Vietnamese ROASTED WHOLE DUNGENESS CRAB, Garlic Noodles & BEST Vietnamese HOTPOT in San Francisco

Hello from St. Louis. This is so weird. So I always do a research to see if any new restaurants pop up. So apparently this is a place called Ricky's Restaurant and it says it's in this hotel called the Moonrise Hotel. So I go in there and I'm asking them, where's the Ricky's Restaurant? And they say to me, that doesn't exist here. Option number two. Option two, perfect taste, Sichuan food. So I'm literally looking at this, it says Ricky's Restaurant. It's people have eaten here. Granted, there's not a lot of reviews, but now I'm curious. Where's Ricky? Is this like a Harry Potter thing where the restaurant only appears on certain days or have to walk into a pillar or something? Anyway, I have not had Sichuan food in a long time. Before the food comes, a big thank you and shout out to Surfshark VPN for sponsoring this video and continuing to support this channel. I've been talking about Surfshark VPN for over two years now, I think, and this is still a product I use every single day. 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Oh, smells good. Let me show you what I got. Stewed potatoes and ribs. Oh, this thing is different. Wow. Usually something like this is really earthy. Usually it's soy sauce based. This thing smells spicy. Also, maozai. So this is basically a mini hot pot. Some fish fillet, some fatty beef, a little bit of veggies, tripe as well. Oh, some sprouts. And then finally, this is a pretty light dish. It's just fatty beef and some tofu skin. Mmm. Oh, those are some tender ribs. Look at this. Chopstick, cut right through. Mmm. Love, love, love, love, love. Mmm. Maozai is delicious. Broth is good. Ingredients are plenty. It's spicy. It's numbing. A little vinegar. It'll be perfect. Anyway, it's getting cold around here. Luckily, I am escaping to the warmth. Yeah, I did say warmth. I'm at the San Francisco Bay Area. Much warmer there compared to here. I'm just going for about a week, some meetings, and also haven't filmed in a long, long time. And I am definitely missing some of that Vietnamese crab. All right, going to eat up. Look for Ricky a little more. And see you in San Francisco. Hey, guys. It's Mike Chen here in the Richmond area of San Francisco. Another foggy, chilly morning, typical weather here. In this area, if you've never been, it's so diverse, tons of different types of food. And I remember when I used to live in the Bay Area, I don't think I've ever went on a full-on Vietnamese food tour. But there's so much amazing Vietnamese food here and also in the Bay Area. So I think that's what I'm going to do today. And we're going to start with this place right here. I've heard a lot about this place, Lily. It's always a problem when you want one of everything. There's a dish here called Second Place Football Noodle Soup, but I want First Place. This is a charming little Vietnamese place owned by a couple of Vietnamese sisters. And it is just packed, just open. And I have to wait in line to get in. Yeah, it's a pretty tea. Oh, that's strong. I like this. This place is so fancy. Duck confit egg rolls. Mmm. Super light skin. Duck is amazingly tender and there's so much meat. My memory of an egg roll is like working at my dad's restaurant. It would just be like this giant door stopper of an egg roll. And inside will be 90% cabbage and like a little sprinkle of meat. This thing, it's all meat. Also, the dipping sauce, kind of like an enhanced spicy honey mustard sauce. Yeah, if you've never had spicy mustard at one of these Americanized Chinese places, I mean, that thing will burn your nostrils. Definitely feel a little bit of that with the sauce. Lucy, you're one of the owners of this place, founders of this place. Lucy and her sister created this place. Everything's amazing, by the way. Thank you. This is the craziest bánh mì I've ever seen in my life. Look at this. This whole thing. This is the bánh mì. Look at this monstrosity of a bánh mì with this beautiful bowl of pho. Some fish cake in here. Oh, what is this? Fatty beef in here as well. Oh, the soup looks amazing. She says to dip this in the broth. But I'm having trouble even handling it. Look at this. Stuffed with slices of beef, still red in the middle. Holy ginormous. Just gonna try a little bit of the broth first. Oh, wow. The broth is so good. Oh, that is so good. Now I wish I just got a bowl of pho. Something so exceptionally different about this broth. I'm taking this piece with that nice fatty piece of beef in here. Melted. Absolutely exceptional. And now I've dipped this giant beef sandwich in there. This bite. I didn't even get to the meat yet. I'm already gonna say this. Come here and get the sandwich. I think I got a little bit of the sauce on the bottom of the sandwich. And the bread. Oh, so tender. This beef is wow. First of all, perfect bread. Sauce is amazing. The ingredients are fresh. But that meat. All it does is just melts all over your tongue. Oh, this thing goes down so easy. Every single bite, I don't even know what I'm tasting anymore. You're tasting the meat. You're tasting the fresh vegetables. Sauce on the bottom. There's some crazy herbs in here too. End of the day, all I know is this is so happy right here. This and this. So happy. This is the fried fish noodle. So shrimp crackers on the top. Look at this. Dill. Little dry pieces of shrimp. Scallions. And fried fish on top. This thing looks so Christmassy. Bottom, you have rice noodles. And I think what you're supposed to do is just break up the shrimp crackers. Cucumbers, onions, sprouts. And this is the super pungent shrimp sauce. They say to kind of add this moderately. Definitely need more shrimp sauce. Oh, the fish is so lightly fried. Crispy outer layer. So tender in the middle. Noodles perfectly springy. And the dill is just such a wonderful addition to this whole thing. The texture is amazing. Flavor is awesome. It just tastes so fresh. This is definitely a great place. Cake with crema on top. So pretty. So good. Please do yourselves a favor and get into your meal with this. Wow. Oh, that chocolatey flavor is intense. Tastes like you're eating a chocolate cake that's soaked in chocolate. Look at that. Oh my goodness. Like a chocolate cake soaked in chocolate soup. Wow. It's hot down here. So it's like eating the most exquisitely light lava cake. Oh, this definitely made my day better. So good. Next place I'm at. I've been thinking about for so long. My favorite thing to eat in San Francisco. Vietnamese Dungeness Crab. My favorite place is BBQ Dungeness Island. Which, fortunately, doesn't open until way later in the day. But they also, I think the owners also opened this place. Golden Crab House. If you come to San Francisco and you want to eat Dungeness Crab. Go to a Vietnamese restaurant and get yourself something like a garlic roasted crab. Or a peppercorn crab. Salted egg yolk crab. Spicy chili crab. Curry crab. Steamed crab. My recommendation and my favorite. Peppercorn crab. But you can't just get one. Let's get two. I don't come here often. The peppercorn crab. Garlic with the salted egg yolk. Salted egg yolk. You think? Yes. Okay. People like that. Okay, let's do that. Two crab. Thank you. Crab one. Salted egg. Crab two. Peppercorn. First of all, this is the best part right here. Fried innards. This is 100% the best part of the crab. All the innards, the guts. Everything good about the crab is right here. And it's covered in salted egg yolk. Fried to absolute perfection. 100% best part of the crab. Of course, then you got the legs. This part, the joints. In my opinion, right here. Better meat than what you'll find in the actual legs. Again, covered in beautiful crispy salted egg batter. Look at how juicy and luminous the crab meat is. So easy to eat. Just crunch your way through. When it comes to the legs, though, what I like to do, do not waste the outside crispy layer. Finally, when you get into the legs itself, delicious sweet morsels of crab meat. This is the taste of San Francisco. If you want to be really Asian about this, you don't even need to crack it. Just bite the outside. And just suck the meat out, along with whatever awesome flavors on the outside of this crab. Same thing with the peppercorn crab. Right there, look at that. Inside that crispy shell, that yellow stuff, this is the essence of the crab. Look at this. Covered in pepper and salt. Oh, that's good. And when you want a little extra flavor, this is what you do. Go to the bottom of the plate, where a lot of the scallions and garlic and pepper have fallen through the cracks. Add it to that delicate crab meat. And take a bite of that. Same thing on the salted egg side. I mean, I love the classic garlic, salt, and pepper. But you gotta try the salted egg. Wow. And of course, you cannot experience the Dungeness Crab without an order of garlic noodles. You can slurp it as is, or add the crab meat on top. Add some of that garlic and peppers and jalapenos, and some of that salted egg yolk. And slurp up one of the most explosive bites of garlic noodles you will ever have in your life. Oh, it's so good. Dungeness Crab in San Francisco for me has like, I guess a special memory. My first time in San Francisco, after I grew up and went off to work, I was working at a non-profit. So I didn't really have a salary for about 12 years. I was working, filming weddings on the side to make money. I was making about $1,200 a month, maximum $2,000 a month. And I just met somebody who got me involved in comic books. I was trying to pitch him to editors for Marvel and DC Comics. And there was a comic book convention here in San Francisco. So I spent money, flew here. And I was reading about what I should eat in San Francisco. And everyone was like, you gotta have a Dungeness. You gotta go to Fisherman's Wharf. You gotta have a Dungeness Crab. So I went to Fisherman's Wharf. And at the time, I think one Dungeness Crab was about $40. And I wanted one so, so bad. It looked so good. But I couldn't really afford it. So the first day, I just like walked around Fisherman's Wharf, like salivating, looking at all the crab. Second day, finally went back, decided to pull the trigger. Went inside a restaurant. Couldn't get a whole crab. I got half a crab. And I ate that crab with the utmost of delication and care. Scraping every single ounce of meat. Every single milligram of meat. Making sure I don't waste a single morsel. And I always thought, in the future, if I ever could afford it, I was gonna come back to San Francisco and get myself a whole crab. So whenever I'm back here and eating this, it just brings back a lot of memories. Also, that was the first time I ever rode a cable car and they let me hang off the edge. My life was more complete on that day. So San Francisco Bay Area is kind of big. Gonna drive from the Bay Area to the States. It's like an hour. Left the city on my way to get some Vietnamese hot pot. So along the way, need to refuel a little bit. Found this place called New England Lobster Market and Eatery. This place looks awesome. Homemade chips, lobster roll, guacamole, bits of bacon on top, and then a corn and a lobster bisque. Oh, for the lobster bisque, give you a whole brioche garlic bread. Also, this place is known for live lobsters. Just had two crabs, not really looking for a lobster right now, but I'll come back if I really want a lobster. I really just wanted some chowder or a bisque. This thing looks great. Oh, that's creamy and delicious. Giant chunks of lobster, crunchy corn, just like any other chowder or bisque. Gotta add some hot sauce. Makes it better. Oh, so much better. And for some reason, really, really, really wanted a lobster roll. Look at this thing. Beautifully toasted bread, avocado on top, bacon bits on top as well. Break this down with some fresh lemon. I just avocado covered my phone. Giant fresh chunks of lobster, a little bit of mayo, salt and pepper. The bread is buttery, it's crispy. One bite. You can 100% tell that's fresh. This is a delicious lobster roll. And also, I feel like this is really not a touristy location at all. Never had bacon bits on my lobster roll. I like it. Also, I think what lobster rolls for me is, I feel like I could eat infinite amount of these and never feel full. So perfect stopgap meal between Vietnamese crab and Vietnamese hot pot. At Half Moon Bay, taking a little break. Whoa. Did you go all the way in? There's a little crossing here. This is all water right here. This is all water. But luckily, Vessi shoes. Complete. Completely dry. This is not sponsored. I really like these shoes. You good? God hurt Vessi's too. Dinner time, hot pot. This time a Vietnamese hot pot. This is a place I loved when I used to live in the Bay Area. I've only been here once. It's called Lao Hai Son. Last time I came here, got the hot pot. Burned myself like crazy from an exploding fish ball. You would think getting horribly burned at a restaurant is just damping your enthusiasm for coming back. Nah. It's worth it. Worth the burn. There's certain places I really missed since leaving the Bay Area. This is definitely one of them. It didn't used to be this busy though. So busy. They added this whole outdoor section now. And it's just like full of people. Oh yeah, this is it. Look at this. Spicy Thai broth in the middle. Surrounding it, you got an array of seafood including scallops, clams, mussels. You got some mushrooms, shrimp. And right there, that's the fish ball that got me last time. Be very careful. It looks super innocent. It's all cute with stripes and stuff. Yeah, bit into it. Fish eggs splattered all over my face. Burned that cake out of me. Oh, that's so good. As good as I remembered it. I love this place. This might be my favorite Vietnamese hot pot place in the country. It's so good. I mean, it's so surprised this place is packed. It's so delicious. I'm a dumper, so I'm just like dumping everything in here. The flavor just seeps so deep into the ingredients. No different sauce needed at all. And that broth just gets better and better. The more ingredient goes in, the longer it cooks. Especially with some noodles. Such a perfect addition to this hot pot. I don't think it's this that burned me last time. I think it's this. Wow, it's salted egg in here. Be very careful with this too. Take a bite. Usually to scoop up a bunch of the Tom Yum broth. Fish cake is so good as well. Let me try one of these. Yeah, it was the yellow thing that burned me last time. I want to officially apologize to the cute looking fish ball. I've been looking for a little clam. They do fresh clams here. Dip it in some Tom Yum broth. Anything, as long as it touches the broth, it's automatically so good. Meat's a little tough though. Like I said, best Vietnamese hot pot. I feel like ending any food day with a hot pot. Especially when you can sit outside. Best conclusion ever. Fun day today. Went into the city. Satisfied my Dungeness crab addiction. Good Vietnamese food all day. Got to walk around Half Moon Bay. Watch the sunset and ended the amazing Vietnamese hot pot. Also, good thing about Vietnamese food, I feel like it's so light. I feel like I could hit the repeat button on today, like right now, and still feel fine. Think I'll head back and get another pint of ice cream. And as always, of course, all the places I went to listed down below for you guys. Thank you all so much for watching until we eat again. See you later.