Get Stuffed: Ming's Fong Lam
In other cities we've lived in, the actual density of the ethnic Chinese population matters little to the density of Chinese restaurants. Seattle? The population is rather spread out, but the vast majority of Chinese restaurants are still downtown in the International District. New York? No matter what neighborhood you're in, you're never far from a Chinese restaurant. But in San Francisco, the restaurants seem to follow the community in general -- ya got your fancy places next to your rich people, your Russian restaurants in the Richmond, your Central American cuisine in the Mission. And so it follows that the best places to go for Chinese food are Chinatown and the Sunset. And yes, we're making totally specious generalizations here, and of course we could give a damn where we find great Chinese food or even who makes it (our country-bred Anglo mom makes a mean rice plate). But how else to explain the paucity of good Chinese restaurants in the Mission?
The few there are in our neighborhood are, luckily, of the cheap variety. We'll save our favorite wonton soup joint, Jade Cafe, for another day. Today it's about what's close, and while the two closest places are the J&J Cafe and the Punjab, as cheap as both are, they aren't very good. So we'd like to say the best cheap Chinese joint in the Southeast Mission is Ming's Fong Lam, next door to the La Palma Mexicatessen. We admit that one time, ordering from the specials board, we ended up with an entire Dungeness crab over vegetables and tossed in garlic -- when we were expecting crab meat or a couple of hefty legs. We still got out for around fifteen bucks.
A family operation (the primary-school son does homework in the dining room, often with his mother's help), Ming's Fong Lam is small and cozy, if not spotless. But you can get fresh Cantonese food fast and hot. They've got your go to dishes -- Mongolian Beef, Kung Pao Chicken, anything you want with Black Bean sauce -- as well as wonton soups, hot pots and sizzling platters. But we always judged a good Chinese restaurant first by their noodles. Marco Polo didn't haul those all the way back along the silk road because the Emperor wowed him with potstickers.
Today we ordered the Beef Chow Fun with Black Bean sauce. Chow Fun are the broader noodles, flat and thin, and their transliterated name is uncannily appropriate. "Culturally sensitive" types freak out when they see 'Chow,' thinking of the dreaded Chow Mein, Anglo-style that reigned in the rest of the country for generations. Ming's Fong Lam is the kind of place where you're more likely to hear Spanish spoken than either Chinese or English, and there are few ways you could Americanize anything in Black Bean sauce. You can even get your noodles "wet" in the Cantonese style for a little extra if you want to explore diversity. But for Anglo show-offs, you'll have to ask for chopsticks.
The noodles were perfectly cooked -- sticky, but with some bite left in 'em. The plate, piled high, was flecked with the little fermented soy beans. There was lots of tender beef hidden amongst the folds of the noodles, as well as bean sprouts, carrots and scallions. We swore we needed to take some of it home about half way through, but after every sip of hot tea, we just had to take another bite, until the whole heap was reduced to two bean sprouts in a pool of soy sauce. Total? Seven bucks with tax and a generous tip. And if you think we're here to indulge in stereotypes, we can promise that even hours later we still feel entirely stuffed.