[drcode]

I've been at maybe around 8 different Chinese dumpling restaurants in SF

Every one of them had completely different dumplings than the others

All of them were delicious

For whatever reason SF has great Chinese dumplings, but like OP I have struggled to find good options for other Chinese cuisine (though I'm not a Chinese cuisine expert)

[inferiorhuman]

Historically the Chinese diaspora in San Francisco came from the southeast, which is why Cantonese was such a common language. The food largely followed that. If memory serves, NYC Chinese takeout tends to skew more towards Hunan because that's where folks were from.

Off the top of my head, the whole stretch of Taraval has a variety of Chinese restaurants focused on things other than dumplings. There's the Macau cafe, the HK bakery, the pancake place, the noodle place, the ice cream place, the Shandong place that does the pancakes. Old Mandarin (ex-Bib Gourmand) focuses on Islamic food, and their alum spawned a bunch of other restaurants including Beijing. But these are all more homey, neighborhood restaurants than you'd find in the Mission.

Honestly for something easy like mapo tofu I just make it at home. You can get all of the ingredients readily.

If you are willing to go outside the city and go with Chinese adjacent, there are a ton of options. Lion Dance Cafe (Malaysian) and Red Hot Chili Pepper (Indo-Chinese) come to mind.

[boulos]

Try Mama Ji's, Mister Jiu's (upscale) or Mamahuhu (casual). The mapo tofu at Mamahuhu is great, but be prepared for the spice.

Edit: looks like the author included Mister Jiu's :).