Chinatown’s 116-Year-Old Barbecue Noodle Roll Haven Still Reigns Supreme | Eater SF

"Following its January closure, a trio of chefs and restaurateurs conspired to reopen the 116-year-old Chinatown institution in September 2025, and on the corner of Clay and Kearny streets the restaurant that’s kept the city fed since 1908 feels much the same under new ownership. The barbecue pork noodle roll is the most-storied dish, still just $8 in 2025, with a side of spicy mustard that’s been written about many times; drag that eighth of soft, chewy rice roll into the ramekin of spicy mustard: that first bite of dipped pork feels like the heat of that sun rising from beneath and behind your eyeballs. The duck meat fried rice ($18) is a satisfying large bowl of scallion-topped rice, those stalwart peas and cubes of carrot mingling amongst the oily grains. Don’t miss the onion pancakes — I’m a fiend for cong you bing, but I have my standards — and here, the four triangles come unfussy and inexpensive, a sturdy vehicle for the table’s chile oil. After reopening, fellow neighborhood favorite Vital Tea Leaf provides a menu of teas, and the neon yellow chrysanthemum is a pot worth splitting with a friend. Its centenarian status helped define a genre of Chinese American restaurant, with dark woods, family portraits on the wall, and newspaper clippings across from the large window-front steamers and grills; shotgun-style, this place is more lowkey than lowkey." - Paolo Bicchieri