Chinatown and North Beach Noodle Fest

A very entertaining festival celebrating two of the most distinct neighborhoods in SF. It’s like comparing apples and oranges, Chinatown vs. North Beach. You get three samples of the noodle dishes and one drink of your choice from each neighborhood. Then, vote for your favorites and they announce the winners at the end.
Also, there are some great demonstrations on noodle-​making. I always knew that San Francisco had the country’s largest Chinatown but I didn’t know North Beach is one of the last authentic Little Italies. Lots more characters working the North Beach side. My favorite was a man singing Italian songs at the top of his lungs while he doled out samples from his restaurant. Towards the end, people were giving away extra tickets and free samples. I was stuffed! Arrive hungry and bring water. It’s a very unique festival that every San Franciscan should try at least once!

I found out about the Noodle Fest by accident. After checking out the How Weird Street Fest, my friends and I decided to head to Chinatown/​North Beach for ice cream. We stumbled upon booths serving food, people stuffing their faces and live music.
It was almost 4pm by the time we got there and I wasn’t hungry. Most of the restaurants on the Chinatown side I’ve eaten at before. It was typical Chinese food and none of the dishes really stood out. Also, the workers on the Chinatown side looked like high school volunteers and weren’t very engaging when walking up to the booths. In contrast, the North Beach side served up quite a variety of food. I remember seeing wild boar, gnocci and ravioli — the Italian wonton (that’s what the sign said). The booth workers were friendly and knew their food well.
This festival has potential and I hope it gets better next year. Additionally, it would be nice if I could use my tastings any way I wanted rather than 3 on each side.

3.5
A solid showing for a street food fest entirely produced and pulled off by two neighborhood organizations. It is very significant that these two communities have been able to come together for two years now to put on an event like this. Despite the instances of animosity between these two neighborhoods created by increasing gentrification of Chinatown and the slow take-​over of the often rowdy bar scene of North Beach, this event highlights one of the many cultural commonalities between Italians and Chinese — noodles and pasta — food brothers from another mother.
The concept is simple: for $ 20 taste 3 pasta-​based dishes north of Broadway in North Beach and 3 noodle-​based dishes south of Broadway in Chinatown, along with your choice of drink coffee or tea available in their respective neighborhoods.
I pre-​bought the tickets early as last year sold out fairly quickly. The weather was beautiful this afternoon which made walking around very enjoyable. Hubby and I shared our food choices. I completely recommend sharing your food ticket with another person to maximize tasting options. We started with the North Beach side as the A-​L check in table was located there. We chose:
Divine: penne pasta with wild boar and mushroom ragout
Excellent, delicious. :)
Ideale: (one of each) Homemade ravioli with beef ragout and another ravioli with fresh tomato sauce
Flavors were delicious but the ravioli was not thoroughly cooked (hard edges). :(
Stinking Rose: gnochetti with garlic gorgonzola and toasted pine nuts
One of our faves at the festival. :)
Vicoletto: tagliatelle with pork rib, parmesan, peroncino, truffle oil
Utterly disappointing. Small portion and served cold as if it had been sitting on the table. :(
Bocce Café: gnocci with creamy red sauce
Delicious. :)
Viva: penne rigati with salsa fresca-​tomato red onion, garlic, basil
Yummy but a bit too spicy for me. :(
On the Chinatown side:
Bund Shanghai Restaurant: shanghai noodle with scallion and pork
The guy was nice enough to give me a generous portion but it was too salty. :(
Four Seas Restaurant: Salted fish chow fun
Bland, couldn’t taste the salted fish, wide noodles were all broken. :(
New Hong Kong: braised noodles with spicy meat sauce
Too salty. :(
Noodle Bar and Grill: Garlic noodle with five spice chicken
Good flavor but the noodles with overcooked and the chicken was nowhere to be found. :(
Tommy Toy’s: zha jian mian
Tastiest of all on the Chinatown side. :)
We were so full that we didn’t eat our last option on the Chinatown side and went straight to the Washington Bakery booth for our cold milk tea (yummy but too much ice :().
Some other interesting highlights: each side has a live food demo and live bands. The folks staffing the North Beach side seemed to be people working in the restaurants and were able to talk to people about the food. The Chinatown side seemed to be staffed by young folks who seemed to be volunteers that didn’t engage the festival attendees.
I really enjoyed the North Beach side and felt that the food offerings, presentation, and interaction with the folks working the booths were much more interesting. The Chinatown side was a bit disappointing and not as creative as some of the additional offerings available at the North Beach side (some vendors offered two and three choices!). I expected to try some wet noodles on the Chinatown side such as wonton noodle soup from Hing Lung, dry-​fried noodles from Sun Hong Kong, or other more interesting noodle dishes such as Tan Tan Mien or noodles with peanut sauce (a la San Tung restaurant in the Inner Sunset). I feel like noodles are one of the yummiest things to eat for Chinese food and the offerings just didn’t showcase enough.
I hope for next year:
1. Offer more variety on the Chinatown side.
2. Staff more knowledgeable workers on the Chinatown side who can talk up the food and the restaurants.
3. Put out more seating areas for people to sit down, enjoy their food, mingle, and perhaps check off the restaurants they tried on the back of the food passport.
4. Offer more drink options and water stations throughout. Eating salty carbs the entire time with only coffee or tea doesn’t encourage people to want to eat more!
5. Engage attendees in other ways such as voting for a food fave on each side and create more interest in the photo opportunity that was at the Broadway/​Grant/​Columbus intersection. Staff the picture stand with several volunteers.
6. $ 20 is a bit steep for this food fest in its current state. If more vendors join in, encourage pre-​sales at $ 15 and $ 20 for day-​of sales.
7. List the vendors on the website to tantalize potential attendees.
Logistics tips: take Muni and walk! Show up with both hands free, wear comfy shoes and be ready to eat out of small paper containers standing up.
I know this event is going to be even better next year so I can’t wait to come back! Special props to Chinatown Community Development Center.

I can’t really say much about the food, but $ 20 for 6 tastings seem a bit overpriced for such small portions. The festival was from 3pm-​7pm. I arrived after 3pm, but before 4pm and they were SOLD OUT of tickets!!! The festival didn’t even last til 7pm because they ran out of noodles! How could you run out of noodles at a noodle festival???

Hugh disappointment. Paid $ 20 for 6 plates that are a little bigger than kids french fries. Most of the food was just OK, nothing really special. $ 20 in Chinatown can get a complete meal with drinks, and they bring it to you. We had 7 of us and that could had been a $ 140 meal amongst us.
The Chinatown side was mainly staffed by teenagers in their freshmen year. The North Beach side had people who most likely worked at the restaurants, but then you get their attitudes too.
What was amazing, they ran out of passes around 2pm.

Must agree with Angela L., the Chinatown side was very disappointing. basic chow mein and rather dry looking noodles everywhere. We arrived a little past 5pm and most the vendors were shutting down… not too cool for a festival that was suppose to last from 3pm — 7pm.
Our group was also still STUFFED from a rather heavy lunch. and seeing nothing worth killing our tummies for, we sold our tickets back. They were really nice about taking our tickets back and for that, I am grateful. $ 15 + online service fee returned =)

A nice little festival celebrating noodles! For $ 15 we received three tastings for Chinese noodles and three tastings for Italian noodles. The Chinatown side was a little lackluster. By the time we got there at 4pm (one hour after the start), lots of vendors were out of food and the food that was available was very basic. In contrast, the Italian side was offering some more sophisticated dishes; porcini mushroom ravioli, risotto, and rigatoni with sausage.
I believe it was the first year this festival happened, so definitely some room for improvement on the logistic side. Overall, a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Nice way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon in the border of Chinatown & North Beach. At first I really wasn’t expecting much of this brand new festival, because of prior experience at places like Gilroy’s Garlic Festival food tent (overcooked bland pasta). But it’s a charity event for the Chinatown CDC, so it’s for a worthwhile cause and not too expensive: $ 15 in advance, $ 20 on site.
According to the event description I thought that we get just 3 food samples, but in fact they give u 6 little paper trays of food = 3 Chinese noodles + 3 Italian noodles. That’s more food than u get from many street vendors. That’s plenty for me, but if u are really hungry I guess u can get 6 more samples for another $ 20 at the welcome table.
There were 30 vendors (restaurants) lined on the street. The North Beach vendors in blue tents and the Chinatown vendors in red tents. The organizers got a lot of students to volunteer as servers, everyone was very nice and helpful.
I had no plans to sample every booth, my stomach cannot hold that much food. In my opinion the Italian restaurants did a better job, good presentation so it looked more tempting, also many owners were there in person serving customers. On the other hand most of the Chinese noodles were similar to what u see everyday in food warmer trays around the city. Maybe I’m being too harsh since I’m more familiar with asian foods than anything else.
I recommend the Beijing tan tan mein from The Pot Sticker; cold noodles with a spicy Szechuan sauce from Z&Y Restaurant; the ravioli from Sotto Mare; the asparagus ravioli from Colosseo; and the penne pasta with wild boar & mushrooms from Café Divine.
I hope they continue to do it every year, and it gets better and better.