The Boiling Shrimp

Like other Unilocalers, this is one of the few restaurants in Chinatown that my Dad and I could find that accepted credit and wasn’t cash only. It was fairly busy so we thought it would a safe bet.
We ordered Singapore Noodles, Chinese Broccoli with Garlic and Dumpling Soup. The noodles were decent. The vegetables were not fresh. And the dumpling soup was so bland and not tasty.
Prices are standard.
Establishment is semi-​clean.
Service is okay.

It’s a local’s, no frills type of place. So be warned, you may very well end up being the only non-​Chinese speaker in the dining room, which is a good sign they’re doing something right.
The Hubs, Wee One, and I had lunch at The Boiling Shrimp today. It was pretty good. We ordered pot stickers, wonton soup for the Wee One, the Hubs had spam fried rice (hey-don’t knock it until you try it!), and I ordered the marinated duck with taro root. The pot stickers were excellent, and rather large: We really enjoyed them. My kid loved her wonton soup, and the spam fried rice was so delicious.
Sadly, my dish was a bit of a horror. It definitely did not come out the way I had expected. It was a mountain of giant taro root chunks, smothered in brown gravy with three teeny-​tiny bits of duck that were mostly bone. But the whips of meat-​in-​name-​only were so salty that they burned when swallowed. There was no description on the menu so my expectation was simply different from reality. Unless you REALLY, REALY love taro root-​just steer clear of that item.
Our service was friendly, and everything else was lovely, so I would certainly return to The Boiling Shrimp, but I will be ordering something else.

Many Chinatown restaurants are cash only or Visa-​MasterCard while I wanted to use American Express so The Boiling Shrimp was part of a much narrowed selection. The restaurant was worked by 2 teenage waitresses and one cook.
Maybe because we ordered the shrimp in a coconut (see the receipt) the meal was long in coming. We were warned that dish would take 20 – 25 minutes but became more than 30 minutes.
We also ordered spring rolls, some seafood with taro, chicken & 3 mushrooms and hot tea. The hot tea came in soda pop size plastic «glasses», the largest portion of hot tea I’ve ever received at any restaurant. The spring rolls rated a «C» to «C+». The seafood with taro was mostly taro. If you’re unfamiliar with taro it’s Poi. These taro portions though were thick similar to thick french fries and about the same texture, but not deep fried. If you’re going to order it make sure you really like taro. Because the menu led me to think there was more seafood than what was served it rates a «C» for the overall good taste.
The chicken & mushrooms was good rating a «B». The seafood in a coconut was the winner rating a «B+». The meal was pretty good overall but next time I’ll do some restaurant research in advance of hunger.

The hours are unclear. Found on Unilocal that they were closed after I checked in and being seated.
It was a small restaurant and we were seated near the exit. We were waiting for our waitress to come but there was only one working when there were 7 tables to maintain plus ours. They were definitely understaffed since our waitress didn’t even get to us and waited for over 15 minutes until we finally left.

I would imagine that many people in San Francisco end up at Boiling Shrimp because Boiling Crab is too far away, and the wait is not worth the trek there. This is a mediocre alternative to the famous chain but satisfied my Cajun cravings nonetheless. First of all, it helps a LOT if you speak Chinese here. The waitress had trouble understanding any English, so I triple confirmed our order.
My friend and I ordered one pound each of the Seafood Combo and Shelled Shrimp. The Seafood Combo came in thick Cajun sauce that tasted like curry. I think it’s the same sauce that the shrimp is marinated in. It was very filling and fresh, but honestly I’m not a fan of that flavoring. My friend said the corn and rice was alright too.
Overall I was not blown away by this place and would not rave about this to my friends, but my curiosity about Boiling Shrimp has finally been satisfied!

Nothing taste like Cajun, and nothing taste like The Boiling Crab.
This place is locating inside of China town, it’s more of an Asian style than Cajun Style, but still, as a native Chinese myself, it taste so bad that me and my friend didn’t wanna touch this dish second town. We ended up finished our vegetable dishes and the Chicken dish.
A big disappointment in China Town.

We were a party of four who were doing San Francisco as tourists. We were looking for a place to have some Chinese. We found the prices reasonable and the floors clean. My friends ordered double mushroom shrimp and rice. I had the double mushroom chicken and the salt and pepper squid appetizer. Someone else ordered the pot stickers.
My calamari arrived. It was perfectly cooked. Crispy and not rubbery, just delightful. Everyone loved it. Then our mushroom dishes arrived and we were in heaven. Tender and tasty. My chicken was succulent and just perfect. We all enjoyed our meals.
The bill arrived and it was $ 44 for the four of us. Amazing food at great prices. We’ll be back.

We stopped here while in Chinatown in San Fran because it was off the main strip on a little side street. I figured we were in for a decent meal when we entered and the only other diners were Asian. Nothing was fancy at all just a little dining room that looked that it would seat perhaps 40 people if completely full. The menu was written in Chinese with some English translations. Our waiter (and I think owner by the way he acted) was very helpful. and was sure to let us know that coffee or tea was included in the price of the meal whatever it was. No flatware on the table, just some chopsticks. Love it.
She finally decided on Lemon shrimp with white sticky rice. This was deep fried shrimp with a lemon glaze over the shrimp. It was a decent dish. I decide to go with 2 styles of dumplings. The Shanghai dumplings (a mixture of pork and beef) and shrimp dumplings. Each little gossamer pouches of goodness.
This was nothing too fancy mind you, but a refreshing stop away from all the more «touristy» areas.

I was raving to a friend about The Boiling Crab and she told me that I should try out The Boiling Shrimp. A much closer restaurant that doesn’t require me to make the trek down to South Bay. After trying out the Boiling Shrimp, I have to say that I would still rather make my way down to South Bay for The Boiling Crab.
The Chinese food wasn’t bad. The scallop fried rice with egg whites was actually quite delicious. However, I was here to eat seafood slathered in delicious sauce. Instead I got seafood soaked in mediocre sauce. My friends and I ordered two pounds of crawfish– one pound with mild spicy for me and my other spicy-​averse friend and one pound super spicy for my two other friends who don’t have taste buds. Not only was my sauce relatively tasteless, but even my friend’s super spicy sauce was relatively tasteless. I could dip a crawfish in there and clean off the super spicy sauce without hurting my mouth. Looks like this super spicy sauce got exposed to a bit too much kryponite.
I’d definitely come back here for the Chinese food. But for Cajun seafood? Willing to drive 40+ minutes to San Jose.

Food was laced with MSG. Prices are ok, but I don’t like how the food tasted like it was seasoned after it was cooked. The chicken dinner was pathetic. Cajun fries are good, though, but again, laced with MSG. Oh, and the fried oyster app only came with two oysters.
And other Unilocalers are right. Really no difference between the «garlic sauce» wings (that came with 0 sauce) and the spicy wings. The garlic «sauce» wings just came dusted in garlic salt. Yech.
And their utensils are dirty.

Six of us for dinner on a Friday night around 6:15pm.
Ignore all the specials posted on the wall as they’re for lunch or before 5pm.
We went with various entrees so we could do family style dining. We weren’t in the mood to use our fingers for the boiled Cajun style shrimp though.
Portion sizes decent. Not overflowing. Just enough to lessen your hunger pains.
We ordered:
*fried chicken wings — hot and crispy
*garlic noodles — good
*eggplant in clay pot — tasty but eggplant cooked too mushy
*wine oxtail stew in clay pot — the oxtail was a little dry for my taste. Couldn’t taste if cooked in wine or not.
*peking spareribs– small thin cut boned in pork chops. I’m a sucker for this entrée in any Chinese restaurant. These we’re almost like finger food. But very good.
*tomato beef chow mein — only one in our party had this as he’s a selective eater. We didn’t want to eat his only dish.
The only complaint I had — sure we speak Chinglish but between the six of us, you’d think we could order with ease. But no, we had to switch continually between English and our broken Cantonese. And the order taker was still uncertain. Finally we had to point to the menu items on the menu. The only exception — he seemed to understand our friend wanted tomato beef chow mein Hong Kong style.
$ 20 per couple. Definitely a bargain bite.

This place was small and maybe not the cleanest restaurant ever but it was actually really really good. We ordered 1 lb of the seafood mix with shells and 1 lb of the seafood mix without shells, some garlic fried rice, and some seafood chow mien.
First off the rice is what we got first. it was literally the grossest thing I have ever eaten. It has a TON of garlic, so much that you you are literally crunching it as you are eating. There was also so much salt that you could feel the grittiness between our teeth. BUT we told the waitress we didn’t like it and she took it back and asked if we wanted anything else. we ordered the Chow Mien instead.
OH EM GEE that Chow Mien though… it was amazing. The seafood was cooked amazingly the noodles we cooked nicely and the taste was just sooo good.
The mixed seafood was really good too. I felt like the overall value was amazing. They were a little greasy and made me a little sick because of how oily they were but overall so so so good. My husband who is a seafood fiend really loved all of their seafood selections.
Will definitely go back the next time we are in the city.

errrrrrr, so i think the Unilocal reviews here are kind of a scam. :(
came here with my girlfriends at 8 pm on a wednesday and the place was pretty much empty (there was one table for 6 asian guys…). okay no worries. it’s new. so we proceeded to browse the menu… and ordered: two types of fried chicken wings (garlic and salt/​pepper), the garlic noodles, seafood without shells in medium spicy sauce, and chinese broccoli with oyster sauce. and here is what went wrong:
1. the wings tasted exactly the same. what?
2. garlic noodles had NO FLAVOR. hmmmmmm. im used to perilla noodles. literally had to douse noodles with the seafood sauce in order to eat them.
3. the veggies were literally just boiled. and then sauced. arranged not pretty on a platter.
4. only redeeming dish was the seafood. except it was also not that delicious. i would definitely pick swamp over this.
5. hugely disappointed.
6. not warm service :(
sighhhhhhhhhhhh.

This place is fairly new. Given that, there are still kinks in the service because it is so new.
I came on a Saturday night, so it was fairly busy. It took a while for the waiters to serve us, but there were only two of them and the place was packed.
We ordered a pound of shrimp with their house sauce, chicken wings, garlic noodles, vegetables, and a tofu dish. The prices were very fair and I’d say even cheap. The seafood is a little more expensive than normal Chinese food in Chinatown, but it’s seafood, so that’s a given.
The shrimp was good but the sauce was not completely soaked in. The garlic noodles were garlicky, but it wasn’t very flavorful. I added the sauce from the shrimp to the garlic noodles then it was perfect. The chicken wings were good. The vegetables and the tofu had very large portions and was tasty.
This place is clean, especially for Chinatown standards. I would come back again. The other noodles and dishes are extremely cheap!

My SF trip bucket list included Chinese food in China Town. Once I made my way to the area I had no idea how to choose just one of the seemingly endless options. I filtered Unilocal recommendations to the «new and hot» category (I think for the first time actually) and I’m so glad I did.
When I walked in there were a few other booths of people and some open tables in the middle area. The last booth towards the back had 2 men seating in it, one was an older man who had nodded off. When I walked in, the waitress shooed them away and told me to sit there. I felt bad that they had to move but I was glad I had a seat…
A small pot of tea was immediately set on my table and a tiny cup was poured. I had been walking quite a bit that day and was a bit hot for a cup of tea when I first sat down. Before I could even ask for a cup of ice water, the waitress asked if I wanted one. My quick glance at the reviews before I walked in had me already leaning toward the garlic noodles but after taking a look at the menu I went with the seafood chow mein.
The serving size was very large. Two people could comfortably split the dish. There was some nice big scallops, shrimp, and chunks of squid. The squid especially was really nicely cooked, not chewy at all. The noodles were gooey and sticky and fantastic.
The restaurant was very clean (the bathroom, not so much) and the two women who helped me were wonderful. I also got 20% off my meal for eating there before 2:00 — 4:30, which was a nice bonus. Before tax my meal was a little over $ 6, a great deal for the amount of food!

So this is the place owned by the folks who run Red Crawfish which serves up ragin’ Cajun-​style crawdaddies in the middle of Little Saigon. So they’ve globalized, sorta speak, by moving into the relative calm of Waverly Place in Chinatown. Like their original location, the new spot offers seafood by the bag ($ 9.95 per pound) and a lot of crab — Dungeness, green onion, salt & pepper, spicy. Jamie W. was out of town, so I walked over by my lonesome after work to see the what-​what. It’s a decent-​size restaurant with three big booths toward the left, all of them occupied by people who were indulging in their N’awlins-style seafood specialties (photo:
). I sat at a table to the right near a young hipster-​wannabe couple (wardrobe by Target) who acted like they never had Chinese food before.
I only bring that up because said couple ate a couple of the pot stickers (whole, mind you), called the manager over, and insisted that the food was inedible. The manager was as nice as could be and asked specifically what the couple found so distasteful. Entitled, pouty-​ass girlfriend chimed in with her helpful response, «Everything!». Takes all kinds, and mental illness can be so hard to diagnose, I know. Well, speaking for myself, I had a fine meal there even though as usual, I probably ate too much. I started with the $ 3.95 Salt & Pepper Squids, which was absurdly bargain-​priced for the amount of fried squid in that basket (photo:
). It looked like it escaped from a family meal basket from Long John Silver’s. Of course, it was tasty with a lot of scallions and not overly oily.
The reality was that the basket felt bottomless because no matter how many I ate, they appeared to be multiplying in there. For my entrée, I went for a simple rice plate, the $ 4.95 Garlic Eggplant with Shrimp, which again was a huge portion of quartered eggplant and jumbo shrimp in a black bean sauce with a scoopful of rice on the side (photo:
). I liked it, especially the tight consistency of the eggplant, which exceeded my expectations of a lunchtime rice plate for dinner. The only Cajun part of my meal was the Corn on the Cob, just fifty cents each since they’re really cobettes, so I had a pair which were sitting in a pool of melted garlic butter (photo:
). I was belly-​patting full and wondering if that couple ended up going home to a meal of oatmeal and ovaltine.
FOOD — 4 stars… Chinese seafood is plentiful and tasty, no complaints from me
AMBIANCE — 3 stars… Pretty standard size and clean
SERVICE — 4 stars… manager handled a difficult situation well… I meant the young couple, not me!
TOTAL — 4 stars… Red Crawfish Part 2, the Chinatown version

Saw this place when we were cutting across Waverly in Chinatown on a dim sum quest, made a mental note to give them a try. We did try last week, on Chinese New Year and they were closed! (#sadface stupid americanos) So we made the trek from FiDi today to give them a try. Salt and Pepper Squid on the menu, I am so there!
So, we ordered S&P Squid and it tasted delicious, just enough salt and not enough jalapeño (to suit me). It was delicious, really. My only complaint was it was very greasy. I was not expecting that, was hoping it would be more tempura-​like dredged in cornstarch and fried. So, on a return visit this would probably not be a reorder.
There were three of us so we ordered to share. One ordered the garlic noodles (YUM, garlicky and a huge plate of them). I ordered the spicy eggplant. It was also yummy, mild spice with a slight kick building. Delicious. Our third compatriot ordered the seafood combo (without shells) in the house sauce. That was also delicious, medium spice was on the mild side. Chock full with shrimp, scallops, calamari, oysters and white fish. We shared and came back with leftovers for lunch tomorrow.
For all the food we ate I thought is was incredibly reasonable. We also brought back a to-​go order for a coworker of the lemon chicken which she says is delicious.
The place was empty when we got there, it is quiet. Only a few more patrons joined in during our meal. It is sort of off the beaten tourist track which might have something to do with it. Service was friendly enough, would have been considered slowish if the place had more patrons. Even so, no complaints about waiting or the efficiency.
I’m sure we will be back to give more items a try.

This spot is clean and no wait (and no fuss). It is new and feels brand new. Service is a little slow. Food is okay.
The shelled seafood bag seems like a good deal. The house sauce medium has a nice taste to it. My disappointment comes from no crawfish actually coming with my order and also that most of the mussels didn’t open up (so either not cooked long enough or not fresh enough).
The garlic eggplant with chicken and rice is tasty and incredibly cheap.
Overall I think this place is a nice addition to Chinatown with its Louisiana style boil. It clearly has some kinks to work out but I’d give it another shot since it is so cheap.

Tucked away in a small alley and a bit quiet, but don’t let that deter you from trying this place out. They serve Boiling Crab-​esque Cajun seafood, but also serve Americanized & authentic Chinese food.
The mapo tofu here is really good and the service is great. I’ll be back!

Really wish this place had turned out better, but keep in mind that it’s very new when we visited, so maybe it’ll be better in a few months.
I went with a big group of 14 people and the restaurant was empty during lunch hour. We ordered assorted skewers, boiling seafood pot with crayfish, garlic noodle and tan tan noodle.
Two complimentary cajun style fries were served, which was actually pretty nice. Then we waited for 20 minutes till the first order of skewers to turn up. It was fine but a bit sweet for my taste, and I absolutely can’t imagine why it took 20 minutes to make.
Every other dish followed with a 5– 10 minutes interval. The garlic noodle was delicious, but the tan tan noodle wasn’t spicy at all. To our disappointment, the boiling seafood pot didn’t have any crayfish in it. At that point we just wanted to pay and rush back to work, so none of us bother to question why.
This place needs some serious improvement, mostly the slow service. I think the flavour is more appealing to Cantonese people (sweet, non spicy) but doesn’t work for a northern Chinese like me.