Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup Richmond Sf
As a passionate home cook over the past few years, Eric Sim would frequently make giant stock pots of noodle soup with as many as 20 servings. Inevitably, he'd invite friends to help him finish. His niu rou mian, Taiwanese beef noodle soup, was e'er the biggest draw.
With its chewy noodles and bawdy broth — heady with star anise, cloves and fennel — the dish has rightfully become one of Taiwan'southward near famous culinary feats. Yet Sim, an Oakland native with family roots in Taiwan, couldn't find a version that satisfied him close to home. It took a pandemic for him to follow his passion for cooking and start a popular-up, Yilan Foods, with iii friends.
"I didn't accept likewise much Taiwanese civilization around me growing upward in Oakland," he said. "It left me grasping for straws: How come I don't know anyone who speaks Mandarin? How come I don't see Taiwanese food around here?"
The popular-upwards specializes in just 2 dishes: niu rou mian and lou ru fan, a archetype of braised pork belly over rice. Yilan's version of niu rou mian is intensely rich, with meltingly tender beefiness shank and pickled mustard greens to lighten the dark, murky goop. It hasn't taken long for the soup to find a following. Yilan served its first bowls in November — pre-orders only, with pickup or delivery in San Francisco and Oakland — and quickly sold out. With its limited weekly production of 100 servings of each dish, sell-outs became the norm.
In ways, Yilan Foods begins as a typical pandemic story: Sim's friend Itthisak Rampaiyakul temporarily shut down his Oakland Thai restaurant Ninna in September and wasn't sure what to do next. Rampaiyakul thought of Sim, a tech worker who dreamt of working in the food industry, and invited him to a coming together with ii more friends, chef Alex Tong and business organization-minded Christopher Lam, to help bring a Taiwanese food popular-upwardly to life.
Sim is the only Taiwanese person in the group. While he hasn't establish Taiwanese dishes to his liking in San Francisco, he acknowledges the stronger Taiwanese nutrient options in cities like Cupertino, Fremont and Milpitas — they merely feel unrealistically far from his flat. He had a hunch other lovers of Taiwanese food in San Francisco would experience similarly.
Lu rou fan, braised pork belly over rice, is ane of two specialties past new Taiwanese pop-up Yilan Foods.
Margaret GarboYilan Foods is named after the minor northeastern Taiwan county where Sim'due south mom is from. He thinks Yilan's beef noodle soup stands out considering of an infusion of French cooking technique, namely sauteing aromatics and blanching beef bones before bringing them together for an hours-long simmer. It comes with a fiery chile sauce spiked with Sichuan peppercorns — a non-traditional accompaniment just ultimately the sauce the team liked best.
For the lu rou fan, Sim wanted to serve a neat, "super presentable" version, with pops of color from pickled radish and crisp steamed vegetables, fluffy rice and a soft boiled egg marinated for 12 hours in pu-erh tea.
"We went with the big pork belly and mushroom chunks, considering we wanted people to identify that we're putting premium products in, not grinding everything up," he said.
Yilan will start taking orders Wed for its next popular-up on Jan. 23, the first in several weeks subsequently the founders took a break to think about the futurity.
Sim doesn't want the menu to grow also much, but he foresees the improver of a vegetarian tofu version of lou ru fan and some side dishes. Instead of a huge carte du jour, he wants to aggrandize Yilan's geographical accomplish with more than option upward locations — he's been fielding lots of requests from potential customers on the Peninsula. But Yilan would probable need to find a new commercial kitchen start — the popular-up is already outgrowing the capacities of Ninna.
Based on the pop-upwardly'south early success, Sim wants to turn Yilan Foods in a brick-and-mortar restaurant, ideally in San Francisco, where he and his partners alive and where he feels Taiwanese food is specially defective in options. If Yilan had its own space and didn't take to rely on pre-orders and commitment — and thus having to make dishes that travel well — information technology could make other Taiwanese culinary hits like giant slabs of fried chicken or fried pork chop over rice. Still, expect Sim and the Yilan team to add together their own touches.
"We wanted to stray away from the term 'accurate,'" he said. "Everything nosotros make is but united states of america."
Yilan Foods. Returning for Jan. 23 pre-orders; dishes toll $thirteen-$15. Takeout and commitment in San Francisco and Oakland. yilan-foods.square.site
Janelle Bitker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff author. E-mail: janelle.bitker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @janellebitker
Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/New-Bay-Area-pop-up-is-delivering-on-a-Taiwanese-15883184.php
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