The Hidden Chinatown of San Francisco

Most people know Imperial Palace  (818 Washington St) by its former name, Golden Dragon, mainly by the tragedy that happened there back in the 1970s . It does offer dimsum, but what most people fail to notice is just uphill from the main door, it actually has a "to go" door where you can buy steamed buns, and even lunch boxes. Unfortunately, neither turned out to be a good deal.  Updated August 6th, 2025: I tried going back in for a re-eval. Got a lunch box to go, and an order of siu-mai. She charged me $15! It should have been more like $12! And the food is bland and tasteless. (Pumpkin, tofu, and string beans). Even the siu-mai tastes a bit funny. I would NOT recommend this place ever again. ENDUPDATE When you go in, there are the buns in the window on the left, and a steam table on the right. I was there at 1:30PM, and there are only 4-5 items to choose from on the steam table. For comparison, Yummy Dim Sum (profiled elsewhere) has at least 10, plus chow mein and chow fun ...

Today Food, a small unassuming shop at the corner of Sacramento and Kearny, is a surprisingly good dumpling shop that's open for early brunch. Half of the store is taken up by the counter leaving only about 8 seats separated into 2 small tables and 1 medium table.  The menu is simple: dumpling can be served with soup, without soup, pan fried. Dumplings themselves can be had with various fillings, such as pork, chicken, shrimp, or veggie.  They have a couple other things, but dumplings are their primary offerings, so I ordered that.  It is interesting they serve everything in to-go containers and disposable utensils. Portion sizes are relatively small. The dumplings are size of a wonton, not jiaozhi, so a dozen of them would fit in a medium bowl.  On top are some bits of cilantro and seawood, but the seaweed needs to soak in the broth first. If you try to eat them dry they're too chewy. The soup is a bit savory and good, however, they give you those cheap shallow plas...

New Woey Loy Goey (NLG from now on) is one of three "basement" restaurants left in Chinatown (the other 2 are "Cloud and Spice" ex-Chef Hung's, and Kam Lok). This one is an old restaurant that still has the "bachelor bar" setup on the left as you enter, a lot like New Tin Lung Cafe (reviewed earlier).  Went in for lunch, asked the waitress to recommend a rice plate for lunch. She made an unusual choice: beef stir fried with winter melon, over rice. Winter melon, also known as bitter melon, is often stir-fried with beef and thick gravy so you can serve it over (or next to) rice, but it's an... Adventurous suggestion, something very... Oldskool. I accepted the choice, added a Diet Coke (which they don't have and I accepted the substitute, Coke Zero Sugar).  They served the house soup (low-fuo-tong) which actually came in a generous large bowl, not the normal rice bowl. It has lotus roots, daikon, and carrots, plus peanuts and pork bits. It is qui...

New Fortune is a bit of "hole in the wall" restaurant with a tiny kitchen turning out familiar plates for locals and a few adventurous tourists. There are only a dozen seats as you're sitting almost elbow to elbow with others. Most people order to go here, and just stand near the door to wait. And business is still brisk as they are next to the bus stop, being across the street from Cafe New Honolulu (previously reviewed).  Pretty average restaurant with slightly below average prices, IMHO. I've ordered the standard "beef chow fun" (gone-chow-au-haw) and it's pretty good, but again, not amazing.  3/5

Taqueria Mana is technically not in Chinatown, being on the OTHER side (the Union Square side) of the Stockton tunnel from Chinatown, at 439 Stockton (next to the Boba Guys). However, it is a proper Mexican restaurant, one of the few near Chinatown (which also includes Taqueria Zorro and El Farolito North Beach) Ordered tamales meal and horchata lunch combo to go. Price is over $20, as expected. It's pretty good, but not like amazing good. Tamales feels a little dry, and there's not quite enough salsa to offset that. Still it's pretty flavorful.  3.5/5

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...

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. 

You're probably wondering... what's a pizza restaurant doing in SF Chinatown reviews? This one is just on the border... Just south of Kearny St.  Outta Sight Pizza is pretty famous for their Larkin St. location, and when they opened a second location to tap into the lunch crowd in the Financial District, and it's only half a block from southern edge of Chinatown, I decided to give it a go. TL;DR -- expensive, but the pizza's indeed delicious, and LOTS of vegan choices. Extremely thin and tasty crust, toppings that you taste without being overwhelmed by tons of pizza sauce.  Being the first time there, I asked what they recommend, they recommended 2 vegan entries. I asked them to recommend one meat (Sausage / Mushroom / Onion), and one vegan (MSG). Plus a can of Diet Coke. With 15% tip, I walked out $19.47 lighter. That's two SLICES of pizza (decent sized). A bit expensive, IMHO.  I'm glad to try it, but I wouldn't eat this every day, or I'd limit myself...

 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. 

Yee's Restaurant, or 文仔記 in Chinese, is a BBQ meat vendor in addition to being a "tea restaurant" with a pretty extensive menu of most Hong Kong style entrees. The portions are pretty generous, and of decent quality. I haven't compared it against Kim Po (which is at corner of Powell and Broadway, another restaurant I'll post a review later).  Went in for lunch today, and ordered a pretty simple dish: cha-siu pork and loose eggs over rice 叉燒滑蛋飯 (Number 73 on the menu). It's not bad. You get PLENTY of rice. The eggs are a bit too loose to my liking, and the cha-siu is quite salty instead of flavorful, but there is a lot of the meat. So maybe 3.5 out of 5.  Their menu is online, but the version on their website is old , and prices have risen quite a bit. It was $7.00, it's now $12.00.  In the terms and conditions, it's clear the website was NOT affiliated with the restaurant itself... Huh?  Still, not a bad place to eat, in a "greasy spoon cafe"...

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 ...

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, ...

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...

Wong Lee Bakery, on 738 Jackson, is just opposite the must busier and more famous House of Dimsum, and while they do serve some dimsum, WL should really be better known for its big baos and eggtarts.  The place is rather dark and there's often a line going in, and you have some time to look over the steam table / shelf of egg tarts (decently priced) and other items on the menu behind them.  They are probably more famous for frozen wontons and dumplings for sale by the dozens.  If you want to eat cheap, I recommend ordering a pound of chow fun (rice noodles) or chow mein (egg noodles). There's no meat in these, just scallions and soy sauce. As of March 2023, it's $3.70 a pound. And you should be more than half way full once you eat a pound of that.  The other item I recommend is the "dai-bao" (lit: big bao) which is mostly chicken, but also has chinese sausage (which is pork) plus portions of an boiled egg, for a mere $2.20. So One pound of starch, 2 die-bao, and i...