Harborview Restaurant

Harborview opened near the Embarcadero in San Francisco in 2018, and got a lot of attention quickly, as it is an extremely large establishment (20,000 sq ft over several floors), offers fairly upscale Cantonese cuisine, and was founded by the person behind famed R&G Lounge.  It seems to be doing well, as it is still open now, 6 years later, and some of those years were the rough pandemic lockdown ones.

"We proudly serve Cantonese Chinese Cuisine in a sophisticated yet unpretentious setting with a stunning view of San Francisco Bay."

They offer a variety of private event spaces, multiple styles of dining, a large bar area, an outside patio, a takeout only area, and catering.  Open every day but Monday for both lunch/brunch and dinner.  Like I said, it is a big operation.  I've considered it for large group dinners on several occasions, but the price point was always outside our allowed range.

Visit #1: Takeout Dessert

After eyeing Harborview for so long, my first visit was finally inspired by a new menu item: Baked Coffee Lava Buns with Crunchy Sugar Crust. These are basically a dessert version of their signature bbq pork buns, same crunchy sugar crust, just, different filling. I know people love the bbq pork buns, but I've shied away, only because I had the very famous ones from Tim Ho Wan in Singapore and ... I wasn't really into them (too sweet!). But taking a sweet bun the dessert route sounded good to me.

Packaging.

My order needed to be made to order, so it took 20 mins.  This was no problem, I went to Farmer's Market over at the Ferry Building (4 min walk away), my already planned next stop.  Got what I needed quickly, and was back in less than 20 minutes.  Perfect really.

I returned just in time for them to be finished, literally, can't get fresher than this.  They came packaged up in a standard take out box.

Baked Coffee Lava Buns with Crunchy Sugar Crust / 雪山咖啡包 (3 pcs) $8.

"Baked buns with a special coffee lava filling, topped with our signature crunchy sugar crust!"

My box itself even was piping hot, and I was overjoyed.  I walked right up to the 3rd floor rooftop patio above Embarcadero Center, found the space entirely empty, with plentiful seating, sunshine, and flowers.  I opened up my box, and was met with further joy.

Yes, these were indeed hot and fresh, and yes, they were so good.  The order size is normally 2, but for some reason, I got 3.  I am *not* complaining.  Great value for $8.

Baked Coffee Lava Bun: Sugar Coating!

The top of the buns sugar coated, and I expected it to be crispy, e.g. "signature crunchy sugar crust", more like a pineapple bun, or at least like the crispy top of the bbq bun I had from Tim Ho Wan, but it wasn't really.

Not quite what I thought it would be, but still quite good.  Plenty of sugar, but it was more like a freshly made sugar donut, rather than a crispy bun.

The bun itself was lovely - soft, sweet, fluffy.    Much lighter than those from Tim Ho Wan.

Overall, the bun delivered: warm, soft, and sweet.  It really reminded me of a freshly made very good donut, just a touch crispier, and obviously baked.  It would be good just as a sugar bun, to be honest.  But of course, this had a filling. 4/5 for the bun alone though.

Baked Coffee Lava Bun: Coffee Lava Filling.

The filling inside was "coffee lava" - basically, a coffee cream filling.  It didn't exactly come flowing out like lava, but, it was warm, slightly sweet, slightly bitter, creamy, and quite tasty.  The coffee flavor was certainly there, but not that strong.  Coffee lovers might be a bit disappointed, but I thought the coffee level was nice.

I think I'd prefer a regular custard cream filling (or, sesame or ube ...), or a thicker cream, but this was quite enjoyable, and I'd gladly have more.  4/5 overall.

Visit #2: Takeout leftovers

My next "visit" was entirely unintentional, when some co-workers visited in person for a team lunch, and brought back their extra food to share.  Of course, I was happy to try a few things, even though obviously not hot and fresh (I heated items up myself at home, later).

Chilled Jellyfish. $11.

The jellyfish is a chilled plate, and one that looked a bit like perhaps some kind of pickled or fermented vegetable.  But, nope, that's jellyfish!  I haven't had much jellyfish in my life, but I have such found memories of the last jellyfish I had at Mumu in Sydney, in a dish I totally adored.  Bring on the jellyfish!  Here it was in its simplicity, I believe marinated a bit?

It was very interesting, and not bad at all.  Nicely ... crunchy?  Juicy.  Refreshing.  Not fishy in any way, in fact, you could definitely easily convince someone this was not seafood.  I enjoyed it. 3.5/5.

Pan-Fried Turnip Cake. $7/3.

I only took a small hunk of one of these as I wasn't expecting to like it all that much.  

It really was quite good, super crispy outside, good size little chunks within, strong flavors, well seasoned.  Sooo much better than the version from Yank Sing. 3.5/5.

Vegetarian Bean Curd Rolls. $9/3.

I really enjoyed the bean curd rolls.  Granted, I adore yuba and had not had it in ages, so that was definitely the main appeal for me.  The wrapper was delicate, lightly creamy (I know that sounds strange, and yes, it is a soft sheet, but it tasted, well, fresh and creamy if that makes *any* sense), and tasted very fresh.  They were well rolled, the wrappers without punctures, and they didn't fall apart too easily.

Inside was a mixed chopped vegetable filling, I'm not entirely sure what everything was, but there were bits of mushroom and many other things, all chopped up very small.  Good mix of textures and flavors.  These are also available with a shrimp filling.

I enjoyed them with a little soy sauce and chili crunch on them, warm and fresh like this, and later, with some leftovers I grilled them on my panini press, which also worked really well - as much as I liked the soft, pliable, fresh yuba, the crispy version was pretty fun too.

I'd love to get these again.  4/5.