San Francisco’s Taraval Street is a hidden dumpling row

But those aren’t the only restaurants on Taraval that offer dumplings. The aforementioned House of Pancakes has an extensive menu of dumplings. Shandong Deluxe, which is now under new ownership with a red sign that says Happy Family Gourmet in English, also offers dumplings. And Mr. Szechuan specializes in Sichuan cuisine, as its name implies, but has a range of dumplings.

All of these restaurants specifically offer jiaozi, Northern-style Chinese dumplings, though many offer xiaolongbao (Shanghai soup dumplings). That means that there are at least six restaurants — and one storefront — that offer jiaozi in a stretch less than a mile long, all on Taraval. There are also two restaurants that serve dim sum, including 8 Immortals and Dim Sum Club. I’ve taken to describing this as our own local “dumpling row.”  

This isn’t necessarily unusual in San Francisco, though what types of dumplings are clustered together is different. Chinatown, for instance, offers an even greater concentration of dim sum restaurants, reflecting the neighborhood’s immigrants from Hong Kong and Guangdong province, and its status as a tourist destination, though it is now sadly much quieter since the pandemic. The area is so well-known for its dim sum that even President Barack Obama famously swung by to pick some up. The Richmond District has many delicious options for dim sum, as well as European dumplings, like pelmeni, in Little Russia. 

Taraval isn’t a tourist destination, though it is a commercial corridor in an otherwise residential neighborhood. It also happens to be my own neighborhood. Because I eat dumplings all the time, and even make them occasionally using my mom’s recipe — does that make me my own dumpling pop-up? — I was curious about why my neighborhood happened to have so many restaurants focused on jiaozi. 

To try to answer this question, I reached out to Rebecca Yu. She and her father, Paul, are the owners and chefs behind Dumpling Specialist, which opened in 2019 in what was previously a nail salon. It’s a tiny, cozy operation, with Paul making the dumplings and Rebecca cooking everything else on the highly focused menu, which includes fantuan (sticky rice rolls stuffed with fried dough and pickled vegetables) and beef noodle soup.

“When people started [dumpling restaurants], I don’t think it’s because they wanted to cluster places location-wise. Taraval has the right rent and the right price,” she explained. 

Besides more affordable rents compared to the rest of San Francisco, part of the reason Taraval has so many jiaozi places is because they’ve grown out of other spots. They’re all interconnected. 

Before the Yu family opened Dumpling Specialist, they were the owners — along with another business partner — behind the much larger, very popular Dumpling Kitchen near 30th Avenue. Paul had also previously worked at dim sum palace and banquet hall Gold Mountain in Chinatown that closed in 2011. Because his roots were in northern China, he wanted to open a different kind of dumpling restaurant. 

“When we first opened [Dumpling Kitchen],” Rebecca says, “there weren’t all these dumpling restaurants. There was just Kingdom of Dumpling, of course, and I think Shandong Deluxe was there, too. And it wasn’t about the location; we didn’t know. We didn’t choose the location because there were dumplings.”

In fact, initially they were concerned about the proximity to Kingdom of Dumpling, but in the end, the lease for the space that would become Dumpling Kitchen worked out. And although Dumpling Kitchen was a successful venture, with lines out the door on a regular basis, Rebecca says that the restaurant took a toll on her father, who worked long hours from 7 a.m to 10 p.m.

“It was just getting too much on his body,” she says. Initially, she says, he was going to retire from the restaurant business, with their former business partner now in charge at Dumpling Kitchen, but that lasted about all of two months. The two decided to open a smaller restaurant, the one that would become Dumpling Specialist. Rebecca says that they also considered a space elsewhere in the Sunset, on Noriega Street, but it didn’t feel right. 

That interconnection was very apparent, too, when I called up Kingdom of Dumpling’s owner, Qinghe Li. If Taraval is San Francisco’s hidden dumpling row, then Li might just be its mayor. 

When I first ask him about Taraval’s dumpling restaurants, he laughs and says I’ve come to the right place. Li’s Kingdom of Dumpling was the first one on the scene, opening in 2007. Today, the restaurant is probably the most famous of the Taraval dumpling places, regularly featured in dumpling and Chinese restaurant roundups. 

He says that he first began focusing on jiaozi, because he is originally from Hebei province in northern China. “It’s like our hometown style,” he explains, even as Kingdom of Dumpling offers some more unusual takes, like ones with kale.  

And as it turns out, Li is a veteran restaurateur who is involved in many restaurants in San Francisco and the Bay Area. He is also one of the founders behind House of Pancakes, explaining why that restaurant, too, despite its name, also serves jiaozi. Li is also behind Kingdom of Dumpling’s storefront on Taraval between 30th and 31st, which sells frozen dumplings directly to the public; officially, it’s known as Asian American Food Company, but sports a Kingdom of Dumpling sign outside. 

Another connection: A former employee at another one of his restaurants, King of Noodles, opened Shandong Deluxe between 20th and 21st avenues. “They were hoping to bring our customers to them,” Li laughs. But he didn’t sound that concerned, saying that in any market, there was always competition.

And perhaps the best thing about all of this competition and interconnection in San Francisco’s hidden dumpling row is that with so many restaurants, customers have many options. You can buy frozen ones and cook them yourself, not only from Kingdom of Dumpling or its storefront, but from Shandong Deluxe. You can order Chinese beef pancakes and dumplings at House of Pancakes. You can have Shanghai soup dumplings and cuisine at Dumpling Kitchen, or soup dumplings with beef soup noodles and sticky rice rolls at Dumpling Specialist. 

For Rebecca Yu of Dumpling Specialist, perhaps it is the street itself that has a gravitational pull, though the comparatively affordable rents certainly help. She has lived in the neighborhood for decades now, and she has found a community with other restaurant owners on the street. “I’m really, really grateful to be on Taraval,” she says.