Chinese Pancakes in San Francisco

[hyperbowler]

mmm... pancakes

Green onion and chive pancakes aside, the list of SF places with pancakes and other fried breads for comparison seem to be:

Beijing Restaurant (2 locations): http://beijingrestaurant.us/menu-bj-d... , at the Alemany location perhaps the other, they also have a "Beijing omelette" AKA jian bing
House of Pancakes
Xiao Long Bao on Clement
Old Mandarin
Kingdom of Dumpling & King of Noodles & Shandong Deluxe
i-Skewers

Most of these places only have a beef pancake and a sesame pancake, but Beijing and House of Pancakes have several other. Any other places?

[hyperbowler]

Five Happiness on Geary in SF has four types of pancakes and fried breads on their Sunday "Chinese breakfast" order sheet, three of which I couldn't find on their English menu. In the upper left corner of the order sheet are listed:

7. 牛肉餡餅 (1) $5.95 [niu rou xian bing , a beef pancake]
15. 油酥燒餅(1) $1.65 [yousu shao bing, a small fried sesame bread]
16. 牛肉燒餅 (1) $3.50 [niu rou shao bing, a small fried sesame bread sandwich with beef inside]

The green onion pancake (#6, 蔥油餅 cong you bing), which are also listed on the English menu, are awesome. They're thick, the outside is crispy, and there's a chewy interior with lots of green onion flavor.

My friend instructed me to turn the sesame bread into a sandwich by filling it with Chinese doughnut sticks (#14 you tiao) and dipping it in sweetened soybean milk (#13 doujiang). I can't eat soy milk, so that sandwich was a bit dry. The sesame bread itself was a bit heavy, but the doughnut was good.

The beef filled sesame bread was pretty good. The beef was sliced.

[Melanie Wong]

"wineguy7" has found another one on Irving St, i-wonton.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/751126#7984153

Despite the name, wonton seems to be a minor player on the menu.
http://www.i-wonton.com/menu.asp

And 10% off coupon until April 1
http://www.i-wonton.com/about_us.asp

[hyperbowler]

Looking through a takeout menu from Happy Golden Bowl in El Cerrito, they have:

Flat sesame bread with beef: 燒餅夾肉 (shao bing jia rou )
Beef pastie: 牛肉餡餅 (niu rou xian bing)
Sesame pancake 芝麻大餅 (zhima dabing)

I like their Zhi ma da bing better than the ones I've had at Darda and House of Pancakes. Some mentions of it at a Chowdown: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/888979

[Melanie Wong]

If you're willing to go outside the City limits, there are many, many more.

[hyperbowler]

A list of the pancakes at House of Pancake is in this thread: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/8900...

Beijing Restaurant's "Beijing style stired fried pancake with sliced pork" is a cool spin on pancakes--- they take the bing dough, cut it into tagliatelle-width ribbons, and stir fry it along with cabbage, bean sprouts, carrots, green onion, and pork. It's not especially saucy or oily, and it tasted like there was a small amount of hoisin sauce. Delicious. Pancake chewiness minus the crunch.

[stanbee]

As of 2 weeks ago there were no pancake dishes on the menu at DBM

[Keesey]

Seriously? This is one of their signature dishes. It isn't very obvious the way they list it on their menu. I cant believe they'd take it off.

[elise h]

Chili House at 726 Clement St (relatively new restaurant) serves an excellent rolled up, burrito style beef pancake. It, as Atomica describes the Dong Bei Mama version, has sliced beef, cilantro, scallions, and hoisin sauce.

[Melanie Wong]

A couple more -

Little Beijing, though it has been some years since my last time there.
http://sanfrancisco.menupages.com/restaurants/little-beijing/menu

and nearby, Peking Restaurant.
http://www.pekingrestaurantsf.com/

(You might want to ask the mods to split off this branch to a new topic to attract more eyes with an appropriate title. We've hit the threading indentation max and it's hard to tell who's talking to whom.)

[Atomica]

Dong Bei Mama also has a beef pancake that is to die for.

[Melanie Wong]

Is that the type that has dough wrapped around ground beef in a flat disc then panfried? Or a crispy layered pancake that has been cooked and then wrapped around slices of beef burrito-style?

[Atomica]

It's actually slices of beef (rather than ground), along with cucumber, cilantro, and I believe hoisin. I think it might be wrapped burrito style. There are some good photos of it if you look at Google Images.

[Melanie Wong]

Thanks, here's our chowpal Pei's photo on her website,
http://www.chezpei.com/2011/07/dong-b...

That's the style served at Z&Y et al I mentioned above as a wrap.

[hyperbowler]

Beijing Restaurant's beef pancakes are flat:

[Melanie Wong]

Z & Y, Potsticker and Szechuan Cuisine Uncle Cafe have a pancake with beef on their appetizer menus. It's a wrap style.

[elise h]

Xiao Long Bao also carries these pancakes:
1. shrimp, chives, egg vermicelli
2. scallion
3. pork & bok choy

[Melanie Wong]

Another 'hound sent me this link for _Pancake: A Global History_ and I thought it was right up your alley. :)
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/boo...

[elise h]

thanks! Very true: "The pancake is a treasured food the world over"! Now I have to also return to see why pane went wild over the egg and onion pancake.