4 fantastic Chinese and Taiwanese restaurants in the Bay Area, 2023

Happy Monday, Bay Area eaters. We continue to sift through our 50 Best Restaurants list for common — and delicious — themes. Last week, we covered destination-worthy Mexican and Middle Eastern restaurants. Today, we highlight three excellent Chinese (and one inventive Taiwanese) spots that deserve a place on your bucket list.

From wildly inventive dim sum to Taiwanese fried chicken, here are four spots to try in 2023.

Dumpling Hours, Walnut Creek and Brentwood

In a town where the fine-dining restaurants can sometimes blur, Walnut Creek’s Dumpling Hours provides an impeccably delicious, one-of-a-kind experience. Made-to-order dumplings – boiled, pan-fried or soup – are the stars at this in-the-know favorite, with dough so delicate and deftly pinched, you can see the spicy pork and black truffle through each elegant sachet.

Dumpling Hours doesn’t take reservations, but wait times are reasonable, because the staff runs a tight operation with a clipboard wait list that keeps things moving and service that is reliably swift. Salads, noodles and sides are executed with as much focus as the dim sum. In addition to altar-worthy xiao long bao, look for Mandarin dishes otherwise missing in downtown Walnut Creek, like crispy pig ears and cucumbers in a nose-clearing spicy sauce and snappy wood and silver ear mushrooms in house dressing.

Don’t miss: The hot and spicy pork xiao long bao, of course, but also the ginger and scallion noodles, shrimp and pork pot stickers, Brussels sprouts with truffle and the bright-green vegetable dumplings decorated to look like fall leaves.

Details: 1389 N. Main St. in Walnut Creek, and at 2505 Sand Creek Road, #112, in Brentwood; dumplinghours.com

Koi Palace, Daly City

This Cantonese seafood specialist needs no introduction. Since opening its 400-seat Daly City flagship in 1996, Koi Palace has become the Cantonese dining and dim sum experience by which other Bay Area spots are judged. With arched Moon Gate entryways, attentive, buttoned-up servers and massive fish tanks brimming with crab and lobster, these large, banquet-style restaurants (there are now four in the East and South bays) offer tea service, dim sum and a wide selection of noodles, rice dishes, soups, barbecue, congee and, of course, whole seafood preparations.

Start with steamed dumplings, such as the savory pork, shrimp and mushroom shumai dotted with candylike orange roe, which arrive in yellow-rimmed bamboo steamer baskets. The Rainbow Sampler is like a Crayola box of Shanghai-style dumplings, with dough that gets its colors from paprika, turmeric, squid ink and spinach or kale. Treat yourself to whole crab or lobster (serves two) poached in ginger, soy sauce and scallions over crispy, stir-fried noodles. Barbecue pork buns and crispy-skinned Peking duck are also legendary here. Tea lovers: Go for the Tasters Select.

Don’t miss: Dumpling aficionados should try the Shanghai-style dumplings and pork, shrimp and mushroom shumai. And the whole crab or lobster is a must.

Details: 365 Gellert Blvd., Daly City; Also in Milpitas, Redwood City and Dublin. koipalace.com

Wojia Hunan Cuisine, Albany