These newcomers or new menus cover the gamut, from classic French to a neighborhood comfort food and cocktail classic that just turned ten. Alongside my full restaurant reviews, these five are also worth visiting: Read more →
Tag: Chinese
Meals for a Winter’s Day: 7 Restaurant Standouts of the Month
These newcomers or new menus cover the gamut, from dim sum to traditional Irish or Russian food. Alongside the latest full restaurant reviews — why SF is the U.S.’ best food city, The Halfway Club, Nick’s Cove, Movida/Bar Gemini/Stoa, Canela, Chotto Matte, 2023’s top new restaurants and bars — these seven are also worth visiting, with last month’s standouts here (as always, I’ve personally vetted and visited each one): Read more →
Here’s where I love to eat in the Tenderloin
The Tenderloin’s (TL) roughly 7-by-5 blocks get a massive amount of bad press as the center of San Francisco’s worst drugs and homelessness. As it has everywhere, pandemic has made conditions worse as Tenderloin’s decades-old issues have expanded a few blocks. But the TL remains a tiny part of our ever vibrant city with top-notch food, as in every SF neighborhood. Yet due to the TL’s location next to tourist central Union Square and hotels, it gets outsized attention compared to much larger difficult neighborhoods in other U.S. cities. Read more →
Where to eat with your family in San Francisco
Whether you’re going out with your own kids, friends with kids or taking out local niece and nephews as I do, you don’t want to compromise what you eat. And you shouldn’t ever have to in San Francisco.
There is no end to the wealth of food education one can casually participate in with children while eating heartwarming, fun meals. Covering a range of cuisines from Korean to Cajun — across neighborhoods — here are eight places you may not initially think of as kid-friendly: Read more →
The History of San Francisco’s Chinatown in 10 Dishes
Published at Food Republic in June 2015, my article on Chinese food and American Chinese food’s history coming to the U.S. via San Francisco: www.foodrepublic.com/2015/06/10/the-history-of-san-franciscos-chinatown-in-10-dishes Read more →
February Eats Checklist: 5 Standouts of the Month
These newcomers or new menus cover the gamut, from elevated German beer hall fare to Sichuan Chinese. Alongside this month’s full restaurant reviews, these six are also worth visiting, with last month’s standouts here (as always, I’ve personally vetted, visited or ordered from each place reviewed): Read more →
Boundary-Pushing Asian Food at Two Newcomers: Taiwanese-Inspired Piglet & Co. & Chinese-Venezuelan Cantoo
This week, I share experiences at two newcomers playing with the boundaries of Asian cuisine. One is a pop-up turned hip, new Mission district restaurant hidden behind a graffitied wall, Bruce Lee films on two TVs above the bar, striking paintings of birds. The other is a fluorescent-lit, Tenderloin spot, half underground, roomy but utilitarian in design. The former just opened early January 2023, the other two days before Christmas 2022. They are dissimilar in most ways but for their surprising interplay of Asian cuisines. Read more →
September Eats Checklist: 6 Standouts of the Month
Though I’ve eaten everywhere this month from Adriano Paganini/Back of the House group’s latest, Rad Radish, to the new Arepas Latin Cuisine and Fiddle Fig Cafe in North Beach, these six newcomers (or new menus) stood out in September, covering the gamut, from Brittany-style French crêpes to NY slice pizza. Alongside this month’s full restaurant reviews, I share what’s worth tasting at each, with last month’s standouts here (as always, I’ve vetted, visited and/or ordered from each place reviewed): Read more →
Upscale Chinese with a View in SF Chinatown: Empress by Boon
San Francisco’s Chinatown is the oldest in North America, a dense, rich Chinese community since the 1850s. In these charming, narrow streets, legendary Empress of China began restoration in 2019 and after a long wait and pandemic delays, opened June 2021 as Empress by Boon, a gorgeous Atelier LLYS-designed, 7,500-square-foot space with killer views over Chinatown, North Beach, Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill and the Bay… Read more →
Chinese Fine Dining Unlike Anywhere Else: Eight Tables
I’ve said it since opening in 2017 and I’ll say it again: there’s no equal to Eight Tables in the country. This upscale-modern Chinese restaurant hidden upstairs inside China Live houses merely eight tables so spaced out, it was meant for a post-pandemic world… Read more →