San Tung

The best way to tell whether a Chinese restaurant is good for Yelpers is not by how many Chinese are in the restaurant overall. The litmus test is to scope out the number of young adult Chinese in that restaurant. The more you see, the more you can be assured that the food is good and not your average Chinese fare. What's the logic behind it? Young Chinese adults typically grow up in families where typically the only food consumed in restaurants is Chinese food. As a result, we grow tired of the standard Chinese fare and so veto those types of restaurants when going out with friends (sucks for the non-Chinese friends who want to eat Chinese). If you see a lot of us in a restaurant unaccompanied by old adults, it means the restaurant's food is so good that it has overided our veto of Chinese food.

San Tung is exactly the type of place where you'll see us in hoards, willing to withstand a long wait, in order to consume the deliciousness that is the dried fried chicken (I prefer diced because it requires less work than the wings to eat). I can only explain it this way to the novices: think of Panda Express orange chicken only INFINITELY better. Don't be put off by the use of Panda Express. I think the chickens die willingly for that dish. My other favorites are the sauce noodles and pot stickers. The potstickers are made fresh, though careful not to order too much food because these are the biggest potstickers I've ever seen. I'd actually think about naming my first born Dried Fried Chicken Diced if it weren't for the fact that I'd feel like a hypocrite for making fun of parents who name their kids weird things such as Female and Apple.

Get here really early or really late for lunch and dinner as it gets packed easily. I hear you can call in for a reservation but I've never done that. Parking is huge pain on the weekend but easier on the weekday. It'll delay your consumption of the chicken, which may make you upset.

I've tried their world famous Dry chicken wings a few times, but never dined in. Make sure to stay at the restaurant if you'e waiting, it goes by fast and we almost missed our turn.

Original Dry fried chicken (5/5); This was my first time having it fresh and it definitely met the hype. The rub was drenched in flavor as it was sweet.

String beans (5/5): Very solid, definitely the best vegetable dish

Black Bean sauce noodles (5/5: the noodles were very chewy and the black bean sauce was super yummy.

I definitely enjoyed my experience here.

Food overall was good and service was amazing. We arrived ~1 pm on Saturday and had to wait 15 minutes for our party of 3 before being seated.
- Samsun jajjangmyeon - black bean noodles original: 3/5. Was not the best I had but the seafood was good
- cold noodles: 2/5 not my favorite, wouldn't order again.
The above two had the same noodles and vibe tbh.
- original fried chicken (only wings): 4/5. Very saucy, first bite is good but then the taste of the sauce compounds and is a bit too much.
Food is solid overall though.

If it's your first time, you should anticipate long wait lines and make sure you don't go super hungry. But the wait is worth it trust me.
We always always order original and spicy chicken with black bean noodles. The sauce can get overwhelming at times but it's so delicious regardless . The fried rice are also so well seasoned and they're serving size is great for the price.
Because they're really busy, the service might be slow or frustrating for some, we don't mind it as we understand their hectic business.

Came here on a weeknight for 2 ppl at close to closing time ~7:45pm. Put our name on a long list but surprisingly seated like 15 min. Sat at a big table with other parties (which I've never done before but kudos for efficiency)

Ordered the classic dry wings, jajangmein, hot sour soup and string beans. Wayyy too much food for 2, would just order 2/3 dishes next time.

Classic dry wings were GREAT! And string beans too. I'd pass on the Jajangmein... for some reason the seasoning was lacking.

Overall would come back again and again! Super good price, super quick service!

My boyfriend and I went here before we went to exploratorium after dark and it was super super worth it. We only had breakfast before this so eating at 4:30, we were super hungry

We ordered the black bean noodles and the original fried chicken because it seems it's their best sellers. The food was sooo good! I never had black bean noodles like that! The chicken was also a good mix of sweet, savory and crunchy! I loved the sweet sauce it came with!

We were there exactly at 430 and we were able to seat right away. The place started to get a bit more full while we were eating. The place had a lot of seating area and it was a good layout.

San Tung is SUCH an iconic SF staple. If you haven't already tried their original dry wings, you're missing out! Something about that sticky, spicy, and garlicky sauce is soooo addicting lol.

We tried visiting on a Saturday afternoon, and it probably took ringing their line 10+ times before we were finally able to reach someone. Once we got to the restaurant, the place was BUSY and packed. If you're trying to call in on a busy weekend, definitely keep this in mind! Luckily for us, our call had gone through and our order was ready by the time we arrived (~30 minutes).

I'd recommend the wings (of course)! The wings are always perfectly fried every time I go. They alwayyys load up the sauce too.

The black bean noodles are also a fav of mine. They're served better when dining in; we got this for takeout and if you don't eat the noodles right away, they congeal together quickly.

After much hype, I finally tried the locally famous chicken wings at San Tung and overall I was unimpressed.

We ordered the fried calamari, classic chicken wings, wonton soup, and the combination chow mein. The soup and chow mein were standard and something I could get in a slightly above average fast food restaurant. The calamari and chicken wings were both covered in the same sweet, sour, slightly spicy sauce. Although the meat was juicy, I didn't care for the sauce at all. It was too sticky, overpowering, and nothing special. For what we ate, the tab came out rather pricey.

Unfortunately, I don't understand the hype and feel like this place is rather ordinary. I can't find anything to justify coming back to this establishment.

This place has some of the most reviews in San Francisco so I felt like it must be one of the best restaurants in the city - it's not.

The food here is pretty good, but nothing out of the ordinary

Black bean noodles with beef and seafood - 4/5 - The noodles here are really good and there's generous portions of both meat and seafood. The black bean sauce was good but a little too bland and takes over the flavor of the whole dish.

Original wings - 4/5 -. They come coated in a sticky sauce leaving them crispy but still flavorful. The chicken wasn't as juicy as I like my wings, but they were still good.

The restaurant can get busy fast and the inside is filled with tables in a family style setting. The service is subpar, slightly understandable because it's such a busy restaurant. When my partner said 'ummm' with slight hesitation while ordering our original server walked away and said I'll give you some more time. Never came back, and someone else took our order 15 min later.

Overall this place is a good restaurant but far from one of the best restaurants in the city. Good food but overhyped.

Relatively fast seating at about 11 noon on a Sunday. The line really picked up at 1p, up to 20 people waiting outside. It gets chilly waiting outdoors.

Ordered their famous fried chicken- good proportions, crispy, and sweet. They honored our request for slightly less spicy.

Their honey walnut prawns were light and crispy. But the walnuts tasted a little raw and the sugar wasn't caramelized or melted enough.

The string beans were great until we found a large steel wool filament in it. The string beans were crispy and well seasoned. The staff did replace the string beans with another plate of string beans when we showed them. Pretty fuss free.

The eggplants were interesting... deskinned and reminiscent of bamboo shoots. Never had eggplants prepared this way. Seems like they steamed the whole thing in oil?

TLDR; order the chicken wings and eat string beans with caution. Still glad I checked the place out.

Not particularly a wing gal, but this place is known for their wings (dry fried chicken), so after some back and forth and multiple people telling us we had to get them, we got them, and I can see why they are the shinning star here.

Wings were full of flavor from the sticky glaze, juicy on the inside, and crispy on the outside, exactly what you want. Along with the wings we also got some potstickers and fried rice, both of which were good.

Food came up quick but still tasted super fresh. We had a pretty long wait before we were seated, and actually missed our name being called, but I talked to one of the people calling out names and they remembered us so they got us in as soon as there was space.