Dabao Singapore
Singaporean restaurant · South of Market ·
Authentic Singaporean street food, including laksa
Authentic Singaporean street food, including laksa
"Working downtown doesn’t mean the solo dining experience has to look like a power salad or a blender full of Soylent hurriedly quaffed at your desk. Go to James Beard Award-nominated Emily Lim’s Dabao Singapore. Her Singaporean dishes caused a stir through the pandemic, a lifeline for those stuck abroad. She moved into the Metreon and is easily the most sought-after lunch in the mall. Grab a bowl of laksa, order the sauces for 50 cents a piece, and post up somewhere throughout Yerba Buena." - Paolo Bicchieri
"Emily Lim first earned attention for her Singaporean food through her pop-up, eventually becoming a semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation’s Emerging Chef award in 2024. Now she’s put down roots in a restaurant space at the Metreon, selling bowls of laksa and plates of Hainanese chicken rice, along with meal kits to bring home." - Paolo Bicchieri
"The Yerba Buena-adjacent lunch scene is a lot more exciting with Dabao Singapore. The Singaporean takeout counter inside the Metreon serves street food classics like solid Hainanese chicken rice, fried chicken cutlets, and seafood laksa. The noodle soup is one-note, but is heavily improved with a smear of the phenomenal house sambal on every bite. The best dish on the menu is the char kway teow—the sauteed noodles are smoky, and the hunks of lap cheong and shrimp scattered throughout add more salty-fatty depth. If it’s nice out, you can take your lunch to-go and enjoy it in the grassy gardens, but there are plenty of tables in the food court for immediate slurping. photo credit: Julia Chen" - Julia Chen
"Emily Lim’s pop-up has become a permanent restaurant at the Metreon; Lim is a James Beard Foundation Emerging Chef semifinalist. The kitchen serves much of the food that made the pop-up a favorite, with dishes such as laksa and curry puffs, Hainanese chicken rice, and more." - Justine Jones
"Opening a permanent restaurant at the Metreon food court on Mission Street, Dabao Singapore — the popular San Francisco pop-up led by chef Emily Kim, who made the James Beard semifinalist list for Emerging Chef this year — will take cues from the hawker centers and food courts she remembers from her childhood in Singapore; she announced the opening in an Instagram video and has launched a fundraising campaign to help the brick-and-mortar transition." - Justine Jones
