I always have liked Oakland’s Chinatown. The Chinatown is San Francisco has so many tourists that a mediocre restaurant can survive based upon appearances, without relying upon repeat business. Of course there is great food there in San Francisco, but you have to know something to find it. In Oakland Chinatown, the locals are knowledgeable, and merciless proponents of quality and value. Your odds are good at any restaurant.

And there are opportunities to try things which are for non-Chinese, ah, different. Ying Kee seems to mainly serve up big bowls of noodle soup, but the house specialties are hot pots. These are cook-it-yourself meals in a style similar to Swiss fondue or Japanese sukiyaki. Sometimes gas burners are built into the table, but at Ying Kee and many other places they bring out a cartridge-fueled gas burner that heats a pot of broth.

Ying Kee offers choices of fish, or lamb, or a chicken-and-tripe combo. We went with the recommended combo. The combo includes chicken and pork tripe cooked in chicken broth preloaded with a variety of Chinese herbs. I asked my wife, who reads Chinese, if there was a special name for the dish. She said, “Yes, it is called Chicken and Tripe with Herbs“ Figures.

The chicken and tripe arrives cold, but mostly cooked, so that simmering in the broth quickly finishes the cooking while heating up the bits. $20 brings you a huge platter.

If ever a platter cried out for greenery, or garnishing with something, anything, this is it. Ying Kee, it turns out, is not too keen on vegetables. We wanted to get some cooked greens, maybe spinach or mustard greens, to go with the meat. No, they don’t have it. Well, maybe some of those crunchy pickles with daikon and carrots. Not a chance. They had rice. It doesn’t clash.

Tripe has a mild flavor, perhaps milder even than chicken. The herbs in broth do not overwhelm the meat flavors. While mild, the herbs impart an earthy undertone to the dish that is pleasant and complimentary. To avert death by blandness there is a dipping sauce made from soy sauce with green onion and slice peppers. The sauce is critical. It provides saltiness as well as spice.

There where two main herbs in the broth. One in thin sticks and the other in thin ribbons. The waitress did not know what the herbs were — my wife quizzed her in Mandarin, but that didn’t help. After dinner we walked around the neighborhood and discovered a package of the dried-stick herbs. It is called sand ginseng. It is a root in the carrot family that grows in Eastern Asia and Western North America. The dried sliced herb was also on sale. It’s called jade bamboo. I found an interesting web video showing preparation of steamed fish with jade bamboo, and proclaiming the healing properties of the herb. Each package of herbs was less than $2.

Since each Chinese herb is said to miraculously cures so many ills, one wonders why there are so many of them. The two in the soup should take care of pretty much anything. Cures aside, the soup broth intensifies during the course of meal. Ultimately, you ladle it into bowls, and it is delicious. Too much of the herbs would have made the soup bitter, but in restraint it works fine.

The only disappointment with the meal was the lack of vegetables to compliment the meat. It would be better with something sharp to offset the meatiness. I’d like to try the seafood pot. Maybe I can sneak in a jar of pickles.