fried Chives Dumpling
Shrimp Dumpling
Pan Fried Tofu Skin Roll - stuffed with shrimp
Pan Fried Turnip Cake - had larger pieces of extremely soft and nicely flavored chunks of daikon in the wonderfully textured turnip cake
Egg Tart - a wonderful example of this dish - the custard is light and flavorful and the crust is thin and flaky
Coconut Red Bean Cake - this dessert was awesome; the first bite is a little strange as you get used to the dense coconut gelatin which mixes with the bottom layer of red bean custard, then it's hard to stop eating this dessert
Pan Fried Onion Cake - an interesting version of cong you bing where the outside of crispy and the inside was a bit gummy, but the whole thing had great flavor
Deep Fried Chives Dumpling - a beautiful round grooved round ball (king of reminded me of the sprials of the Guggenheim Museum) with a nice filling; a tad greasy
Steamed Pork Buns
Steamed pork dumping - a Shanghainese steamed dumpling (xiao long bao) what is okay
Water spinach - a bit bland, but not bad and had good texture
Fried sesame ball - an average example of this sweet fried dessert

We didn't think these were good (roughly from least bad to worst):
Shrimp pot sticker - the dough was a bit thick and chewy, not pan fried very well
Steamed chicken feet - really bland - needed a lot more black bean and chilis
Steamed pork ribs - also bland and needing black beans; also had a strong citrus zest taste that I didn't like
Shrimp chives dumpling - this boiled dumpling was a huge disappointment. About a 3 out of 10 for this dish

Dinner: Dave and Rachel went with us to Dragonfly (420 Judah Street, San Francisco, CA‎ - (415) 661-7755‎) for a contemporary Vietnamese dinner. We had eaten there before a few years back and felt it was as good or better than The Slanted Door (at much lower prices). We started with Lotus Roots Salad which was light, flavorful, and refreshing. I loved the crunchy thin lotus roots. We've always had larger diameter (about 1-1.5 inches in diameter) lotus root instead of the thin (a few millimeters) ones. As far as I can tell there's not much difference between them except for shape.

Vietnamese Crepe - delicious but a little messy to eat folding the pancake in the lettuce wraps and with fish sauce

Shaking Beef - the best dish we had tonight - very tender and extremely flavorful

Steamed Seabass - tender, but quite mild in flavor; I think I was the only one who liked it at our table

Beef Sauteed Green Beans - we ordered this with the request to have less beef and more green beans. It was pretty good, but not as good as some others we've had. The beef was very tender and flavorful.

We had Coconut Rice and Hainan Rice with the main dishes which worked very well.

We ended the meal with their Flan dessert which wasn't a good example of flan. The custard was very light and too mild in flavor.