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…