The fried squab at Four Kings in San Francisco Chinatown on July 29, 2024. The dish, which takes a week to prepare and is only available in limited quantities, is one of the restaurant's biggest draws. (Juliana Yamada for KQED)
I
’ve never actually been to Hong Kong. How fortunate, then, that a multiverse portal to a 1990s Cantopop-themed iteration of the island city has ripped through the Bay Area’s space-time continuum.
On a hilly, jam-packed street in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Four Kings beckons. Led by chefs Franky Ho and Mike Long and their partners Lucy Li and Millie Boonkokua, the five-month-old restaurant is where the past, present and future of San Franciscan Cantonese food abounds.
Nightly, not one but two queues of curious locals overflow down opposite ends of the tiny block. Once seated inside, you’ll quickly surrender to the temptations of the casually upscale hot spot’s culinary éclat and abundance.
This is where you go when you want to feast on HK favorites — saucy pork chop rice, succulent black pepper steak and fusion offerings like mapo spaghetti or XO escargot — while industrial kitchen appliances hum around you, longtime friends chatter nearby and the immortal Wong Ka Kui croons over the speakers. If you’re savvy, you’ll enjoy a glass of monkey-picked oolong tea, a boozy Chinese almond milk highball or a crisp Taiwanese lager brewed with discarded bread crusts while observing the bustling energy from an intimately tight spot at the counter.
The pork chop rice with tomato egg — Four Kings’ take on a classic Hong Kong cha chaan teng–style dish. (Juliana Yamada for KQED)
And just when you’ve finally begun to settle in and appreciate the restaurant’s funkier elements (unframed posters of Cantopop celebrities, golden maneki-neko playfully waving their paws, a kitschy array of knickknacks bathed in neon-lit perfection), a plate of fried squab arrives to recenter your attention.
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That squab is the headlining draw at Four Kings, and, like the rest of the menu here, it’s both an ode to and a deviation from traditional Cantonese fare. The malt-sugar-brushed bird comes with its claws and beak intact, and you’ll need to properly angle it with your hands to get a piece of thigh — the best part, I’m told.
Salted egg squash croquettes. (Juliana Yamada for KQED)
Having grown up in Chinatown after immigrating from China, Ho is serving heat in the neighborhood where he was raised by his grandmother and mother, who still regularly drops off homemade soup at the restaurant in the mornings. While working as a chef at Mister Jiu’s, he struck up a friendship with Long, who brings his Los Angeles flare and memories of living in Hong Kong to Four Kings, which the duo started as a pop-up last year. With Li running the business end and Boonkokua greeting guests as the hostess, the team of four has overtaken San Francisco’s dining scene like a monsoon.
Built on a shared sense of childhood nostalgia, migratory friendships and the comfort of home away from home, Four Kings has an anima — a deep soulfulness — that can only be unlocked after living abroad, after tasting a homeland. It’s hot mustard jellyfish salad and sweet red bean shaved ice for the soul.
Four Kings isn’t the traditional dining experience you might encounter in the historic center of Chinatown. Instead, it’s like being inside the culinary fever dream of first-generation Cantonese millennials — where plates of sensory-overloading goodness keep piling up in front of you, and where you’re lavished with attention as the royal guest of honor.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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A full house of customers. Since opening in the spring of 2024, Four Kings has been one of San Francisco’s buzziest restaurants. (Juliana Yamada for KQED)
Alan Chazaro: Cantopop music is a major element at Four Kings. How did you get into that genre and how does it fit with your concept? Also, any Cantopop recommendations?
Mike Long: Cantopop is huge for Cantonese kids. Our parents play it all the time on TVB — that’s the channel for Cantonese stuff. Beyond is my favorite group.
Lucy Li: Our name, Four Kings, references the Four Heavenly Kings, which is a specific group of Cantopop stars from the ’90s. They’re not an actual group, but they were dubbed as the four. It’s like Britney or Christina, but this is for four men in Cantopop [Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau, Leon Lai and Aaron Kwok]. Out of those four, I like Jacky Cheung’s music the best.
When we used to all hang out before we worked together, we would always listen to a Chinese playlist, and then we just kept adding to it. So that’s what started it. We were like, oh, we should just play this at our future restaurant because we like it so much.
Millie Boonkokua:: We have a Cantopop playlist that we’re happy to share with customers if they ask about it at the restaurant.
How are you all feeling a few months into your successful opening? You entered this endeavor as friends and life partners, so I’m sure there have been plenty of highlights and struggles in running your first food business in San Francisco.
Mike: The struggle has always been there, and it’s probably going to keep going, but the reward has definitely been amazing. We spent a lot of time in our careers working for other people, and Franky and I transitioned from fine dining to where we’re at now. That has always been a goal of ours, to open a more low-key, casual, approachable spot. But the whole journey has been really good. It really helps to have this team right here: Lucy, Millie, Franky. Each one of us brings a different strength to this team. Without it, this isn’t doable. It’s a lot easier to do it together.
Lucy: It might look like we have a big team from the outside, but it’s really just the four of us. I’m doing press and accounting. I have no PR training. Millie is doing everything. She’s making drinks and serving. Mike and Franky are in the kitchen. Mike designed our menu. And we love our staff. They’re amazing, and we can’t do this without them.
Franky: Yes, I agree. [Group laughs].
Millie: I just want to say, as the person who does the hosting and works the front every day, I just feel overwhelmed with joy. I get to be the one who physically opens our door every night, and sometimes there are 40 people or more waiting outside. It really is just a feeling of joy.
KQED Arts Reporter Alan Chazaro eats the hot mustard jellyfish salad. (Juliana Yamada for KQED)
When I visited, I could definitely feel that vibe of deep friendship and teamwork. You all seem to be doing multiple things at once.
Mike: The big ethos of our restaurant is that no one person is doing just one specific task. We want our kitchen to kind of operate in a way where each person gets each other’s back and everyone’s able to flow into helping one another out. A lot of traditional restaurants have a disconnect between front and back of the house. But for us, in a way, we’re like, hey, they’re a little busy right now. We’re going to help run food. And that’s kind of also what we want to encourage, that engagement with our guests and being able to drop off some food, check in on everyone.
What did you all learn from running a pop-up together?
Franky: Our pop-up was extremely busy. There were long lines and we would run out of food. We were very short-staffed.
Lucy: It was just the four of us [laughs].
Mike: Yeah, and the dishwasher had to be downstairs. So with running up and down the stairs to do that on top of cooking and serving, it was pretty rough. We were a little…
Lucy: Very slammed. But the reception, seeing people line up, was a good indicator of like, okay, maybe we’re doing something right. And then seeing continued interest only further confirmed that. That energy we had during the pop-up never went away. It just kept increasing.
I love pop-ups. A lot can be learned and creatively developed at that stage.
Mike: With our pop-up, we had this idea of doing a Cantonese izakaya–style concept. But I think initially, it was a hard image for a lot of people to think about. But by doing our pop-up slowly, people began to recognize what we were trying to do. And it’s the same for ourselves, too, right? It allows us to start actually seeing what we had planned.
Up until now, even with the brick-and-mortar, we are still trying to realize that goal. It wasn’t until our opening night and seeing guests here that it really felt like we hit it. That’s when we felt like, okay, this is the spot where we want to be. A lot of energy and people just having a good time in a casual neighborhood spot. Sharing small-plate foods, enjoying everything. I think it’s through the pop-up phase that we were able to learn all that.
KQED Arts Reporter Alan Chazaro waits in line outside the Chinatown restaurant with Four Kings co-owner Lucy Li. (Juliana Yamada for KQED)
And you’re doing it all in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the neighborhood where Franky grew up. How does it feel being there and what’s your relationship with this community?
Franky: It’s been nice coming back and having a restaurant where [my family and I] first immigrated to [from Guangdong province of China]. We really like the neighborhood. We try to support a lot of the local producers and the produce people. We get a lot of our live seafood from Chinatown, and our noodles are all made in Chinatown. We weren’t specifically looking to be in Chinatown, but we just somehow ended up in the perfect space.
Mike: Our building used to be an old shrimp company. When our landlord took over the space years ago, his wife wanted to build a Kumon. The space downstairs became a restaurant prior to us taking over. I definitely feel very honored to be in Chinatown. Being in this space, you see more and more of the culture. Just walking from the parking lot [beneath Portsmouth Square] to the restaurant, you see all the grandmas and grandpas playing chess and cards in the park. It’s dope to see everyday.
Lucy: It’s a vibrant community.
Mike: Yeah. It gives you glimpses of the vibes of being in Hong Kong. Especially if you go down Stockton Street. When I think about Hong Kong, it’s walking down crowded streets. It’s hot, it’s humid. And then you have AC blasting from the storefronts, and they’re just selling random knickknacks. Sometimes when you walk down Chinatown in San Francisco, you hit those same feelings.
Mike: Lucy and I actually went [a year ago]. Politics isn’t necessarily what you see on the streets. It doesn’t really affect tourism, doesn’t affect visitors. But you do see it in the families. like for me and my relatives. There’s a divide between people who are pro-China and people who are in support of the youth movements for liberation and democracy. So you definitely see the tension within families, but not necessarily out in the streets.
Do you all have any go-to spots in Chinatown or nearby? How is being here a source of culinary inspiration?
Mike: We go out in Chinatown all the time. Every Monday night after service, after a long week, we take our staff to eat dinner at like 2 a.m., and the only spot that’s open, which happens, in our opinion, to be the best place in Chinatown is Taishan Cuisine on Broadway. We also go to Hon’s Wun-Tun around the corner. They have two locations. But yeah, we definitely eat out in Chinatown for sure.
Line cook Brenda Lau plates a dessert. (Juliana Yamada for KQED)
Have other chefs or business owners in the area stopped by since you’ve moved in?
Lucy: One of our big inspirations in the Bay Area is actually Chome. They’re a Japanese izakaya [in the Mission], and we’ve been there plenty. They actually came to eat at Four Kings since we opened, and it was really cute. We love Chome.
Franky: R & G Lounge has stopped by. They’re right near to us.
Mike: Mow Lee [Shing Kee & Company]. They’re very established and do Chinese charcuterie plates just up the street. The owner’s son has eaten here. There has been a lot of support in general.
Franky, you’ve been in Chinatown the longest. How has the area changed over time?
Franky: It changed a lot for a while, but I feel like it’s back to where it was when [my family and I] first immigrated here. We’re getting a lot more people again, and all the vendors are busy, the streets are busy. I feel like a couple of years ago it was pretty dead. And a lot of restaurants and businesses were closing, but it seems like it’s back to where it was from what I remember. I see a lot of the younger generations coming back to hang out in Chinatown.
Your amazing website lists Franky as being better than “a walking encyclopedia of Chinese food knowledge.” So I humbly ask, what defines Cantonese food for you, Franky?
Franky: There’s a few descriptions and explanations for Cantonese food. In China, Cantonese food is pure food. They don’t add a lot of seasoning. Everything is fresh. That’s why many things are steamed or blanched. But when you move towards Hong Kong or Macau, Cantonese food becomes fusion food. A mixture of French cuisine. British influences. It can be more flavorful.
What dish do you serve at Four Kings that most embodies your version of Cantonese food?
Mike: The pork chop rice. The inspiration for ours comes from cha chaan teng, which are the Hong Kong-style cafes we go to. One of our favorite orders that we get there is this big pork chop on either rice or spaghetti. And that’s kind of our take on it for our restaurant. We really needed to be able to bring something that’s nostalgic. It hits home for us and for a lot of young Cantonese kids, too.
Lucy: The dish also takes inspiration from Japanese katsudon.
Mike: Yeah, so we bread it with panko and deep-fry our pork chops after we brine it for a few days. And then we serve it with a tomato egg slurry versus the traditional sauce.
Franky: I also really like our take on a Hong Kong version of a Sichuan fish dish, which is fermented mustard greens and fried fish. I guess we do a San Francisco version of it. And we add butter, which is from the French influence.
Mike: The fried squab is also an easy answer.
Fried squab hanging in the kitchen. (Juliana Yamada for KQED)
For those who don’t know, what exactly is squab, and why isn’t it more commonly served in the U.S.?
Franky: I feel like a lot of people don’t really eat squab because they’re pigeons. But a good amount of fine dining restaurants use them.
Mike: There aren’t any farms for squab. So the general price for it is pretty expensive. And I guess for most people to get a smaller bird for that price, it’s not ideal. Hence, it’s a harder protein to sell at a restaurant because it always comes with a higher price tag.
Lucy: Franky, you have a personal connection to squab.
Franky: Yeah, so in my hometown in China, we’re famous for our squab. Our dialect is squab, or “squab speak” in Chinese. Most banquets will serve one fried squab per person. We wanted to bring that here. We also really want people to eat it with their hands, to just devour it.
Mike: The squab is ideal for our restaurant concept because we want to serve smaller plates for our size [the building is narrow]. It’s my favorite course from a Cantonese banquet. All the kids always fight for the squab.
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Four Kings (710 Commercial St., San Francisco) is open Thurs. through Mon. from 6 to 11 p.m. Reservations are recommended up to three weeks in advance; walk-in counter seating is available on a limited basis. Fried squab is offered in small quantities on a first-come, first-served basis.
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