The Hidden Chinatown of San Francisco

Right on the corner of Ross Alley and Washington, San Sun Restaurant is basically a "tea restaurant" that caters to everybody with a HUGE menu. However, it does have a few offering that are rather unique in Chinatown that could make it worth a visit.   I went in for lunch and was one of the few early birds (it's right at noon) and asked the waitress what she'd recommend. She said "Satay Beef Rice Noodles (with Chinese Brocolli), but it's spicy." I am not exactly a heat-eater, and my tolerance is pretty much Shin Ramen, but I'm willing to give it a try, so I said "make it medium spicy?"   After a few minutes, I got a plate that's almost uniformly dark. The beef is dark, the gai-lan (Chinese brocolli) was a dark leafy veg, and the rice noodle was darkened with soy sauce. So it's a dark mass (mess?). While the taste isn't bad, and the spice level is fine, Chines Brocolli is slightly bitter, and doesn't fit with the other tastes...

Food Express, nestled between The Wok Shop and Snow Garden Restaurant on the 700 block of Grant in Chinatown, serves cafeteria style to-go food. However, I would recommend you skip this place.  I tried it one afternoon, hoping to find some fast food to go as I was in a hurry and I don't want a sit-down meal.  I went in, tried to order, was told they are out of rice, please give her a few minutes while she go get some. And indeed, a few minutes later she's back with some rice. Unfortunately, the rice is pretty much room temp by the time I get to consume it.  I tried picking out a few entrees on the cafeteria style steel basins, but these are even worse than Panda Express items. At least those are relatively fresh and plentiful. Here, they look like leftover scraps that's been kept lukewarm by the hot water bath under the basin for too long. Beef and broccoli turned into almost unchewable mess. Veggies have lost their texture. Rice is clumpy. Even reheating in microwave did...

Everybody knows who Jet Li was, but few people remember his video game, Rise to Honor, that came out on PS/2 in 2004.  Even fewer people knew that a promo photo for the game was shot in Chinatown back then, probably 2003. Now, the only reminder is this photo archived on Mobygames .  The location, at least for those who lived in Chinatown for a while, is very obvious: 100 block of Waverly pl, an alley in Chinatown. Utopia Cafe is clearly visible.  This was what Utopia Cafe looked like circa 2002 Utopia Cafe is still there, albeit, rebranded with a completely different sign and awning. 

J&M A-1 Restaurant is a pretty typical oldskool Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, offering all the tpical stuff catering to both local Chinese and tourist tastes. Nothing really stands out.  Typical of Chinese restaurants in Chinatown, the restaurant goes by a couple different names. While the official name is J&M A-1 Restaurant, you can just call it A-1. It could not decide it's a cafe, or a restaurant, so the sign says both! "A-1 Cafe Restaurant" over the door, A-1 Restaurant on the door, A-1 Chinese Restaurant on the sign, then a different sign says J&M A-1 Chinese Restaurant. And the Chinese name is yet different... 華記小館 (hua-ji-xiao-guan, which can be rendered as Hua brand Small Eatery) I ordered beef chow fun (beef stir-fried with rice noodles dry style, or gone-chow-au-ho) and the item came within a few minutes, nice and full of hot wok-hei. The only nitpick was there were a LOT of bean sprouts, but it's not a huge distraction. It's a little grea...

Snow Garden Restaurant is a thoroughly average restaurant in the middle of Chinatown. Being on the famous Grant Ave, it is where tourists walk by by the hundreds daily, yet its service is slow, selection limited, and quality merely average. It is not even open for dinner, being a strictly lunch restaurant.  I visited on a weekday for lunch. Other than entrees and "XXX over rice" lunch plates, the only thing they seem to offer is fried rice and fried noodles (chow fan and chow mien). They don't even offer rice noodles, as I typically order "beef and fried rice noodles" or gone-chow-au-ho as a test.  I ended up ordering beef chow mien. And the orders took 10-15 minutes to arrive, which is forever in Chinatown, where entrees are typically par-cooked separately then when ready to service, ingredients are combined then wok-fried to finish cooking and serve. There is also this soy-sauce-y liquid at the bottom of the plate after I finished most of the noodles.     Pric...

Utopia Cafe was an old restaurant in Chinatown... Only by name. It's been sold multiple times but kept the English name. It's current incarnation goes by the Chinese name 牛麵王 King of Beef Noodles.  I ordered their standard beef stew and egg  noodle soup,but they have a lot of variations in noodle, protein, and combinations thereof. With or without soup, with or without wonton, with egg noodles or rice noodles, beef stew over rice... etc. etc.  The prices are below average at between 10 to 12 bucks, but it reflects the reduced portion size. I checked the prices as it had risen 25% just in the past 2 years, according old menus via Google search. Still, the portion size is decent.  All in all, I'd give this place 4 out of 5 for good but not great price for quality and quantity of food. I may go back to try some of their other stuff.  Trivia: the entire Waverly Pl including a previous incarnation of this restaurant appeared in a Jet Li video game. 

If you are in Chinatown and paying attention to restaurants, stores, and such, you may find many of them with mini shrines of Guan Yu similar to this: A typical Guan Yu shrine you may find in Chinatown all over Guan Yu was a real person that lives in the Three Kingdoms period of China, and due to his unerring sense of honor (and in the end, died for it), he became venerated for his various virtues, such as total honesty, martial prowess, brotherhood, and later, extended to other virtues such as justice, business integrity, and fortune. In fact, Guan Yu was so popular, that after his death in the 3rd century, he was eventually adopted by both Taoist and Buddhist as a minor deity. And there are temples worshipping his all over Asia, including Japan, Korea, and various places of Chinese Diaspora.  In fact, in the Qing Dynasty (the final one), Guan Yu was raised to the status of "Saint of War" and equal to that of Confucius (who's "Saint of Culture") Guan Yu is also...

 As far as dimsum goes, New Moon offers nothing really special. It is a dimsum joint, similar to Yummy (reviewed earlier) that has a sorta buffet display up front, order what you want, pay first, and you can sit down inside. And they do have a more extensive menu. They are known for their fast service, with stuff often offered in pre-packed to-go boxes so you can grab one quickly for pretty reasonable prices (typically dimsum is about $1.00-2.00 per piece, depending on how specific items, no matter where you go in Chinatown). I needed some food to go, so I went inside and ordered a box that contained 3 daikon cakes 蘿蔔糕 and 3 shumai (they look pretty dark, so they're probably beef shumai) for $6.50. These shumai are regular sized, so price is about normal in Chinatown, maybe a LITTLE discounted, as they are a little colder than normal.  They of course have a lot of other stuff available and some Chinese-only items (sorta secret menu).  Worth trying? Sure, but as I said, no...

 Yummy BBQ Kitchen is one of the dozen (or so) BBQ Meat restaurants that sells the meat to go, or offer simple entrees to eat in. This particular one is on Broadway across Yuet Lee. If you just walk by, you may not even notice the sit-in spots.  I walked in, sat down, and ordered the beef stew with wonton noodle soup 牛腩餛飩湯麵 and you can also choose rice vermicelli instead of egg noodles. There are a lot of different items on the menu on the wall. However, this is technically a "pay-first" kinda spot. Order, pay first, tell them you will eat-in,  then sit down and they'll find you.  The portions are generous, but IMHO, the meat isn't quite as good as the Vietnamese 牛腩麵 beef stew pho over at Golden Star Vietnamese. So if you want a lot of meat with some tendons, so chewy, I'd recommend go Vietnamese. But if you prefer HK style then this place ain't bad. And of course, they have a lot of selection as well.  So give it a try, call it 4/5. 

Cafe Broadway is at a location that used to house a restaurant called Hing Lung, which was famous for its jook (Chinese rice porridge). However, Cafe Broadway is not that.  I had an hour to kill between appointments and decided to go to Cafe Broadway, and inside is much larger than you'd expect from the outside. Lighting hadn't improved much, as it was a bit dark during day-time, probably looks a little better at night.  It was noon-ish on Friday, and I was quickly pointed to a table near the back. I'd say the place is about 80-90% full, decent business. I was slightly surprised when the waitress asked me what sort of tea I wanted, or do I want water. Generally, only higher-class restaurants have tea options. The cheaper ones just feed you cheap tea bags. I asked for chrysanthemum tea, and it was quickly served. However, it is... way too hot, and I don't see any sugar, the way it's usually served. Glancing at the menu shows they charge $1.50 per person for tea. The ...

Dol Ho Restaurant is at 808 Pacific, slightly out of the hustle and bustle of Stockton. It is a dimsum place, with a few tables, and you can also order the dimsum to go. Keep in mind this place is only open from 0930 to 1530, and they are not open on Wednesdays, so visiting it can be a bit hard.  Dol Ho, with minimal decorations, can be considered a local "hole in the wall", as most tourists wouldn't wander up to it. However, Dol Ho is well known to locals for good dimsum. Sorry, no carts, too small for that. I and my friend ordered beef meatballs 牛肉丸 and "tied chicken" 雞扎 (chicken, mushroom, pork, with a some vermicelli wrapped around it as if tied together, steamed), which turned out to be $4.50 each. I ordered a set for him and a set for myself. It was brought over and packed within a minute.  The meatballs are excellent. While beef, this is not the meatball you're used to. The meat doesn't want to come apart, and you have to actively use your utensil...

Cafe New Honolulu, at 888 Stockton, is practically at the "other" entrance of Chinatown, Stockton Tunnel, and is right at the bus stop.  The interior is bright and sunny, and reasonable cool due to them leaving the door open all the time, but it also means it is noisy all the time, and you can hear the Muni bus announcements from the inside. "30 Stockton, Sacramento street".  I returned from work one day and decided to give it a try. There were only a few seniors inside. The menu is nice and thick, and surprisingly, not laminated, but made of thick plastic matte material. There were many items on the menu, making it a tea restaurant.  Typically at a place like this I order something classic, either beef chow fun 乾炒牛河 or the version similar 滑蛋炒牛河 runny stir-fried egg and beef chow fun. The food was served relatively promptly (within a few minutes) and the Diet Coke I ordered came VERY promptly. The flavor is above average. I find it a bit heavy in spring onions, but ...

Look Tin Eli is not a popular name unless you study Chinese-American history. Yet arguably, his greatest contribution was how he became the chief negotiator for the rebuilding of Chinatown after the 1906 Earthquake and fire, and can be considered the father of all modern Chinatowns.  Early Life Look Tin Eli (aka Look Tin Sing) was born in Mendocino, California, in 1870 to Luk Bing-Tai (known locally as Eli Tia Key) and Su Wong. Luk the elder originally worked as a cook for the local magnate upon arrival, but was able to raise enough money to open a general store in town. Luk the elder's bride is actually Native American, but raised by a Chinese American family. The couple had four children: 3 sons and 1 daughter including Look Tin Eli. The elder Luk decided that all of his sons needed a proper Chinese education, so he sent each of his sons back to China at the age of 9. Look Tin Eli left in 1879. The decision was likely based on the fact that back then Chinese Americans are not all...

Chongqing Xiao Mian San Francisco, at 915 Kearny, is known for spicy noodles. So that should be your warning, order only noodles there. I didn't realize that, and ordered something that's not noodle: the Braised Beef with Rice.  It came as 1 large beef rib with meat in a soup bowl (and soup), with a lot of cabbage as filler, and one bowl of rice. It's NOT beef over rice. The rice is in a separate bowl.  I did ask for medium heat (available as full heat, medium heat, no heat), and while the beef and soup did not taste very spicy, I promptly sweated. So it's a very different type of spicy heat than you would normally experience.  The meat is tender, and almost falling off the bone, but "not quite", and they don't give you extra utensils to deal with that, Apparently I'm supposed to pick up the bone and gnaw on it? I had to use the ladle and chopstick to get the meat off, and they are quite delicious... just not enough of it!  The soup is very flavorful, ...

Rather than spoiling anything, you may just want to listen to her tales of when she grew up... LOTS of interesting stories. However, the video is potentially NSFW, with some very leggy outfits and some drag performers. 

 There are plenty of merch out there about Chinatown, and artists can simply upload a picture, and setup a "print-on-demand" (POD) place for t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, and whatever you can print a picture on, setup a listing, and sell those items without spending money up front.  But are you buying the RIGHT item? Let's just say some artists (and I use the term loosely) clearly didn't verify the pictures fit the description. Which implies they didn't create the pictures they uploaded.  Just for fun, I did a search for "San Francisco Chinatown Merchandise" on Google, and while most of the items are correctly depicting San Francisco Chinatown, there are a few that clearly are NOT San Francisco Chinatown, even though they are labelled as San Francisco Chinatown.  Here is one such example on Amazon. Do you see the problem?  A sweatshirt for sale on Amazon labeled as San Francisco China Town That's right, they are driving on the "wrong side". ...

You can't come to SF Chinatown and leave out Dragon Gate, aka the Chinatown Gate, at the corner of Bush and Grant. But do you know its history?  Chinatown Gate, aka Dragon Gate, San Francisco Dragon Gate (aka Chinatown Gate, aka Dragon's Gate) was designed by Clayton Lee and others in 1967 in response to a mayoral competition, and his was the winning entry. Originally two gates were proposed, but the other gate leading to Barbary Coast was dropped due to lack of funds, and cost overrun.  The gate itself was designed after a Chinese "pailou 牌樓" or "paifang 牌坊", which were the "gates" that marked separate fang 坊, or "ward" within a city. However, later it evolved into a purely decorative element. As with tradition, the gate faces South, and is composed of a large gate with two smaller side gates.  The gate has a lot of its materials donated by Taiwan (Republic of China) including artisanal tiles, roofing, and the two guardian lions. Despite...

Delicious Dim Sum, at 752 Jackson, is just up hill from Wong Lee Bakery and across the street from House of Dimsum. Competition is fierce on this block indeed. I don't know about their other items, but they have excellent beef siumai.  Their beef siumai are positively huge, quite a bit bigger than the normal suimai size, and two orders of these (six pieces in total) makes up a whole meal. Yes, there's a little bit of wrapping around the siumai, and while the meat looks very "pink" it is cooked. And there are no fillers like water chestnut or peas or such. It's just a meatball. Two orders are just over 6 bucks.  SIDEBAR: There are several version of beef siumai 牛肉燒賣 or beef balls 牛肉丸. Generally speaking, the former is like a traditional siumai, with a thin layer of wrapping around it, almost like a wonton wrapper, while the latter generally has some tofu skin at the bottom to stop it from sticking to the steaming vessel (generally a small saucer), and generally a b...

As a tour guide for Chinatown, I sometimes have to answer some unconventional questions about Chinatown, and everything adjacent to it. And for those into nostalgic movies, one of the topics that kept coming up was the Kurt Russell movie " Big Trouble in Little China (1986) ".  In case you don't remember the movie, Jack Burton, a big rig driver, goes with his Chinese buddy Wang Chi to pick up Wang's green-eyed fiancee Miao Yin arriving from China, only to have bad guys kidnap her! Jack and Wang chase the kidnappers, and learned that evil sorcerer Lo Pan needs to marry a green-eyed girl to return to land of the living, and he has a bunch of evil minions. So Jack, Wang, lawyer Gracie Law, plus bus driver and sorcerer apprentice Egg Shen unite to smite evil as they are transported into the literal underworld of Chinatown... So, do the tunnels exist?  Unfortunately, no. There are no such giant tunnels and elaborate labyrinths. Those are all filmed in the Hollywood soundst...

As an amateur historian and tour guide, I gathered a lot of interesting bits of information about San Francisco Chinatown that most people are not generally aware of. I use them occasionally on my tour guide job. Here they are, in no particular order: San Francisco Chinatown is the oldest Chinatown in the US (but not the Largest) San Francisco Chinatown was dubbed Chinatown by the local press in 1853 . Before then, it was known as little Canton. However, its growth is limited due to its size: only 24 square blocks, less than 1/8th of a square mile. Officially, the population is 35000 as per 2000 census, but the actual number is believed to be 100000.  By population and area, the Chinatown in Manhattan, New York, is larger : 40 square blocks, with about 150000 residents.  The Chinatown You See Today is a Rebranding Effort in 1906  After 1906 Earthquake and fire, the city asked Chinatown to undergo what we today would consider a "rebranding", to a more family-friendly versi...