San Francisco: Tofu Village
My sister coming home for the weekend usually means trying out a new restaurant in SF when we take her back Sunday evening. We decided to give Tofu Village a try on one such trip:
The restaurant name turned out to be very misleading. A Szechuan restaurant, Tofu Village doesn't specialize in tofu at all. Apparently, when they bought the restaurant from the previous owner, the new management changed everything from the décor to the menu, but was unable to change the name itself. A pretty common tale when it comes to Chinese restaurants.
What isn't common is hot tea served in glasses:
A definite red flag in my book.
While tofu isn't the focus of Tofu Village, it still offers tofu options. We got the stone pot crab tofu ($10.50):
The peas were an unwelcome component, but easily avoided.
Instead of tofu, what Tofu Village is actually "known for" is its iron pots. You're supposed to get them spicy, but out of consideration for my father and me (we're wimps), we got the fish fillet iron pot ($13.95) non-spicy:
My family can never turn down eggplant, so we couldn't help but add in Hakka-style stewed eggplant in a clay pot ($10.95):
We probably could have stopped there, but my mother wanted the house special cold noodle ($6.95):
The cold noodles came in a Szechuan spicy oil sauce that was tongue-numbing as expected. A little too tongue-numbing for moi.
The red chili oil wontons ($6.95) were doused in the same sauce:
Tofu Village has quite an extensive menu. When we asked for suggestions, our server pointed out some of the "chef specials" that turned out to be the pricier items. After he walked away to let us discuss further, my parents expressed their skepticism regarding the Szechuan-style tea duck, one of our server's recommendations.
According to my parents, tea duck takes a long time to prepare and because it is rarely ordered, you never know how long the duck has been sitting around waiting to be claimed. Right as my parents said this, our server suddenly appeared next to our table to assure us that Tofu Village's tea duck is as fresh as can be.
Um. Okay.
The general consensus after our meal was that Tofu Village has alright food, but the portion sizes are on the small side for their price point. Would we go back? Probably not.
Sorry, tea duck. Looks like you'll be sitting around for a bit longer.
Tofu Village
1920 Irving St
San Francisco, CA 94122
(415) 661-8322
http://www.tofuvillagecr.com/
The restaurant name turned out to be very misleading. A Szechuan restaurant, Tofu Village doesn't specialize in tofu at all. Apparently, when they bought the restaurant from the previous owner, the new management changed everything from the décor to the menu, but was unable to change the name itself. A pretty common tale when it comes to Chinese restaurants.
What isn't common is hot tea served in glasses:
A definite red flag in my book.
While tofu isn't the focus of Tofu Village, it still offers tofu options. We got the stone pot crab tofu ($10.50):
The peas were an unwelcome component, but easily avoided.
Instead of tofu, what Tofu Village is actually "known for" is its iron pots. You're supposed to get them spicy, but out of consideration for my father and me (we're wimps), we got the fish fillet iron pot ($13.95) non-spicy:
My family can never turn down eggplant, so we couldn't help but add in Hakka-style stewed eggplant in a clay pot ($10.95):
We probably could have stopped there, but my mother wanted the house special cold noodle ($6.95):
The cold noodles came in a Szechuan spicy oil sauce that was tongue-numbing as expected. A little too tongue-numbing for moi.
The red chili oil wontons ($6.95) were doused in the same sauce:
Tofu Village has quite an extensive menu. When we asked for suggestions, our server pointed out some of the "chef specials" that turned out to be the pricier items. After he walked away to let us discuss further, my parents expressed their skepticism regarding the Szechuan-style tea duck, one of our server's recommendations.
According to my parents, tea duck takes a long time to prepare and because it is rarely ordered, you never know how long the duck has been sitting around waiting to be claimed. Right as my parents said this, our server suddenly appeared next to our table to assure us that Tofu Village's tea duck is as fresh as can be.
Um. Okay.
The general consensus after our meal was that Tofu Village has alright food, but the portion sizes are on the small side for their price point. Would we go back? Probably not.
Sorry, tea duck. Looks like you'll be sitting around for a bit longer.
Tofu Village
1920 Irving St
San Francisco, CA 94122
(415) 661-8322
http://www.tofuvillagecr.com/
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