Pilgrimage to the Mayflower

Before I get going, let me admit that this post is a bit of a cheat; a dilution of my original purpose. This blog is supposed to be about all the great and not so great food Andrea and I experience as part of her six-week radiation treatment for breast cancer. Since we find ourselves in the middle of San Francisco, one of the best restaurant towns in the known Universe, this should be like shooting fish in a barrel. And then eating them. But today there is no treatment. In fact, the treatment begins tomorrow, with no treatment; there is a final 'dry run' where you line up the patient on the actual device, the radiation-zapping device, and make sure that your four little tattoos, and all the measurements you've programmed into the radiation-zapping computer, are actually correct. Then next week it begins in earnest, for six weeks total. So this is actually the dry run for the dry run. We just wanted to make sure that our eating machinery was in order. The Mayflower proved the perfect place for the rehearsal.

The Mayflower. This unassuming restaurant entered into my consciousness relatively recently. I think it had something to do with endless trips west out Geary Avenue, usually on the way to the new and (arguably) improved Cliff House, or perhaps the Beach Chalet for a burger and a house-brewed beer. Or Park Chalet out behind the Beach Chalet (more on these fine establishments in the future.) Every trip past the Mayflower revealed a hum of activity. Today we arrived at 27th and Geary in the Richmond district of San Francisco, and stepped inside. The interior is typical Chinese restaurant, but with a few defining differences. There are aquaculture tanks at both the crowed entrance and at the back wall of the dining room, with quite a few varieties of seafood, including live lobster, shrimp, fish, crab (in season,) and geoduck. The restaurant obviously does a business in fresh seafood, especially, I suspect, at dinner. But lunch seems to mainly be about dim sum and noodle dishes. Another thing: tablecloths rather than paper doilies. The napkins were paper, but not the tablecloth. A little touch of class. Also, the Mayflower has chosen relatively well-padded, high-backed seats instead of opting for the butt-torturing standard fare found in so many restaurants. This extra comfort makes it easier to linger over a meal. I suppose the final notable feature is the lack of excess noise. At no point did the Mayflower feel dead, yet conversation was remarkably easy. Maybe it was all those soft bodies filling all the seats; human beings are a great absorber of sonic energy.

I think I have to credit Yelp with making me aware of the Mayflower. There are several dim sum and Chinese food places we enjoy in San Francisco, and I think the Mayflower came up as a related link to them. The consensus seemed unusually positive, so I put the place on my mental checklist of "new places to try." Today was the day.

My niece Erica and her co-worker Christine happened to be visiting us, having sneaked up coastal Calfornia Highway One for a quick visit from their conference in Monterey, before a return flight to Phoenix. Erica is my older sister's daughter. Both she and Christine are in a graduate program with the same boss, but their fields of expertise are different, proving that their boss is involved in a complex environmental program involving many disciplines. I didn't get to the bottom of this at all - - that is, I have no idea what either of them actually do in life, but Christine is involved in Environmental Engineering, and the last I heard, Erica is concentrating on some advanced form of biochemistry.

Either way, they, and we, were both quite hungry. Christine, originally from the eastern part of Germany, had never had dim sum but was reasonably handy with chopsticks, indicating a more than passing familiarity with Chinese food in general. Erica is a vegetarian who can if needed bend the rules to include seafood. She's had dim sum in one form or another almost from birth.

We arrived a few minutes before them, and stood in line in the narrow, confused entrance/exitway, and eventually demanded a number. This proved to be a good idea, since otherwise the manager would have continued to seat his regulars in front of us, whether issued a number or not. But this was, in all, a minor nuisance, and once we sat down into surprisingly comfortable seats (about 10 minutes total wait,) it was all good. The dim sum menu consisted of a two-part NCR form that listed all the dim sum available. Put in your quantity and away you go. Andrea read it to me (only one checklist per table, and I did not want to change glasses anyway,) and we quickly clicked off a bunch of things to try, before our lunchmates showed up. Shrimp Dumplings in Soup. Pan Fried Chinese and Meat Dumpling. Deep Fried Minced Meet (sic) Dumpling. Deep Fried Crispy Diced Pumpkin. Stuffed Egg Plant. Har Gai Shrimp Dumpling.

That pretty much did it, but Erica added Chinese Broccoli in Oyster Sauce, and eventually added Sesame Balls as a dessert. Also I thought for Erica's sake I would add a stuffed Bean Curd Wrap. This turned out to have meat in the stuffing. So Christine and I had to do it in, which turned out to not be so tough.

The Mayflower does a big volume in dim sum, but unlike many restaurants of its size, there are no carts. Everything is delivered by waitstaff from the kitchen. And everything, it is to be said, emerges completely fresh, just out of the wok or steamer, right to your table. This might be the defining characteristic of Mayflower dim sum. Nothing has ridden around on a cart for 15 minutes, or even four; right from the wok to your plate seems to be the order of the day. The other unique thing here, from the dim sum point of view, is that you will find quite a few items you've never seen elsewhere, plus most if not all of your familiar favorites. Since this was the first visit I have no idea if all of our choices were the most brilliant, but based on what they put on our table, it might actually be hard to pick something bad.

Let's start with the weakest link: the deep-fried pumpkin. On the plus side, this was very cleanly fried (obviously the Mayflower changes its frying oil often,) but the overall effect was very mild in taste, and lacking in color as well; it was more like sweet potato tempura than anything else. Despite this, we ended up eating all of it (as well as every last scrap of every other dish, I might add.) Another dish that arguably lacked finesse was the stuffed eggplant, although this may have been by design; the outside of the stuffing was golden brown and a bit tough, but biting into it revealed a dense yet delicious shrimp filling. At first I thought it was fried chicken (!) mostly due to the well-browned exterior, but the true nature of the eggplant's contents were soon revealed. I guess I am a fan of less-browned, moister shrimp fillings, but . . . again . . . empty plate. The Chinese broccoli came and went; nicely steamed with some crunch but no excess fiber, and with oyster sauce on the side. Absolutely nothing fancy, just plain, fresh ingredients, freshly cooked and served immediately. Shrimp dumplings could have been used as the Wikipedia definition of the genre. The Chive and Meat dumplings turned out to be (perhaps by mistake) shrimp and chive filling in a very green wrap, made of glutinous rice flower. These were tough to eat, since they were too big for picking up in one fell swoop, yet too congealed and cooked to be easily separated with chopsticks. My solution was to deconstruct it; a pile of green outside on one side, and the filling on the other. Pick up a bit of each and eat together. Yum. Again, empty plate.

On it went, plate after plate, after bowl. Shrimp Dumplings in Soup was simple and delicious - - a light broth with six thin-skinned dumplings within. It's good that we were with a polite crowd, because no fights broke out over the distribution of the final two dumplings amongst the four of us. The bean curd wrap with filling was actually one of the most delicate of the dishes; very thin, semi-transparent layers of bean curd with a shrimp and pork filling, sitting in a light brown sauce. This was not all that hard to demolish, despite no help from Erica (vegetarian) and Andrea (told to avoid soy because of natural estrogens.) A highlight was the late ordering, and equally late delivery, of sesame balls. The slowness of the process was a result of the fact that these were made fresh for our table, with a total prep time of something like 15 minutes. I am not a big fan of these treats, or any other Chinese dessert, but I did decide to try 1/2 of a sesame ball (neatly cut in half by our waitress with scissors.) Very enjoyable, with a marzipan-like almond-flavored filling. The dessert was still warm . . . in fact, downright hot, and Erica came dangerously close to burning her mouth off while absorbing the heat of the first bite. But she survived intact.

The staff provided plenty of tea, and at least a glass of water per patron upon request. Drinking water with the meal is clearly not part of the Chinese lifestyle, and I'm told this is because it has a dilutive effect on digestive juices. I am happy to say that I personally consumed at least 1/2 pot of tea along with this meal, along with water, and had no problems, digestive or other.

It is notable that there were only six Caucasians in this restaurant at the time we were there; four of us and two at the next table. This restaurant is clearly a neighborhood favorite, and the neighborhood is predominately Asian. However, we were well cared for and tolerated even when asking the table next to us what noodle dish they had ordered, so we could be better prepared for the next visit. In fact there is a completely separate Noodle menu with about 16 items on it, and even if the seafood combo includes Jelly Fish among its fruits of the ocean, it looked absolutely fantastic on the next table.

The bottom line? The Mayflower scores for freshness. And neither of us suffered from long-term ill consequences, which can sometimes be the case when food is laden with hidden oil, salt and possibly sugar. The Mayflower cooks in a very clean manner, and even what appear to be the heaviest dishes do not suffer from greasiness. Bill for four: $43 including tip. Value for money - - GREAT! Highly recommended, especially for warming up to the six-week drama that lays before us. And at the end: no take-home boxes; just a stack of empty plates and full stomachs. A most fine prehearsal. Clearly we can't wait another six weeks for a return visit.