WHERE TO EAT IN CHINATOWN: FOUR RECOMMENDATIONS

Yesterday evening on the bus back from Marin several passengers asked the busdriver how they could get to Chinatown. Golden Gate Transit is a fount of information, but that isn't part of it. They'll get you to the city, but what you do then is something they will not think about.

So I verbally stepped in.

'Get off at Sacramento and Van Ness. Walk to the corner of Clay and Van Ness, take the Number One California across the hill. Get off at Stockton. And lo, you are there!'


Me: "So, what do you plan to do in Chinatown?"

Them: "Eat dinner, but we do not know where."

Me: "If I may, I have a number of suggestions...."


I had heard them speaking Mandarin all the way over, as they were sitting right behind me. My Mandarin is rather ramshackle, but I can write fairly decently.


三陽咖啡餐屋
SAN SUN RESTAURANT
['saam-yeung ka-fei chan-ok' *]
848 Washington Street
San Francisco, CA 94108.
Telephone: 415-296-8228

Between Stockton and Grant, corner of Ross Alley

越華僑風味的粉湯與小食
Noodle-soup and small eats to the Sino-Viet taste
Yuè huáqiáo fēngwèi de fěn tāng yǔ xiǎoshí
['yuet-waa-kiu fung-mei dik fan-tong yue siu-sik']

You go here for noodles and unpretentious Viet-Chinese food, well done, tasty and interesting. Plus either Vietnamese coffee or milk-tea.
I often have the bittermelon and pork or chicken over rice, or the grilled pork strips and rice-stick noodles in soup, but there is a lot to choose from, and you really have to try to be dissatisfied.
Unless you are from the Midwest.
In which case it's easy.

* "three suns coffee dining room"


京都餐館
CAPITAL RESTAURANT
['king to tsan-kwun' *]
839 Clay Street
San Francisco, CA 94108.
Telephone: 415-397-6269

Between Waverly Place and Hang Ah Alley

家庭式粵菜
Family-style Cantonese food
Jiātíng shì yuècài
['gaa-ting sik yuet-choi']

Salt and pepper chicken wings, whole steamed fish, crustaceans and shellfish, home style dishes, nicely stir-fried vegetables and the regular real Chinese restaurant standards, as well as rice-plates. Fish flavour eggplant (魚香茄子), fish and fresh vegetable (菜遠蘢利魚飯), or black bean bitter melon and fish (豆豉凉瓜魚片). Lo fo tong if you have a rice plate. Very popular with the Chinatown crowd, but Europeans are often baffled.
That's a common thing, by the way.
European bafflement.

* "metropolis dining establishment"


上海飯店
BUND SHANGHAI RESTAURANT
['seung-hoi fan-diem' *]
640 Jackson Street
San Francisco, CA 94133.
Telephone: 415-982-0618

Between Grant and Kearny

滬淮美食
Shanghainese and Huai beautiful eating
Hù huái měishí
['wu waai mei-sik']

Wu-Huai cuisine, very good. I highly recommend it for couples on a date, small family groups, and five or six friends who simply want some darn fine food at a darn fine place. The waitstaff is courteous and professional, the kitchen standards are extraordinarily high.
For Shanghainese exiles it's a breeze from home, but for this blogger it's where I get steamed dumplings (蒸的水餃子) when I absolutely must have steamed dumplings.

* "on sea rice shop"


嶺南小館
R & J LOUNGE
['ling naam siu gwun' *]
631 Kearny Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-982-7877

On the corner of Commercial, between Sacramento and Clay

最好的高品粵菜
Best high-grade Cantonese Cuisine
Zuì hǎo de gāo pǐn yuècài
['jeui-hou dik kou-pan yuet-choi']

Top-notch Cantonese food in a nice restaurant setting, probably the best you can find in Chinatown, maybe even the entire city. A very popular place, where you can also have an expertly crafted cocktail. Like all fine Cantonese dining establishments, they assume that  you really want to order seafood, and get out of your shell culinarily. Unless you're from the Midwest or Europe, in which case you'll probably order the dishes you always get at your local take-out, and you'll be disappointed.
The Chinese regionymic handle of this establishment proudly advertises Cantonese. Which absolutely means fish and crustaceans.

* "high-passes south little establishment"



I sincerely hope that wherever they ended up, they ate very well. Judging by Yelp -- which exists primarily so that people who are always angry can slag businesses which made them more so -- there is nothing worth eating in Chinatown, and "my aunt from Hong Kong hated it".
Or maybe the aunt was from the Midwest.


I myself stayed in last night. I knew there was an evening ball game on, and consequently the place where I would normally go for a drink and conversation while smoking a pipe or two would be filled with screaming sportsfiends, and any discussion would be impossible.
Likely quite futile to attempt.




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