Number 30: Custard Buns from City View

Jonathan Kauffman

City View's custard buns.

SFoodie's countdown of our favorite 50 things to eat and drink, 2012 edition ​Regulars at City View know that there is a reason to make it there before the rush: The dim sum restaurant bakes a limited number of custard buns every day and runs out of them long before service is over. After noon, in fact, your chances of spotting a plate of them are iffy. But there's an upside to the restaurant's stinginess: The buns almost always come out to the table warm.

Because of its location, on the edge of Chinatown in the shadow of the Transamerica Pyramid, City View attracts more non-Chinese diners than New Asia or Great Eastern, and its selection is poorer because of it. But compared to the fare from Chinatown's other dim sum restaurants, City View's dumplings have more delicate skins, its vegetables a more defined crispness. And the custard buns, which look like a rare species of amanita -- well, SFoodie has been marveling over them for more than a decade.

The cooks have to synchronize three separate processes to get the mandarin-sized buns right: They must bake that saffron-colored top crust until it's brittle while ensuring the dough underneath stays pale and fluffy and the custard in the center remains thick but uncurdled. So, when you bite into a just-baked bun, the crust shatters, the exterior gives way with no more resistance than a breath, and that warm, sweet, eggy custard gushes out.