There’s a new pop-up celebrating open-air Asian food courts, known as dai pai dongs, in San Francisco. Dai Pai Dai Lo is the project of Vincent Yu, a young chef working at the popular Four Kings in Chinatown. It is an ambitious pop-up that sees Yu combining
food memories of China with American influences. “I’ve been thinking of a term [for my pop-up] — it’s New Chinese American, where it’s Chinese American, but it’s not the old, 1800s chop suey,” Yu says. “It’s part Chinese food, but with American influence, Southern influence.”
What that translates to are dishes like the hot honey shrimp, Yu’s take on honey walnut shrimp — a mini tower of crisp tiger shrimp tossed in habanero Kewpie mayo with fresh and pickled radishes and grated horseradish. Hong Kong Cafe is the dish name for Dai Pai Dai Lo’s version of Hong Kong French toast, but here it’s updated with the Southern influence of a peach compote and cobbler crumble, channeling peach cobbler (but topped off with Hong Kong milk tea ice cream).
Other influences creep in, too; although Yu acknowledges that dai pai dongs are commonly associated with Hong Kong, he’s defining it as “a universal street food term” harkening to open-air food stalls in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, or Malaysia. “Any of the Asian countries usually do have open-air [dining],” he says. So while he does have Hong Kong dishes on the menu, certain twists make sense from Yu’s own youth; for instance, his godfather is Malaysian, and one nod to the cuisine is the roti on the menu, paired with Hong Kong curry, at his most recent pop-up on Monday, June 1. Inspired by the Four Kings’s complimentary smashed cucumber dish, Yu offers a two-day fermented Napa cabbage bite, made with a ginger pickling liquid and sesame oil. “It’s not kimchi,” Yu explains. “It’s Napa cabbage with Chinese flavors. It’s super light and refreshing.”
Other Dai Pai Dai Lo dishes see Yu pushing traditional Asian foods into new territory. Kampot beef and potatoes pair medium-rare hanger steak with Kampot peppers and Heston Blumenthal-style, double-cooked Yukon Gold potatoes, and pickled peppercorns; the original, however, incorporates velveted beef with big chunks of potatoes and peppers, with Maggi seasoning. Tangyuan, the Chinese dessert with black sesame balls in a ginger soup, inspires Yu’s tofu sorbet dessert. It’s a melange of flavors and textures, where the tofu sorbet combines with the gelatinous texture of white almond agar and snow fungus, chrysanthemum syrup-cooked longan fruit, a zing of lemon zest, and crunchy hazelnuts.
It’s an aspirational menu, to be sure, but at 24, Yu doesn’t have ambitions to open his own restaurant — yet. Instead, he’s taking time to shape and develop his dishes, menu, and brand for the future. But looking forward also requires looking back; Yu was raised in China until the age of four, when he immigrated to the U.S., growing up in Oakland. His food is informed by those formative years, and some of his earliest memories involve eating at an open-air wonton spot, sitting on the plastic stools synonymous with dai pai dongs and outdoor eating in Asia. In pursuing restaurant work, he’s done stints in the kitchen at Oakland seafood restaurant Marica, worked with the front of house at Empress by Boon, and bounced around in the kitchen at Mister Jiu’s before landing at his current position at Four Kings. With return visits and research trips to Asia, dai pai dongs have only solidified his vision for a restaurant that is accessible to everyone, even, say, a high schooler looking for a bite with friends. “It’s not too upscale, but it’s super accessible, and that’s what a dai pai dong is, where the food is accessible … any person can come in and eat and enjoy the food,” Yu says of his pop-up. “That’s what I find very important. I grew up a little bit on the poorer side, so I don’t want to push people away with the price point.”
Yu’s researched and developed his dishes under the mentorship of Four Kings chefs and owners Michael Long and Franky Ho. The Four Kings team has lent their support by allowing Dai Pai Dai Lo to take over the restaurant on off-days, and Long and Ho have also offered feedback and guidance on Yu’s dishes. As Four Kings co-owner Lucy Li explains it, mentorship is something Long and Ho love doing, supporting their staff not only as employers, but helping them achieve their dreams as well. “I think this is the next level of their dream beyond opening their restaurant,” Li says. “It is seeing the people that they call almost their family, their employees, thriving in this way. It makes them really happy.”
While Yu’s main focus remains on working at Four Kings, he has plans for more pop-ups in the future, collabs with other chef friends, and developing new dishes. What drew him to the hospitality industry is what keeps him going: pushing himself to learn more and maintain his passion for serving good food. “The key things I really want to do, as somebody that’s doing pop-ups or working in restaurants,” Yu says, “is to create a good experience, make sure people have full bellies, and make sure people have a really good time and find comfort in the food that I’m serving.”
To keep up with Dai Pai Dai Lo’s latest pop-up dates, follow them on Instagram, @daipaidailo.
