San Pablo - Gou Bu Li - Xiao Chi Advice?

[Krys]

The list of dishes is below.

So there I am with my print out of dishes suggested by Chowhounds. I ask if Xiao Chi is served all day on the weekend.

I try this in English first ... Are the small plates served all day Saturday? ... Nope ….. Do you serve special food on Saturday? … Nope …. So I haul out my piece of paper and point to the words Xiao Chi … and she says “Could you pronounce that? It could be anything based on the dialect”

I was flattered that this nice woman thought I was capable of pronouncing that correctly. I tried pointing to the other spelling Xiao Zhi. Nope.

“Dim sum? I asked feebly. Bingo. The magic words. Out came the weekend menu.

While I realize this is not Cantonese Southern dim sum, this restaurant has been in the suburbs forever, so they probably gave up and went with people calling it dim sum. It is served all day on Saturday and Sunday.

I tried everything Chowhounds mentioned except the xiao long bao (steamed pork buns) available weekends and the Monday only Tientsin … aka … juicy dumplings … aka … gou bu li tang baozi.

Barbara, where you there at lunch today? The table across from me ordered all the dishes you suggested – stir fried shrimp with garlic, dried cooked string beans with minced pork and Hunan spicy chicken. All delicious, but is Hunan chicken different here?

The Kuo Teh (Shandong style poststickers) were almost as Melanie described. I will take people to this restaurant, if only for those wonderful glazed bananas.

Anyway, more notes at the bottom, but back to the original question. Here is the list (in English) of what is available on the weekends. Would people be good enough to make some suggestions about what is unique to this restaurant or what is best of its type.

I am hoping I don’t need to whip out my Chow passport with Chowhounds and say “I have a foreign face but a Chinese stomach!". What do you folks yearn for even if it is the spiced pig ear? I’m Polish. We eat all pig parts.

Here we go …

Peking green onion with pork cake
Gou bu li cake
Sesame pan cake
Chinese donut
Sweet soy bean milk
Salted soy bean milk
Pork with Chinese cabbage boiled dumpling
Steamed Pork dumpling (xiao long bao)
Steamed Beef dumpling
Potstickers
Green onion pancake
Chive buns
Chive turnovers
Szuchuan cold noodle
Chinese beef pies
Aromatic beef cake
Beef thin noodle soup
Black mushroom w/pork soup
Lamb soup
Stir fried rice cake
Stir fried mei fun
Shredded bean curd salad
Shredded seaweed
Preserved eggs with tofu
Pickled vegetables
Salted water peanuts
Dried shrimp with cucumber
Shanghai glutten puffs
Spiced pig ear
Spiced combination
Spicy beef tender
Stir fried tripe
Boiled pigs intestines
Sweet and sour spare ribs (ok, this can’t be unique)
Shanghai smoked fish (I like smoked fish)
Dry fish with black bean
Peking green onion with shrimp
Crispy Aromatic fish
Dry fish with salted peanuts

I realize that some of the English names may not adequately identify the dish. I’d appreciate any help though.

What I like best so far about Gou Bu Li is the harmony of flavors in the dishes. All the flavors work together in a nice balance so that a dish is never too spicy, garlicky, or sweet.

I loved everything about those glazed bananas. Hot from the kitchen, they are briefly plunged into a big bowl of iced water and then put on a plate. They have the thinnest glaze holding in the creamiest hot banana interior.

I really liked the Spicy Hunan chicken but it was nothing like I expected. The point of this dish seemed to be the coating and sauce with the chicken being an excuse to eat this deep fried (well perhaps stir fried) dish. This was barely spicy with flecks of red chili and a sweet vinegary sauce. It got even better as it cooled a bit and the coating caramelized more. .

Great green beans that had minced pork that looked like crumbled bacon.

Stir fried shrimp with garlic were small lightly breaded shrimp on a bed of cabbage. This was take out, so I think the cabbage was to keep the shrimp out of any oil that drained from the shrimp. At first I didn’t notice the garlic taste because it was subtle, but there was lots of finely chopped garlic on the shrimp and a nice saltiness to the dish. My favorite so far, not counting the bananas.

The Kuo Teh (Shandong style poststickers) were almost as Melanie described in the link below. Open nicely browned wrappers with a juicy ground pork inside. There was no leek or ginger. If Melanie had not mentioned it, I would not have noticed the heat in the soy sauce, but I didn’t taste any ginger/garlic. They were cooked correctly on my visit. No goo.

I had the Hunan chicken as part of a lunch special ($4.75), which included a pot of tea, egg roll (just ok), sweet and sour soup (ok) and rice. A good deal.

Here is sort of a recap of all the posts I’ve read:

According to Chowhounds, Gou Bu Li has very good and exotic northern Chinese Xiao Chi, sometimes spelled Xiao Zhi, (small dishes) they only serve during the weekends. They make some style of dishes that are hard to find in the Bay Area like Tientsin juicy dumplings (gou bu li tang baozi). These are only served Monday night because a special chef comes in to make these.

The menu says the food is Mandarin and Szechuan.cuisine. However, in the post below, Melanie writes “The house’s stated regional specialties are Peking, Szechwan, and Shanghai. The owners came from Taiwan, so the styling of the food has evolved through that filter.”

Melanie also writes at the end of the post
“One sticking point I’d like to clarify is that the dumplings and appetizers served here are NOT “dim sum”. Even though “northern dim sum” has crept into popular usage locally and on this board to describe these Beijing, Shanghai and Sichuan-style snacks collectively, they are more properly called “xiao chi” meaning small eats or little plates. Also, Shanghai and Sichuan are not even in northern China. Dim sum is a Cantonese specialty and has its own tradition separate and apart from the type of food served here.”

"Gou bu li" means "a dog won't touch it." It's the name of a famous large dumpling from Tianjin. This place was sometimes called the "fish lips" restaurant - for years the menu listed fish lips as a choice, but they never actually had it. I don’t read Chinese, but there are no mentions of fish lips on the English menu. No connection to Gou Bu Li from Tianjin.

At one time they sold frozen Xio Chi, but not currently.

The décor is like a pleasant coffee shop with vinyl green tablecloths covering the tables. There is counter at the window which makes a pleasant place for single diners to sit. A few faded reviews from the mid 1980’s are pasted in the window. The grandfather is retired and son is in the kitchen

The location off Telegraph in Berkeley closed down in about 1998. They were located in El Cerrito until about 2003 and closed down until about November 2004 when they reopened in the Raley’s plaza in San Pablo on the El Sobrante border.

When the restaurant was closing down in 2003, Gordon mentioned that the chef, Master Sung, might be teaching some Chinese Cooking Classes in El Cerrtio. Is this the owner?

From what I read on Chowhound, the food is unique in the Bay Area and everyone likes the place. Yet I don’t understand why it keeps closing down. Was the food unique when it first opened and now there are other places in the Bay Area that serve the same type of food?

Hope you don’t mind my quoting you Melanie, but I just wanted to put the info about this restaurant in one place as I became a little tired bouncing between threads.

One thing that gets mentioned over and over is how pleasant and helpful everyone at the restaurant is. I agree very much with that.

Gou Bu Li Restaurant
3340 F San Pablo Dam Road
San Pablo, CA (in the same shopping center as Raley's and McDonald's)
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone].

Hours:
Closed Tuesdays
11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday
11:30 to 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday .

Anyway here are the links I found on this.

Links
February 13, 2005
http://www.chowhound.com/california/boards/sanfrancisco/messages/117378.html

March 16, 2003
Gou Bu Li Tang Baozi
http://www.chowhound.com/california/boards/sanfrancisco11/messages/48576.html

April 21, 2003
bad news for Gou Bu Li fans
http://www.chowhound.com/california/boards/sanfrancisco11/messages/51389.html

January 09, 2003
Two weeks in Berkeley and environs
http://www.chowhound.com/california/boards/sanfrancisco10/messages/43658.html

December 04, 2002
Dim Sum in Berkeley or Albany?
http://www.chowhound.com/california/boards/sanfrancisco10/messages/41652.html

Link: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/...

[GarySoup]

What was your question, Krys? ;-)

"Dim Sum," as you discovered, will work in context. "Xiao chi" should work, too, if you toss it off convincingly enough and pronounce it correctly.

What's unique there would be goubuli. I can't recall having found them anywhere around SF since Ryumon closed. The meat-stuffed pancakes and perhaps the lamb dishes are not commonly found, either. The other stuff can be found at Shanghainese or Taiwanese places.

The smoked fish would not be actually smoked, but caramelized (and be full of bones).

I'd love to work my way through that menu. Where is this place?

Link: http://eatingchinese.org

[Krys]

San Pablo?

Take the San Pablo Dam Road exit off of 80 and bear right. Look for McDonalds. Original post has address.

From reading the posts, it seems there is or was more that was unique about this place other than the gou bu li.

One poster made it a point of stopping at this place on his San Francisco visit which included Kirin, Piperade, etc.

After reading those posts and stopping by Gou Bu Li, I realized I really don't know a thing about Chinese food. I read all the posts here with fascination and I'm reading your site. but with few exceptions, I order the same old stuff and don't expand my horizons.

Even though I would have tried Gou Bou Li anyway, nothing about it would have stood out to me.

Well, gone for the day. Gotta work to pay for my $3 meals. I just found a Chinese place where I can get lunch for $1.99. Good old El Sobrante.

[Gary Soup]

The point, Krys, is that item-by-item, there's probably little or nothing that's unique to this particular restaurant; on the other hand, such a long list of "Northern" style appetizers (presumably prepared competently) at one venue may make GouBuLi unique in the Bay Area.

Link: http://eatingchinese.org

[Krys]

Gary,

I realize I can try every item on the menu myself, however that is like telling someone to go to Golden Gate bakery and try everything until you are lucky enough to buy the custard tart.

What I have gleaned is that beside the namesake dish, the pot stickers are different and they were. I’m not sure if they are in the style indicated, but they are different. It seems like something else might be special at this restaurant because people are willing to drive out on the weekend to try their dim sum or whatever it is called. It is different enough that the restaurant had the items available frozen at one time.

I realize that my original question was not in the best format to use to address Asian Chowhounds which should have been simpler and more to the point. However, I wanted to emphasize that, as pleasant as the owner’s wife is, I wasn’t going to get much help at the restaurant in selecting what is best since just getting an answer to the question of whether or not there is dim sum on the weekend was difficult

I don’t follow through on many of the posts for delicious Asian food in the Bay Area, however, this restaurant is down the street from me and it would be nice to get some hints as to what to try first. The suggestions so far have been great and things I would not have ordered on my own.

Since this restaurant is region specific, and I like what I’ve tried so far, It might be a chance for me to get to know a specific region a little better. You must know by now how I get. I’ll go off on my own and start reading all about Northern Chinese food.

Chinese food seems so complex. I know there are eight regions, what they are at this point I could not tell you, but I have that info somewhere in my food notes on the computer.

It seems that no matter what type of regional Chinese restaurant I go into there is sweet and sour pork, lemon chicken, broccoli chicken, etc on the menu. It is difficult for a non Asian to comprehend all of that. I’m just trying to pick at one little section at a time.

The one weekend item mentioned on Chowhound was the Steamed Pork dumpling (xiao long bao) so that is probably what I will order first. I’ll probably try the lamb since you indicated that is a specifically northern dish. Now which of the other items are specifically Northern, don’t know.

This is the reason that people like me go into these restaurants and order the sesame chicken. This experience is a little incentive to maybe not be so lazy and look into some of the more interesting dishes at Chinese restaurants mentioned on the board instead of armchair dining.

I mean it is no big deal. It's like everything else on the board. You put it out there, sometimes you get an answer, sometimes you dont. Sort of like restaurants in my area. I asked a couple of times and got no response initially, so I just stepped in a few doors. Maybe for Gou Bu Li it is just a matter of trying to find the custard tarts on my own.

[Gary Soup]

OK Krys, you win. Without knowing how well they do the dishes, or what you like, here are a few glosses and pointers. Inicdentally, nearly everything you listed is more or less "northern" in the sense that you're not likely to find them on Cantonese dim sum menus.

Gou bu li cake:
?? Goubuli are steamed, not cakey. Maybe the name of some house special griddle cake.

Sweet soy bean milk
Salted soy bean milk:

These are probably served as hot soups, in bowls. The "sweet" is usually just sweetened soy milk (I'm not fond of it). The "salty" is more elaborate, probably contains stuff like chili, scallions, brine shrimp, sesame oil, etc. I love it, but can't find a good version around here.

Pork with Chinese cabbage boiled dumpling:
"jiaozi", or "shui jiao" (like pot-stickers, but steamed)

Stir fried rice cake:
Most likely the famous "niangao". Chewy rice pasta stirfried with mustard green or napa cabage and bits of pork. Try this, it's great if done well.

The list gets more adventurous (and sometimes obscure) below this, but note:

Shanghai glutten puffs:
Ambiguous, could be kaofu or youmianjing. More likely kaofu (spongy cubes). Love at first bite for many westerners (ask Ruth Lafler).

Shanghai smoked fish (I like smoked fish):
Not really smoked, but caramelized, bone in. Served cold.

Dry fish with salted peanuts:
Maybe tiny fish (silverfish).

Allow me to flash my Chowhound passport: "I'm not Chinese but I have a Chinese stomach." You can too.

Link: http://eatingchinese.org

[Krys]

Thanks Gary. If you are ever up this way on a Monday night, the Gou Bu Li is on me.

[homecookin']

You can get decent salty soy milk at Shanghai Claypot on San Pablo ave. in Albany on Saturdays (Across the street from BevMo). It's my family's favorite place for what we call Chinese Brunch or Chinese breakfast foods. Sometimes you have to ask for the Shanghai Dim Sum or Shao Zhe menu. If you get a menu with A,B,C,D...K to chose from -- you're on the right track.

They have several combo you can choose from. Best of all, the combos are all around $7 dollars. You can get shao long bao and Shanhai style wonton soup. Or Shao Being -- yao tiao, salty soy milk and turnip buns. They do have some small dishes, but that's definately not their strong asset. I would stick with the A-K set of brunch items.

However, their dinner or regular menu is only okay at best. We wouldn't go there for dinner, but we would definately go for Chinese Brunch.

Also, another place I want to plug is Su Gia in Newark. Check out their Weekend Dim Sum menu. I think they have one of the better jiao zhi and shao long bao in the bay area.

They are well known for their Szechwan dishes. However, the owner tells me he employes 5 different chefs from different regions of China. My dad loves their sesame freen onion cake. It's prepared northern style where yeast is used in making the dough. Below is the URL to their website in English. Give it a try when you're in Newark you will not be dissapointed.

Link: http://www.222.to/food/productslist.a...

[Barbara]

I wish I had been there at lunch! Now I'm hungry - maybe dinner tonight. The reason they moved from El Cerrito is that they lost their lease to Kragen Auto Parts. They decided to take some family time off - two children in high school now - and look for a new location. Every time we go, they give us something new to try. My husband is now a fan of the sliced fish in wine sauce. I love their wonton soup before my garlic shrimp. The double mushroom shrimp is very good too.

[Krys]

Thanks for the additional suggestions.

Is that Hunan Chicken different at the restaurant. You know, somewhere along the line I have tried dishes like Hunan chicken and Kung Pao ckicken, and they never impressed me as something I'd order on a regular basis. Can't even remember what they are like, just know I don't order them.

The coating on the Gou Bu Li chicken was surprising. I was thinking it was chicken without coating like in the recipe I found on the web below.

So do you know that, if like the potstickers, they are specifically a Mandarin or whatever version. I guess I can go down the street and order the same dish from Hunan Restaurant and see what I get.

Link: http://www.ming.com/simplyming/showre...

[Homecookin']

I'll try my best to tell you what is unique.

These two items you will not find it in the Bay Area. Worth a try. I believe one the Gou Bu Li cake is baked. I could be wrong since I haven't been back almost 7 years.

Peking green onion with pork cake
Gou bu li cake

Your usual Shao Being (Sesame pan cake) and Yo Tiao (Fried dough) with either sweet or salty Doe Jian (Soy Milk) The salty soy milk is spicy with pickled veggies with chopped up chinese donut and dash of vinegar(makes the soy milk curdle). Kind of taste like a spicy egg flower soup.
Sesame pan cake
Chinese donut
Sweet soy bean milk
Salted soy bean milk

Jiao Zi
Pork with Chinese cabbage boiled dumpling

You can figure it out.
Steamed Pork dumpling (xiao long bao)
Steamed Beef dumpling
Potstickers
Green onion pancake

Baozi with chinese chives
Chive buns

It's like a pan fried calzone with chinese chives, without the cheese.

Chive turnovers

Liang Mein. Nothing to write home about.
Szuchuan cold noodle

Nieu Roe Shian Being (Chinese hamburger) If you like the juices in shao long bao, you will like this. It has beef and celery wrapped in thin dough and pan friend.
Chinese beef pies

Shao Being with sliced spiced beef, cilantro, and hoing sing sauce.
Aromatic beef cake

I would pass on these items. It's nothing special. Frankly it's not something they do well at.
Beef thin noodle soup
Black mushroom w/pork soup
Lamb soup
Stir fried rice cake
Stir fried mei fun

The ones below are all small dishes. They use to have them on their table and you simply walk up to the table and pick the dish you'd like. Not sure they kept the same procedure. (Not going to go too much in details, but if you like to know how it is prepared let me know)

Shredded bean curd salad
Shredded seaweed
Preserved eggs with tofu
Pickled vegetables
Salted water peanuts
Dried shrimp with cucumber
Shanghai glutten puffs
Spiced pig ear
Spiced combination
Spicy beef tender
Stir fried tripe
Boiled pigs intestines
Sweet and sour spare ribs (ok, this can’t be unique)

Shanghai smoked fish (I like smoked fish)
Not smoked, simply fried for a long time and then stewed in soysauce, sugar and spices.

(Dried anchovies)
Dry fish with black bean
Peking green onion with shrimp
Crispy Aromatic fish
Dry fish with salted peanuts

[Krys]

Thanks so much for taking the time. If you ever want to revisit the place, feel free to shoot me an email and I'll be happy to treet.

I was just zoning in on that Black mushroom w/pork soup. Thanks for the heads up.

I can deal with little dishes I can see, so I think I'm ok with those. Thanks again.

[homecookin']

Krys, thanks for the offer. Just trying to help another member who enjoys eating and talking about food!

The Black mushroom with pork soup might be a Taiwanese soup. If memeory serves me correctly the owners are Mandarins from Taiwan. However, I could be totally off about the soup, unless I see the menu in Chinese.

The name for this soup in Mandarin is Zoe Gain. Sorry, my Pin Yin sucks, I just go by how it is pronouced. In Taiwanese it is pronounced Mah Ghee. Zoe is meat in mandarin and Gain means thickend soup, usually with potato or corn starch.

The pork is either ground or sliced pork coated with ground fish meat. The soup also, has black mushrooms, carrots, bamboo shoots, and cilantro. A shot of Chinese black vinegar is added to the soup just before serving. There is another version of this soup instead of pork people use cuttlefish or squid. The soup is very popluar in Taiwan.

Again, unless I see the menu I can't be 100% sure that's black mushroom soup.

[yimster]

Gou Bu Li was my sister in law favorite place to go since it was in her hometown and on and off before it closing she and us have been going there for about 25 years. I plan to visit her and family in the next couple of week and we will try it.

As I remember it the food was good and well presented. The selection was wide for this type of food and was a early in the East Bay for non Cantonese food. I will report back to know if the owners are the same.

I have called her and she is ready to go. Also we will report back on the food.

I do remember the steamed and fried buns were good as was the soy bean milks.

Have not been there for over four years.