Dumpling Story 2114 Fillmore Street, San Francisco, CA 94115

"This review was about to get five, until I saw what I saw, right before we left the restaurant. But I’ll start from the beginning first. This small restaurant was bustling with customers waiting to get seated no matter the long wait, which is an indication that the food must be great. I liked the simplicity of this restaurant, which told me the owners care about delivering delicious food and not how fancy the restaurant looks. The staff were very friendly and attentive and worked expeditiously. The menu is simple and obviously focused on mainly various types of dumplings prepared either fried or steamed. We ordered the fried chicken dumplings and vegetable dumplings and they were delicious. The green beans are a must. We liked them so much that we ordered them three times. The noodles were also delicious and we ordered two servings of them as well. The hot and sour soup was okay (not too many ingredients). Our waitress Shobi was so pleasant and attentive. However after we finished eating I decided to use their restroom and I saw one of the waitresses came out of the restroom with her apron on and was drying of the disposable gloves that she was wearing while serving the food. I was disgusted as too why would she keep the disposable gloves on while using the bathroom? It defeats the purpose of wearing them. Very disappointed, as it made me wonder how many other employees do that both, those preparing the food and those serving it? Despite the great service and delicious food, unfortunately we won’t be returning to this restaurant. Cleanliness is number one on my list."

"Solid dumpling place if you’re looking to have a casual date night or a place to catch up with friends. It was pretty packed even though it was near closing time. Highly recommend the Dan Dan noodles and garlic green beans. The xiao long baos satiated my craving."

"We had Soybean Noodle Salad, Cucumber Salad, Pork X.L.Bao, Steamed Vegetarian Dumplings, Boiled Vegetarian Dumplings, Vegetable pan fried Bao, Green Onion Pancake and Ginger Green Onion Noodle. The green onion pancake was our favorite and we ordered another one. The steamed vegetarian dumplings looked really nice and tasted good as well. The Pork soup dumplings were pretty good especially with the house chili oil which deserves a shout out (I probably missed the spicy pork XL bao in the menu, would have enjoyed it more). The cucumber salad was light and refreshing. The pan fried vegetable bao had a nice slightly crispy texture. The soybean noodle salad and the ginger green onion noodles were kind of okay. But the boiled vegetarian dumplings were our least favorite, the covering was pretty thick and we couldn't taste the filling as much and they looked pretty bad as well, totally skipping those the next time. We had chrysanthemum tea which had actual chrysanthemum flowers and jasmine tea, both the teas were aromatic. I actually liked Dumpling Story better than Dumpling Home both food wise and atmosphere wise. Our server was very attentive and kind and it definitely improved our experience further."

"The food is great, we really liked the cucumber and garlic and the soup dumplings. They do not take reservations, once you arrive, you join a Yelp wait-list, and they text you once a table is ready (I believe you can probably join the wait-list online as well?)."

"Delicious food at a decent price! Ordered quite a lot for 3 people and managed to finish it all! I’ve had better dumplings, but these were still very much up there. Would recommend to anyone- also be prepared for a wait! The crispy fried bao are 10/10!"