Jason and I had scheduled a lunch meeting today.  Upon the recommendation of a chef-friend whose opinion I respect, I tried to book lunch at either Limon or Jardinière, but unfortunately neither one were open for lunch.  So, I took my colleague to one of my favorite restaurants in all of LACE w:st="on">San FranciscoLACE>.

No rulebook says, "Good food must be fancy."  Sometimes, the best meals are a simple home-cooked style that nourishes the body and soul.  If I am particularly lucky when traveling, I will find one of these local "soul food" spots to eat. 

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One Sunday morning about 10 years ago, I wandered around the streets of LACE w:st="on">San FranciscoLACE> searching for brunch.  Limited to a company-allocated food budget and the desire to linger in a restaurant, I found my way to a (then) small dim sum shop on the corner of Hawthorne and Folsom called Canton Dim Sum.  I meekly peeked into the windows to see a whole community of Chinese people laughing, talking, reading newspapers and ordering morsels of steamed goodness from the dim sum cart.  Naturally, I went in, sat with my book in one hand and my Chrisantamum tea in the other, and slowly nibbled away at some of the best dim sum I had ever eaten. 

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I'd gathered that this was a family run restaurant by the way the young Chinese waitress interacted with her father (the host) and her aunts (pushing the dim sum carts).  She – through her broken English – and I – with my extremely limited Chinese – developed a rapport. 

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Ever since then, I'd make sure to go back to Canton Dim Sum at least once with every visit I made to LACE w:st="on">San FranciscoLACE>. The family always recognizes me, greets me with a warm welcome, and serves delicious food.  The place has expanded quite a bit since my first visit 10 years ago (now, it takes up the whole street corner)  but their food is still good and their owners still friendly.

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So, after discovering that the two restaurants I looked to try were closed for lunch, my colleague and I made our way over to Canton Dim Sum. We began with garlic bok choy and seaweed salad.  Then we tried the sliced roasted pork and the stuffed mushrooms.  We dove into some steamed scallop dumplings and steamed shrimp with spinach dumplings; crisp shrimp spring rolls, fried sesame balls (with a thin crisp shell outside and a gooey sweet center rolled in sesame seeds); and our piece de resistance was the heavenly pork filled sticky rice that comes wrapped in a lotus leaf and steamed in Jasmine tea.

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>http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s171/LadyinRedDS/?action=view&current=IMG_1805.jpg

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Jason enjoyed it enough to take the remaining sesame ball and shrimp roll back to the hotel to eat before flying home tonight.  The entire meal cost $40 (with tip).

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