One of my favorite finds in San Fran? Big rooms full of saltwater taffy. So many flavors to choose from, like chocolate chip cookie, banana, mango, huckleberry, or even hot chocolate with mint and cayenne. This place in North Beach smelled amazing from the fresh caramel corn and, lucky us, everyone who buys taffy gets a little bag of caramel corn for free! Taffy and caramel corn, 2 tasty treats. What’s your flavor?

Last Saturday we landed in San Francisco just on time to feel super hungry for lunch. We headed into Chinatown, with absolutely no knowledge of where to go, but decided an definite must was Dim Sum. So, how to choose a good place in Chinatown? Oh, of course, look for the ducks in the window:

I honestly can’t tell you where we were— a small place, I think on Washington Street, in San Francisco. But they had Dim Sum, and that’s what we were there for. Servers crowded our table with trays and trays of different dumplings, buns, and cakes. We had hot tea to go around and an array of intensely spicy sauces.

Including what’s here on this lazy susan (greatest big table invention), we had pork potstickers, shrimp and chive dumplings, parsnip cakes (how I love them), crazy shrimp rolls, taro cakes, sesame balls, pork buns, and steamed sponge cake (it sounded weird, so we ordered it— and it was delicious).

My favorite thing was definitely the sesame balls:

Light and warm, filled with sweet and simple black sesame paste, these were absolutely delicious and a perfect end to a perfect first meal of our California vacation. Dim Sum is one of my favorite weekend outings— now to find a great dim sum place in Philadelphia!