SAN FRANCISCO | RESTAURANTS
Best restaurant bets in San Francisco's Chinatown
East inhabits West.
I gorged on good and cheap food in San Francisco's Chinatown, not fine cuisine. If that's what you're after, you may want to look beyond Chinatown's core area.
In local polls, three of the perennial favorites are:
Ton Kiang, 5821 Geary Blvd., San Francisco, CA 94121, (415) 386-8530, www.tonkiang.net.
Yank Sing, 101 Spear St., San Francisco, CA 94105; (415) 957-9300 and 49 Stevenson St., San Francisco, CA 94105; (415) 541-4949, www.yanksing.com.
Tommy Toy's, 655 Montgomery St., San Francisco, CA 94111; (415) 397-4888, www.tommytoys.com.
R&G Lounge, 631 Kearny St., San Francisco, CA, 94108; (415) 982-7877, www.rnglounge.com. Closed for renovations until March 27, 2007.
THE DEALS
Never spending more than about $9 on a dish, I set out on a dining itinerary that included:
Gold Mountain, 644 Broadway, San Francisco, CA 94133; (415) 296-7733. An excellent dim sum breakfast, (amid mostly San Francisco locals).
Hang Ah Tea Room, 1 Pagoda Place, San Francisco, CA 94108; (415) 982-5686. Tasty dim sum lunch.
Utopia Cafe, 139 Waverly Place, San Francisco, CA 94108; (415) 956-2902. Down-home cafe good for a hearty bowl of won ton soup.
House of Nanking, 919 Kearny St., San Francisco, CA 94133; (415) 421-1429. I had a pleasantly spicy dinner. This place often has lines out the door, but when we waltzed in a little before 6p.m., a third of the tables were empty.
THE STALWARTS
If you're looking for old-fashioned restaurant glamour along the main drag:
Empress of China, 838 Grant Ave., San Francisco, CA 94108; (415) 434-1345. Its ornate sixth-floor dining room offers views to Coit Tower, and its lobby wall of fame boasts glossies of Jayne Mansfield, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Mick Jagger, Jackie Chan, Marcel Marceau and our governor. (You have to guess which two of those were dining together.) I prowled around but didn't eat there.
Four Seas Restaurant, 731 Grant Ave., San Francisco, CA 94108; (415) 989-8188. I did eat a fairly good lunch (with a tour group) at this similarly showy spot.
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