Sunset Foodie Report: Spotlight on Taraval (Noodle Edition)
Ruki of Guilin Rice Noodles House
Our exploration of the many restaurants on Taraval Street continues, with a focus on the mouth-watering variety of noodle offerings available.
Many of the restaurants on Taraval were founded by first-generation immigrants to the United States, like the Lee family, from Seoul, South Korea. They followed relatives to the Sunset in 1996 and founded Shin Toe Bul Yi.
“They were seeking the American dream,” says their daughter Joanne.
Shin Toe Bul Yi
One of the most popular dishes is fried chicken, often accompanied by a cold beer. Other popular dishes at Shin Toe Bul Yi are Soft Tofu Soup and Korean Barbeque.
Guilin Rice Noodles House
At the corner of Taraval and 19th Street is light-filled Guilin Rice Noodles House, so popular with Sunset regulars that it features in Kathryn Ma’s new novel, The Chinese Groove.
Like Shin Toe Bul Yi, the restaurant was started by an immigrant, in this case a Guilin native, in 2019. The restaurant serves traditional dishes featuring silky soft Guilin rice noodles, including salted spare ribs, marinated beef tripe, black fungus salad, and pig ears with special sauce.
The house specialty, says server Ruki, is a combination dish of beef, beef tripe, crispy pork, and pig ears.
House of Pancakes
Just a few doors down, the popular House of Pancakes serves amazing three-foot-long wheat noodles (served with scissors!), made from enormous lengths of hand-pulled noodles. If you come when the noodles are being made, you can see into the kitchen and watch the process. Popular Chinese dishes include skewers, pancakes, dumplings, soup, and stir fry, all made with lamb.
King of Thai Noodle
A variety of noodles are offered at King of Thai Noodle, including flat rice noodles, vermicelli, and egg noodles. Popular dishes include combination beef noodle soup and noodle soups made with roasted duck or seafood. Pad See-Ew, made with stir-fried noodles, is also popular.
Kingdom of Dumpling
No food tour of Taraval would be complete without Kingdom of Dumpling, where there always seems to be two or three customers waiting in line for bags of frozen treats. If you like to see your food being made, you can stand on the sidewalk and watch through the window as deft dumpling makers work their magic. The extensive take-out-only menu includes pork pot stickers and wonton, pork and shrimp dumplings with napa, steamed buns, and black fungus and egg dumplings with mushrooms. All are offered frozen. And why not a Shanghai-style donut for dessert?
Reported and written by volunteer community journalist Tom Colin. We encourage retired journalists and student journalists in high school and college to volunteer as writers for Supervisor Engardio’s newsletter. Interested? Apply here. Do you know a story you would like to see featured in the newsletter? Tell us about it here.