So much Chinese food often gets bogged down in grease, cornstarch and cheapo ingredients.

So much so that when you taste a once-mundane dish elevated with primo produce, it can be a revelation.

Such was the case when a friend and I encountered Chef Charles Phan’s distinctive take on the usual run-of-the-mill “Ants Climbing Tree” dish ($11) at his hip Heaven’s Dog restaurant in San Francisco, steps from the Holiday Inn Civic Center.

As a Chinese-American who grew up in San Francisco, I’ve long eaten this homey dish of ground meat (the so-called “ants”) cooked with garlic, soy sauce and ginger, then ladled over slippery cellophane noodles (the “tree”). My Mom would cook it or buy it to-go from an Asian deli. It was a fine dish — just nothing I necessarily ever craved or went out of my way for.

That is, until I tried the one at Heaven’s Dog, which was a most pleasant surprise. This meatless rendition was loaded with fresh black trumpet mushrooms and plenty of leeks. The crowning touch was the toasted pine nuts sprinkled all over the top, giving it unexpected crunch and richness. There was so much flavor and texture that I almost felt like I was tasting this warhorse of a dish for the very first time.

We couldn’t resist the Shanghai dumplings ($10), which burst appropriately with hot broth from the first careful bite.

Read more

Just six months old, Frances, the charming restaurant located on the quiet edge of the Castro district, has already grown into one of San Francisco’s most talked-about chef-driven establishments and one of the hardest reservations to land.

The 45-seat restaurant was opened by Chef Melissa Perello, late of San Francisco’s Fifth Floor restaurant, who named it for her beloved late-grandmother.

It’s never easy to open a new restaurant in an economy this challenging, especially when your budget isn’t anything to brag about. Nor is it easy to turn out the food you want in a cramped kitchen that’s less than 500 square feet.

Read more