The legend of Thanh Long’s garlic noodles and roasted crab preceded my arrival in the Bay Area by several decades. But soon enough, friends and acquaintances would mention a restaurant in the Sunset, the San Francisco neighborhood that seemed foggy and faraway even from my first apartment in the Lower Haight. The fact that it was out by the beach made it even more intriguing, a kind of Mists of Avalon situation.
Helene An, the inventor of Thanh Long’s famous noodle dish, is now hailed as a pioneer of Asian fusion dishes. Her adaptation of Vietnamese ingredients combined with Americans’ love of pasta inspired Bay Area chefs to imitate and attempt their own versions of the dish. Those in the know pay homage to the fact that An made them first.
After establishing Thanh Long in the 1970s, An, with the help of her five daughters, went on to launch a restaurant group. While Thanh Long is House of An’s anchor business in the Bay Area, the group also runs three restaurants in Southern California. And, with the recent reopening of Crustacean on Pine Street, An’s second San Francisco restaurant is a welcome addition to a downtown that’s still in recovery mode.
When I walked from the Embarcadero BART and MUNI station to Crustacean for an early dinner, I had a little time to kill before the reservation. I decided to stroll through the largely deserted Embarcadero Center. All the shops were closed for the night. Four baseball fans, pre- or post-game, wandered around in their colorful jerseys. And one man held a giant Chinese lion’s mask on his shoulder on his way to a parade.
But I found the boarded-up movie theater, with its neon lights dimmed, distressing and vaguely apocalyptic. I’d seen so many films there over the years. Now the memories of those evenings seemed similarly worn down and faded.
Stepping inside Crustacean’s antechamber, I felt an instant sense of relief. The interior is deluxe, transportive and, best of all, soothing. People were there to celebrate happy occasions together, not to party. If I felt oppressed by the chaos of an abandoned world around the corner, Crustacean reminded me that civilization still exists, in some form or other, around the dinner table. The interior design was led by Elizabeth An; the freestanding bar was designed by Ken Lew (JH2 is the architect of record). The décor reminded me of the 2021 Empress Boon revamp in nearby Chinatown. Everything shimmers, evoking moonlight rippling across the surface of a silvery emerald sea.
Monique An, the operations manager at House of An’s San Francisco restaurants, told me that the first iteration of Crustacean opened on Polk Street in 1991. That location closed this July, only days before the new space opened on Pine Street. When comparing Thanh Long to Crustacean, An said that the recipes, all created by her mother, are more elevated and whimsical. Served in a succulent lemongrass tomato jus, the wagyu beef dumplings definitely qualify as elevated.
Whimsy appears in a cigar box, as spring rolls and in a rather stunning new take on a caesar salad. Kenneth Lew, Monique’s husband and collaborator, brought a cigar box to our table. When he opened the lid, smoke drifted out to reveal “tuna cigars.” Perfectly formed cubes of poke tuna had been wrapped inside of an elegantly constructed, thin, crispy shell. One side, like the lit end of a cigar, was daubed with a ring of caviar.
On competitive cooking shows, aspiring chefs will often go to a great deal of trouble to smoke a dish, with minimal to no results. In this case, the kitchen has infused the tuna cigars with such a powerful dose of smoke that even the fussiest of TV judges would be able to detect its presence.
Caviar, that denotation of luxury, also crowns a quartet of langoustine spring rolls. Visually, the dark fish eggs looked like pretty baubles, miniature black pearls that dress up the face of something plain. When dipped in a sweet citrus chili sauce, the roll itself, delicate and flaky, was scrumptious enough to stand on its own without them. I could have eaten a second order.
The kohlrabi caesar salad photographs well and will easily attract attention in social media circles. The vegetable’s stem is peeled into vertical swirls that are then stacked side by side on the plate. Kohlrabi, generally, is crunchy but rather bland and in need of the furikake spices and salty flavor of Crustacean’s parmesan “snow.”
A crispy plate of branzino was less stunning to look at but utterly delicious. When a piece of fish is cooked to perfection, it tastes like a small miracle. The garlic lemon sauce, reflecting some of An’s French cooking influences, reminded me of the lemon pepper sauce at Pho 84, my favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Oakland. They make it to accompany their caramelized hoisin chicken.
Monique An said she wasn’t that familiar with Vietnamese restaurants in the East Bay. The milieus couldn’t be more different, but both of their sauces share a tart, welcome pungency that makes me want to show up for more.
Crustacean, lunch Tue to Thu 11:30am–2:30pm. Dinner starts daily at 5pm (closed on Mon). 195 Pine St., San Francisco. crustaceansfpine.com.
