2.28 PPQ Dungeness Island
Posted on August 15, 2008
Filed Under Extra Hard Core, Vietnamese | Leave a Comment
I first heard about this place from Matt, whose enthusiasm for good food seems to exceed mine. Hard core garlic fried live crabs? OKAY! Since the place is called Dungeness Island, I expected it to be all about crabs. Like, you know, Jurassic Park, but with crabs. Surprisingly, there’s a good amount of other standard Vietnamese dishes, like Pho and various rice plates. But hey, we’re here for their famous crabs, garlic noodles and imperial rolls, so here we go.
First up is the Imperial Roll, which are fried springs rolls. It’s certainly tasty even if it’s not something entirely different from other restaurants. Crispy skin, nice textures from the veggie and meat fillings within, and you can always wrap it in the lettuce and dunk it in the tangy dipping sauce.
Peppercorn chicken wings. These are very much like the deep fried salt and pepper wings that you can find elsewhere, but the peppercorn kicks things up a couple notches and the diced garlic that seems to be everywhere launched these wings into orbit. Excellent.
House garlic noodles. This bowl is two orders, which I thought was a little pricy at $6.75 an order — it’s noodles and butter and diced garlic! Oh well, it’s dangerously buttery and addictively delicious.
Okay, the main attraction. There are several crab specials to order here, we decided to go with the peppercorn (fried) crabs. An order is 2.7lb and it’s $30 something per order, a little pricy but since it’s fresh, live crabs, it’s well worth it. This thing has garlic all over it and has great flavor — you just can’t go wrong with fresh crabs.
Service was fine, nothing special to note, the place is clean and should be very good for a large party. I’m sorry to say that this restaurant seems to fall flat in the company of all the greatness in San Francisco. If I hadn’t just visited House of Prime Rib the night before and hit Spices 3 the next day, this place would have had me raving about it. In the company of all these awesome restaurant in the SF bay area, a great place like this seems a little mediocre.
PPQ Dungeness Island
2332 Clement St
(between 24th Ave & 25th Ave)
San Francisco, CA 94121
We’re heading to Spices 3 across the bay in Oakland next week. So stay tuned.
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