House of Nanking
919 Kearny St, San Francisco, CA, 94133
House of Nanking Menu
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Main
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Main
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Address :
919 Kearny St
San Francisco, CA, 94133 - Phone (415) 421-1429
- Website https://houseofnanking.net
- Click To Get Directions
Opening Hours
- Mon :11:00 am - 2:00pm
Specialities
- Takes Reservations : No
Delivery : No
Take-out : Yes
Accepts Credit Cards : Yes
Good For : Lunch, Dinner
Parking : Street
Bike Parking : No
Wheelchair Accessible : Yes
Good for Kids : Yes
Good for Groups : Yes
Attire : Casual
Ambience : Casual
Noise Level : Average
Alcohol : Beer & Wine Only
Outdoor Seating : No
Wi-Fi : No
Has TV : No
Waiter Service : Yes
Caters : No
Categories
Chinese Cuisine
The popularity of Chinese food in America can be adjudicated by the appearance of China Town in many major cities in the United State of America. The popular trend of ordering or opting for Chinese take away food isn't unknown in America. Chinese take away food comes to rescue when you're too tired from work or too exhausted to cook. No one can resist the temptation of eating spicy noodles, shrimp, chicken, beef or pork cooked in the sweet and spicy sauce. The cooking method of authentic Chinese food is a lot different compared to what is served in America.
Generally, Chinese use dark meat small bones and organs to cook dishes but this changes when you are eating American-Chinese fusion food prepared using white boneless meat cooked with broccoli, carrots and onions. Back in China, the food is less spicy and oily as they favor steaming and braising method for cooking the most popular dishes. So, if you have a taste for authentic Chinese food, then try finding a real Chinese restaurant in the city. You can also try the most popular fusion Chinese food like Pecking Duck, Chicken Feet, Hot Pot, Shrimp Dumpling Soup, Mapo Tofu, Wontons, Chop Suey, Egg Rolls and not to forget Fortune Cookies.
There are not many restaurants in America serving authentic Chinese food. A little research on Restaurant Listings directory can help you locate the best Chinese restaurants in the city. Chinese cuisine is continuously evolving, and you can find a variety of dishes categorized as the food for lactose intolerant, gluten intolerant, vegan, vegetarian, and diabetic friendly. So, if you have a group of friends with different taste patterns, save the hassle and visit the nearest Chinese restaurant in your city.
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CJ T.
Sesame chicken and garlic beef were amazing! Service was "Soup Nazi"-ish, but the food was really good. Seating is very tight, I'd recommend groups of no more than 4 or you'll probably have a bit of a wait.
(5)Anthony P.
I came here with my family hopeful that the large amount of reviews and a passable 3.5 stars would mean that this place would be good. Parking in Chinatown is a disaster so be prepared to circle around for up to 30 minutes to try to find a decent parking spot. We went around 7pm and there was a decently large line (about 15-20) of people waiting to get a seat at the restaurant after talking to some people in line basically everyone has never ate at this place and were there because it seems like such a popular restaurant. We were seated at a table that was just cleaned off literally 20 seconds before we sat down and handed menus. Okay what everyone is saying about the service in this place is true, it is THE WORST. I don't think our server(s) said more then 5-10 words each time they stopped by our table. It seems like in this restaurant you don't have a dedicated server, but just anyone who just happens to walk by and notice your table. It honestly seemed like the staff cared more about getting people in and out to make room for the large amount of tourists that come to this restaurant. Prices are relatively okay with dishes around the $10-15 dollar range. We ordered the sesame chicken, calamari, house noodles, house fried rice, a spicy wonton soup, and salt and pepper squid. Honestly less than half of the dishes we ordered we considered even okay in taste. I've had a lot of Chinese food my entire life and I would rate this food as low-quality take out. Each dish we ordered came out at random times and the dishes were messy and unappealing to look at-much less eat. The worst had to be the wonton soup which came in some weird mix of rice, noodle and extremely bland soup water that looked like old dirty rice water! We did not finish a single dish more then half way. After we paid for our food with card and left tip in cash, one of the servers immediate went to collect the receipt and tip as we got up and actually had the audacity to ask FOR MORE TIP. Tips are something that YOU EARN, it is not a RIGHT. And the way we were treated, along with the food quality, this place did not deserve it. I honestly have no idea if this was just an off day or not but my dining experience at this restaurant was unforgivable and will not be giving this place another chance. Tl;dr Horrible parking Long lines to get seated Random/rude servers Extremely poor dining experience Very lack-luster food Do not come here if you want good Chinese food.
(1)Deborah Jo D.
This is the place if you have a sense of humor & history!! This is a San Francisco tradition.. Best quality food, rushed, dirty, rude service, lines around the block!! If you don't love it you are way too new in town!!
(5)Kat S.
Amazing food, they gave us the bok choy and meat of the old menu. It's a quick turn over kind of place and honestly anything is very yummy! Great find!
(5)Mika S.
As long as you're fine eating at a table that's squished next to someone else's, you'll enjoy House of Nanking. It has fast service, great food, and a very concise menu compared to most Chinese restaurants! I split the Five Spice Pork Chops and the Sesame Chicken with 2 sides of rice. Between the two I preferred the Sesame Chicken, especially because it came with a side of thinly sliced sweet potato which were AMAZING.
(4)Liana F.
Way overhyped. I don't know what draws people to wait in a line outside in the cold for this place. ARRIVAL: If not crowded, they seem to try seating customers by the door. If crowded, "10-15 minute! Wait outside!" followed by some initial confusion of what was just said and then comes the line of incredibly cold customers outside on these chilly winter nights. SEATING: Parties of two are seated uncomfortably close to each other, by American standards. House of Nanking will move two tables (meant for parties of four) about two inches away form each other and seat two parties. It's almost like the hella Chinese places that have two parties share a large round table to seat more people. FOOD: -- House Special Sesame Chicken = OK? Not bad but not amazing. Sweet brown sauce smothering fried chicken pieces, accompanied by sliced orange (yam? carrot? sweet potato?) and green veggies (cucumber?). Tastes kinda like general tso chicken. The staff use bare hands to top the dish off with sesame seeds... after pressing the register's touch screen and other things. I HOPE THEY WASH THEIR HANDS AFTER HANDLING DIRTY DISHES. -- Melt in your Mouth Calamari = Eh. The texture of the calamari pieces is nice since you don't have to break your jaw gnawing away. The batter is light but doesn't stick to the calamari well because of the light citrus sauce making it soggy. Chewy, yes. Crunchy, nada. - Pork Egg Rolls = Decent. They taste different than any other egg roll I've ever had. They make nice appetizers, sure. SERVICE: Sub-par Asian service Less pleasant than usual Asian service. -- "Wait outside!" when they have customers waiting to be seated. When there was a reservation holding two rows of tables, there was no explanation to incoming customers why they need to wait and not be seated there. -- Instead of making suggestions to new customers (i.e. tourists), "Get this *points*" or "You want this *points*." Uhh okay.... The staff definitely rushes people to order. -- Raising voices at customers asking questions
(2)Renee R.
Growing up in the Bay Area means growing up on pretty tasty Asian food, particularly Chinese food and I would say this popular and frequented restaurant deserves a slightly above average rating, but I'm not going back. It's a good place to try once and see what the fuss is about, but I'd rather have a fun, laid back experience, rather than feeling like once I sit down I'm forced to stuff food in my face and bounce. House of Nanking gets a 3.5 in my book for its not bad, not the best food and its kind of wack service. We started with the 4 piece green onion pancake that had 1 piece of shrimp in each piece. Kinda skimpy if you ask me, but I'd give that dish a 3. They were kind of on the crispy side, but I didn't mind it so much. Another starter we ordered was the calamari. It's ring style calamari, so if you're looking for the fishy and squid like kind, this ain't the one. It didn't come with lemon and the sauce was poured on for you instead of on the side for dipping, so I wasn't impressed. If you're a calamari connoisseur, it's definitely not worth your money. I'd say pass and I'd give it a 2, by the way, it's also a bit oily. As much as I enjoy the oily Chinese dishes, I love to test the green option/s they have in store at these kind of spots, so, I ordered the shrimp lettuce wraps, which came with a mixed veggie stuffing; mostly frozen veggies and peas, cubed squash and about 8 pieces of medium sized shrimp. They gave several pieces of lettuce for the wraps. The veggies were doused in a brown, sweet (but not too sweet) sauce. It was on the thicker side and I think the dish would have been better without so much sauce to go with this being one of the only healthy options, as this is one of the cleaner (light and healthy) options of food here. Overall I'd give it a 4. House of Nanking was decent Chinese food. I'd give it a 3.5, but since service wasn't great and the main guy/owner was there making sure he made quick bucks, I'm going to give it a 3. The waitresses were alright, but they're probably trained to keep the line moving, so they don't get too personable. We went before 6 and it wasn't too packed, but half an hour later, there was a huge line waiting to get in. I would never wait in line to eat here, but it's definitely worth trying. With love in the Bay, Renee Rises-- The Filipina foodie
(3)Elayne L.
Authentic chinglish Chinese food here! The chefs create "Chef Specialties" rather than authentic Chinese food. (Thank God! spoken from someone who has visited China and Hong King twice this year!) Their menu is easy for we Americans to understand and gives nice twists on the typical Chinese/American menu. The dumplings and Nanking Chicken are to die for! Get there early! As a line normally forms well before they open their doors and the tables fill up fast! Check the hours of operation as they do close between Lunch and Dinner services! There is definitely a hustle and bustle to the service. Not great and you may share a table with a few people. They definitely cram them in! It all adds to the experience so if you aren't into sharing this place may not be for you! The portions are so large sometimes the "sharing" carries over to your food as well! Its all good fun and on my go-to list every time i visit my favorite city: )
(4)Michael S.
DO NOT DRINK THE WATER. I was waiting in line to use their single bathroom when one of the servers came and used a dirty old sink next to the bathroom that looked like it was for rags and filled up a cup of water, put a straw in it, and served it to a customer!! Thats just one example of an entire experience of rudeness, callousness, and downright disrespectful customer service we received at this restaurant. I can literally give you a list of negative moments from my one visit. - we had to call our waiter twice just to get our drink order in, he left as soon as he took the order and never came back - Chow mein was burned to a crisp - A lady came by asked me if I was ready to order, snatched my menu, and gave it to another table and left! - they brought out our orders one plate at a time in 10 minute intervals, just enough time to have everyone's food be cold :) - mid meal my friend asked a lady for a sprite since we noticed where they got their water from, it never came - lots of other things, like no hellos, how are you, basically what you would expect from a busy McDonald's on their worst day What forever became an inside joke to me and my friends was that at the end of this root canal experience was when we went up to pay a lady snatched our receipt and tried to charge us 20 dollars more than what it said. She said that was the tip she had earned and refused to accept anything less. My friend just kind of stood there for a minute before my wife jumped in and said she couldn't legally charge us whatever tip she wanted, especially given that she didn't even service our table. Another server came up and said well people usually tip 10% so you can tip that instead, that's when I jumped in and said alright so it is up to us to determine what we tip, we then paid for our meal and left! Unbelievable that these people think they can bully customers into tipping for absolute god awful service!!
(1)Nash J.
Parking near the restaurant is terrible I ordered a lot of food here. *** Very fast service !!! Crispy noodle with Chicken 4.5 star Calamari 3 star ( too much vinegar ) Sesame chicken 5 star Chicken Fried Rice 4 star Chicken noodles 4star Dumpling 3.5 star Beef chow min 4 star Shrimp Fried rice 4 star Chicken Fried Rice 4.5 star Overall a great place. Be prepared to stand on a line outside .. :) TIP for the spicy food lovers :Ask for their Chile Sauce Check out the photos I posted !!
(4)Michelle W.
I couldn't bring myself to give them a higher rating than 2 stars. The unauthentic Chinese cuisine and poor service leads me to believe that this establishment is nothing more than a tourist trap. Service: 1 star - the old man, most likely the manager or the owner, was extremely rude and rushed us to order. He came back multiple times within a span of a few minutes and didn't give us a chance to peruse the menu. When we were ready to order, he grunted all the way through and didn't even make eye contact. ----What we got---- Hot Tea: WHAT KIND OF ASIAN RESTAURANT CHARGES $3.50 FOR TEA? The tea came in a mug, real authentic... Shrimp Packets - Fried wonton wrappers with shrimp inside: definitely didn't live up to the hype and the ratio of wrapper to meat was off Steam pork and veggie dumplings with spicy soy sauce: pretty good, I liked the spicy soy sauce Sesame Chicken - w/ sweet potato and garnished w cucumber salad: unique dish, nothing memerable "Melt in your mouth" Fried Calamari: this was disgusting! It was soggy and oily.. If I could give this negative stars, I would! Melt in your mouth? Joke was on us, the oil and batter was melting all over our mouths. My stomach is churning just thinking about how oily these things were. Blech! Pork Chop - bone in: I didn't like how they gave us a huge pork chop with no knife and expected us to eat it with chopsticks. Since this is family style, it should've been chopped up Lettuce Cups with Shrimp - battered and lightly fried shrimp with mixed veggies: I've never had lettuce cups with fried shrimp and mixed veggies, but I don't think I'm a fan of it. My speculation is that they took a popular dish (fried shrimp and mixed veggies) and made it into a lettuce cup dish by adding lettuce. My takeaway is that this place caters towards American tourists and if you don't look like a tourist, you won't be treated with respect. If the food was good, I'd overlook the poor service, but since we were treated rudely, charged $3.50 a person for tea, and the food was extremely unauthentic, I wouldn't come back.
(2)Grace L.
WARNING: HORRIBLE FOOD AND BAD SERVICE! Read the most recent reviews, and you can judge for yourself... Based on the 3.5 stars from a quick Yelp search and the long line in front of the restaurant (about 20 people), we decided to give House of Nanking a try...especially after the waitress kept telling us that the wait was no longer than 20 minutes. She either lied or can't estimate time well because we ended up waiting for over 40 minutes. This wouldn't have been a huge problem except for the LOUD, intoxicated homeless guy who kept approaching everybody in line and getting close enough to practically kiss them! The crazy thing is the restaurant manager and waiters saw the guy soliciting everybody, but did nothing to ensure the safety of their customers in line. Luckily, my friend is a big guy and would have taken him out with one blow. So after finally getting into the restaurant, I noticed that a waitress was wiping down the table with a dirty towel. The table was soaking wet, and my friend ended up wiping the table off with a napkin. Three waitresses just watched as he dried the table! Overall, the restaurant was dirty and a health hazard in many respects. The worst part of the experience was definitely the food. FYI, we ordered three dishes and paid over $43, which included paying for steamed rice. YES, they charge for "Uncle Ben's tasting" steamed rice. So here's the breakdown of why the food was so bad: Sesame chicken = right before the dish was served, we saw the cashier (who had been handling money and credit cards) pick up a handful of sesame seeds and tossed it over ours and another customer's chicken dish. Gross! The other issue with the dish is that the thinly sliced sweet potatoes were not cooked all the way through, and they were bland. The actual chicken was okay, but nothing spectacular. Salt and Pepper Shrimp with Mushrooms = The entire dish was deep fried and bland. The shrimps were deep fried in a tempura batter, but it needed both salt and pepper. The mushrooms were soaking in a puddle of oil. This dish should be called Bland Shrimp with Oily Mushrooms. Last but not least was the crispy noodle dish with beef. This was the most disgusting dish that I have ever eaten from a Chinese restaurant. There were three of us in the party, and none of us could eat more than a few bites. The "crispy" noodles were basically placed on a plate, and the sauce which consisted mostly of vinegar was poured over it. There was way too much vinegar for that dish. We couldn't tell what else was on the dish. I think I recognized remnants of beef somewhere in the dish. 4 words on the customer service: "IT SUCKED BIG TIME!" So the good news is that I'm happy to write this review for my fellow Yelpers to help them make an informed decision. The bad news is we all have heartburn, and we're on vacation! Ugh!
(1)Rich Z.
Kathy, I'm not even sure where to start but here goes...your restaurant is filthy. The health inspector could spend hours upon hours writing this place up for violations. What violations you ask?? How about our server giving us 4 waters from the same area that the dishes were being washed or maybe his dirty hands that were all over the rims of the glasses when he set them on our dirty, sticky table? Maybe it would be another server eating a hard boiled egg at a table in the main seating area and then spitting out the parts she didn't want and then drying bowls with a towel that she had on her lap?? Should I mention the dirty plates that were at our table?? The sizzling rice soup that wasn't sizzling but actually looked like it was left over from another party? The garlic beef we ordered that never showed up until we had completely finished our horrible meal? The rude server??? Kathy, I could go on and on but it's not worth my time. Your restaurant has probably lost sight of why it opened in the first place. It's clear to me it's all about revenue and tourism thus the poor quality food, horrible service, and extremely dirty restaurant. As I said in my first post, I will never return but rest assured I'll tell many of our experience.
(1)