Dainty Cuisine, which opened in the clean, spacious Eat Up! food court next to a shiny 99 Ranch in late 2023, meets these hallmarks of quality, affordable Chinese food - with a few hard-to-find and signature items.
Dainty, whose Chinese name includes the character for "pearl" and is inspired by Cai's grandmother's, offers wheat-based northeastern Chinese cuisine, like beef pancake rolls and the Hot Pocket-esque pork rougamo.
Cai encourages them to add their specialties to the menu, like Cantonese dim sum. Every member of the opening staff used to own restaurants in China - even the dishwasher - so I knew I was in very good hands.
On a recent afternoon, Robert Hui, Dainty's operations manager who's owned Chinese restaurants in SF, guided my visit. His energy and keen palate kept the visit fast-paced and educational.
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