Hong Kong’s famous night markets come to life in an unlikely place nearly 7,000 miles away: South San Francisco, “the industrial city.”
At the Night Market, a large, open space has a Hong Kong bus stop painted inside the entrance. At night, neon signs light up, replicating Hong Kong’s famous cityscape. Patrons sit at little blue, red and green plastic stools surrounding round folding tables, just as they would in Hong Kong.
The exterior of the Night Market in South San Francisco, Calif., on Nov. 10, 2022.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATECustomers choose from a variety of street snacks, skewers, dim sum, desserts, boba drinks, wok-tossed rice plates, congee and cart noodles.
“I am really in love with Chinese street food,” owner Kevin Lee said. “It’s a sensory overload every second from the moment one sets foot on a sidewalk full of open kitchen stalls.”
My bowl of comfort
(Left to right) Chef Yang and Chef Fung make a noodle wonton soup at the Night Market in South San Francisco, Calif., on Nov. 10, 2022.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATELee was born and raised in San Francisco, and his parents are originally from Hong Kong. They ran a hobby shop on the South City property when he was young. When Lee took over the reins in 2016, he opened Spruce Cafe & Patisserie, one of the first third-wave coffee shops in South San Francisco. He then opened the Night Market next door in 2017, closed it in 2018 for a remodel and then reopened it in 2020.
Called dai pai dong (“big license stall”) in Cantonese, the food stalls date back to Hong Kong’s post-World War II era. They were a reliable stop for cheap eats among hungry patrons, students and night owls on a budget.
Still, the dai pai dong have been in decline in Hong Kong since the 1970s, as its government modernized. Places like the Night Market have become increasingly important in preserving a distinct part of Hong Kong’s culture.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Steamed dumplings at the Night Market. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)
Although I’m tempted by everything I find at the Night Market on a recent Thursday afternoon, especially as I spent many a drunken night myself at such stalls in Hong Kong, I’m here on a mission: to eat dumplings.
All of the dumplings at the Night Market were once made in-house. Today, with the kitchen short-staffed, a well-known restaurant in Millbrae (which Lee is mum about) makes most of the market’s dumplings and delivers them fresh, to be cooked on-premises. The wontons and a sweet dumpling called tang yuan, however, are still made here.
Wontons have their own identity, separate from Northern China’s jiaozi dumpling. The Cantonese version is smaller, in a thinner square wrapper, and made with a base of ground pork with one-third to one-half of a shrimp.
At the Night Market, Lee’s head chef, who prefers to go by Chef Fung, has more than 40 years of restaurant experience. He can deftly make hundreds of wontons by hand in one session, and he does just that, folding ground pork and shrimp into a square wonton skin effortlessly.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Chef Fung makes fresh wontons. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)
His secret ingredient is a canister of brown powder. It’s ground flounder, made from dried fish bought whole in Chinatown and then ground in the kitchen. Another canister was full of white sesame seeds, also ground in-house. These are key to giving the wontons their distinct flavor.
Wonton noodles are an iconic street food in Hong Kong, simple and straightforward. Chef Fung, however, treated the creation of each bowl as if it were meant for royalty, tenderly turning thin, fresh egg noodles boiling in chicken and beef bone broth with a pair of tongs every so often to get an even cook. He boiled the wontons simultaneously.
When they were finished, he handed me a bowl topped with Chinese yellow chives. While the wontons were the size of a small jawbreaker candy when raw, they nearly doubled in size after being boiled, taking on a slight oblong shape.
A wonton noodle soup at the Night Market in South San Francisco, Calif., on Nov. 10, 2022.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEThe thin wonton skin had puckered around the ball of ground pork and shrimp, with the excess dough gracefully ribboning behind it while floating in the broth. I went straight for the wonton, taking a big bite to savor the interplay of land and sea with the rich, toothsome pieces of ground pork and the tender crunch of juicy shrimp. And what a moment to finally connect the ground flounder to that je ne sais quoi taste I had been sensing in wontons for years, knowing that the unadorned street food indeed had many dimensions to it.
The trailing wonton skin was silky, almost dissolving instantly in my mouth, and I alternated it with bites of perfectly al dente egg noodles. I deeply inhaled the fragrance of the fortifying broth. This was a great representation of my bowl of comfort — a dish I’ve sought out in almost every place I’ve lived, from Honolulu to Sydney. I guess I can now add South San Francisco to that list.
A place of love and nostalgia
The black sesame rice balls in a ginger sesame sauce at the Night Market in South San Francisco, Calif., on Nov. 10, 2022.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEThe Night Market also makes a sweet dumpling called tang yuan — “round balls in soup.” These small, soft spheres of glutinous rice flour (basically mochi) are filled with a lightly sweetened paste, usually made from black sesame seeds, lotus seeds, red beans or peanuts. The Night Market focuses on making the version with black sesame paste, or jee ma wu.
Another kitchen staffer, who went by Chef Yang, is in charge of operations and the noodle station. Being a jack-of-all-trades, she also showed me how to make the tang yuan. From a rectangular block of sweet rice flour dough, she cut long strips and then cut each strip again into nuggets. She rolled out a dough nugget with her hand against the counter and then picked up a ball of black sesame paste she had preformed and chilled in order to withstand being stuffed into the rice flour dough and later boiled.
Chef Yang makes black sesame rice balls at the Night Market in South San Francisco, Calif., on Nov. 10, 2022.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEChef Yang then brought over the raw tang yuan to her station and boiled them in a brown sugar-ginger broth until tender. There was a slight graininess to the filling that was satisfying to grind in between my teeth, an especially nice contrast to the smooth, pillowy rice dough. The slightly spicy broth added a seasonal winter touch with its “yang” warming properties. (Pro tip: Pour any leftover brown sugar-ginger broth into your coffee!)
Happily full of familiar comforts, the Night Market truly captures Lee’s vision of a bustling Hong Kong food destination, from the Hong Kong-sourced furniture down to the delicious skewers of seafood snacks.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Clockwise from top left, two customers look at the menu board before ordering at the Night Market in South San Francisco, Calif., on Nov. 10, 2022; one of the food stands at the Night Market; a worker checks out the steamed dumplings at the Night Market; (left to right) owner Kevin Lee, Chef Fung Chef Wong, Chef Shui and Chef Yang at the Night Market. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)
It all comes from a place of love and nostalgia.
“I miss my fam,” Lee said. “I miss my time spent there. I miss that close yet distant connection to Hong Kong.”
He loves the concept of night markets so much, he wants to create a night market cookbook. First, however, the Night Market is expected to open a superette full of Chinese and Asian snacks sometime in December. Aside from the wontons and tang yuan, there are probably at least 1,000 combinations of dishes for customers to try, including a constant influx of specials.
An assortment of the dishes available at the Night Market in South San Francisco, Calif., on Nov. 10, 2022.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEYou’ll just have to visit time and again to sample them all, though not necessarily stumbling drunk like I used to do in Hong Kong back in the day.
The Night Market, 230B South Spruce Ave., South San Francisco. Open Wednesday through Monday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Closed Tuesday.
