Our second full day in San Francisco was also a busy one but thankfully it began with the older boy completely recovered from the mild food poisoning he’d suffered the previous day. This had kept him out of our excellent dinner at Copra the previous night and had also meant he could not enjoy our dim sum lunch at Yank Sing—at the beginning of which is when the symptoms first hit him. And so he asked if we could eat some dumplings for lunch on this day as well. This worked well with our plans. We were due at the Rancho Gordo mothership in Napa in the afternoon but had been planning already to take the boys to Chinatown and City Lights in the morning. I cast around for well-reviewed purveyors of dumplings in the relative vicinity of City Lights and 606 was right there. It turned out to be a solid choice.

606 is named for its address: 606 Broadway, on the border of Chinatown and North Beach. It’s an important address in the history of Chinatown’s restaurant world, having previously been the location of New Sun Hong Kong Restaurant, which opened at that address in 1989. That hallowed restaurant closed—as did many others—at the height of the pandemic in 2020. But earlier this year the next generation of the family opened 606 at the same address. The interior has been significantly redone and it’s now a bright and modern space. The menu features a number of dishes from the Hong Kong/Cantonese comfort food repertoire. There’s an abbreviated dim sum menu and a lunch menu of rice plates that are both available from 11-3 and a larger all-day menu. We got there right after they opened and ordered from both the dim sum and the all-day menus.

What did we get? We started with an order each of their har gau, siu mai and steamed bbq pork bao. All were very good. To follow, an order of xiao long bao/soup dumplings. These are served seven to an order, presumably in order to sow discord among groups of any size. Finally, two larger plates: the pork chop noodle soup (which we got with hor fun rice noodles) was very good and the salted fish and chicken fried rice was excellent.

All in all, it was a very nice mid-morning meal and fortified us well for the long walk we did in the Muir Woods National Monument in Mill Valley on our way back from Napa.

For a look at the restaurant, the menu, and what we ate, launch the slideshow below. As a bonus I’ve also included some pictures I took on our walk through Chinatown of some striking street art. Scroll down to see how much the meal cost and to see what’s coming next, from San Francisco and the Twin Cities.

Service was a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, our server was present when needed and generally on top of things. On the other, he also clearly did not know very much about the food—we had a very confused exchange at the start when I tried to ascertain whether the bbq pork buns on the dim sum menu were steamed or baked. But this did not impinge on the meal in a major way. Price? At a little over $90 after tax and tip, this was reasonable enough for San Francisco. On the whole, I would recommend 606 if you’re in the area.

Alright, what’s next from San Francisco. Pizza. I might get that out this weekend. Next from the Twin Cities will be a writeup of a recent dinner at Alma. That’ll be next Tuesday.