San Dong House BBQ

Any trivia buffs out there?

According to the Scoville scale of hotness, which pepper is the hottest?

What's the first animated movie to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar?

Besides Mexico, what's the only other country to have an "x" in its name?

It was the night of the big trivia contest fundraiser, and after a week of stuffing massive amounts of random information into our heads, my teammates and I (better known as Team Iron Chefs) were ready for the real deal. But first we had to fuel up. And there's no better brain food (at least in my opinion) than dumplings and hand-pulled noodles. So we headed to the Inner Richmond to try the recently-opened San Dong House BBQ.

We were disappointed they were out of the recommended oxtails, but quickly got over it when we tasted the meaty and flavorful beef tendon soup, served with soft, silky hand-pulled noodles. You can hear the actual "thwack" of the noodle dough being thrown and pulled throughout your meal as the "master" known as Shifu Chi does his magic at an open workstation in the back of the restaurant. (Note: the restaurant opens until 1am, but apparently Shifu goes home at 10:30, so if you're hankering for noodles, put in your order by 10pm).

I was also really impressed by the beef pancake appetizer, which was tasted like Peking duck (only with beef) rolled in a green onion pancake (only without the green onions) which sounds a little strange, but is really, really delicious. However, the boiled dumplings (we tried pork, and chicken & corn), and dan dan mein (spicy pork & bean sauce noodles) were just okay - we all agreed we'd had comparable if not better iterations at other restaurants in the Bay Area.

It was the beginning of a long, long night. But after 3+ hours, 100+ questions and battling it out with 27 other teams, we ended up winning a respectable 2nd place overall. We even got a trophy! And by the way - the Ghost chili has the highest heat units, making it the hottest pepper; Beauty & the Beast was the first animated movie nominated for Best Picture (Up was the 2nd); and the only other country besides Mexico with an "x" is Luxembourg. Just in case you were wondering. Go Iron Chefs!

SAMIWICH'S TASTE RATING