Noodles, Dumplings, and a Cheap Joke Waiting to Happen

Today brought a return visit to King Won Ton and Noodle. Andrea and I initially drove randomly, by this place on Irving Street west of 18th Ave, just south of Golden Gate Park in yet another hub of Asian influence and focus in San Francisco neighborhoods. We were in search of dishes that we had seen served at other tables while we knocked down our shrimp dumpling and won ton dumpling soup, and an unusual Chinese/Japanese soup in a miso base with barbecued pork, fish cake and some Chinese broccoli that Andrea added. I think we may have been the only people in the last year to order this; they may well have had to consult the cookbook to figure out how to make it. Not my fault; they put it on the menu, so I thought they were serious.

Now it must be said that the dumplings were all quite good; we ordered them in a broth without the optional thin egg noodles. But we also saw the servers bring out attractive-looking platters of noodles, and what appeared to be a decent onion pancake, a.k.a. scallion pancake. Amazingly, I have learned to make these at home; there is a simple secret, which consists of making a jellyroll and then flattening and folding - - or maybe it's the other way around. Let me know if you need a scan of the actual recipe, which I have from an out-of-print paperback Chinese cookbook. Sadly, my increased knowledge of the mysteries of scallion pancake led me to the conclusion that theirs were hastily prepared and did not have the sufficient folding, rolling and layering to make a flaky, multi-layered product. It was competent, but that was about it. Or in Andrea's opinion, merely oily and undistinguished. And somehow we failed to order the dry fried beef chow fun (with wider rice stick noodles) and got it in sauce with bok choy instead. Strictly boring comfort food, with beef from a modest cut like round, so it is both a bit chewy and simultaneously slightly fatty.

King Won Ton and Noodle is a completely unreconstructed neighborhood place without pretension and might well be lacking ambition, other than to take care of the steady stream of customers that ebbs in and out. They were even moderately busy when we showed up today late for lunch, at about 1:40 PM. It can easily be appreciated for its soups, which include house-made shrimp dumpling and won ton dumpling soups with or without noodles. These are without question quite satisfying taste-wise, more than adequate portion-wise, and quite affordable price-wise. Explorations we made beyond this part of the menu were merely average. Soup; dumplings - - you can't go wrong. Maybe dry fried beef noodle (that just means not smothered in mild sauce,) but not much else. For Asian tastes, there is a much wider range of food styles to choose from, and the walls feature a number of specials in Cantonese with no translation; the only characters I could recognize represented the price.

Now for the complete non-sequitur and today's laugher. Our punsters and comedians clearly lack imagination. There's a joke so large it blots out the sun at mid-day; namely, the name of our latest defrauder and schemer, Bernie Madoff. 

It seems he made off with alotta peeple's money.

Over and out. Still 26 to go, but we've almost knocked out a full week (out of six plus two extra days.) This will be a long haul, won't it . . .