Help with a chinese restaurant

[noelb]

Hi
Visiting SF for 4 days , last here about 10 and 15 years ago.
On both those occasions we ate at a little "hole in the wall" Chinese restaurant, on the periphery of Chinatown if I recall correctly. Extremely busy with a substantial queue outside the door, very crowded and doing great food with many of the recipes using Tsing Tao beer as a base ingredient.
Is it still in business? If so , if anybody recognizes it from my admittedly vague description, is it still good and could I get an address?
Also grateful for other suggestions , especially northern chinese .Eating at Zuni one night , other thoughts also welcome.
Thanks
Noel B

[PeterL]

House of Nanking was never good, and the tradition continues. Sure lots of people go there, same with Olive Garden.

[OldTimer]

I went to H of N many years ago, shortly after it opened. Never went back. Still wonder why anyone would go. I suspect there may be opium in the sickening sweet c..p they put on everything. The fans are then hooked. How clever!

[Robert Lauriston]

Actually, the first month or two it was open, House of Nanking was great. It's still possible to eat well there if you order the right things.

[sydthekyd]

Well, okay, what are the "right things" to order?

[Robert Lauriston]

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/508220#3622919

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/44162#217084

http://books.google.com/books?id=G7ON...

[wolfe]

Here is an RL linked review so you don't need to scroll through a whole thread.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article...

[poot]

The food was yummy for quite a while. I think I was there within a week of the opening and went back many times over the next couple of years. The ambiance was just what I like in an unpretentious Chinese place, the food was utterly fresh, and the fried eggplant appetizers were delicious. I had not been for a long time before a visit four or five years ago and was really disappointed. Does the same couple still own the place? I quite liked them, especially the husband, who did most of the the cooking.

[Robert Lauriston]

Peter Fang, yeah.

[Chandavkl]

House of Nanking is exhibit A for the proposition that long lines of people waiting to get in does not always equate to good food. (Stinking Rose up the block on Columbus would be exhibit B.) House of Nanking is the only restaurant in Chinatown that consistently has lines of people waiting to get in, even on week nights in January. Sometimes they even have velvet ropes for crowd control. However, I would only recommend this place to my worst enemy, and only if I were in a bad mood at the time.

[walker]

I agree with all of your post. Maybe H of N was good years ago but I'll never go back. The only thing worth eating last time I was there was the vegetable dumplings. I don't understand that line, at all. Ate at Stinking Rose once, would never go back there, either.

[kc72]

Think you're talking about House of Nanking, probably a number of other options I'd go before letting someone take me there

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House of Nanking
919 Kearny St, San Francisco, CA 94133

[noelb]

Hmmm..doesn't sound as though its as good now as i recall it from previuos visits
?alternatives you would recommend..we're Australian , widely eaten in SE asia with a predilection especially for Hawker style (singapore, KL, HK) and northern chinese food
hanks

[Cary]

Sorry, excuse my ignorance, but what do you mean by "Hawker style"?

[yimster]

In Singapore they have street vendors serving many style of Chinese or SE Asia Chinese food. Like the Pang brothers served before they developed Fung Lum.

As far as I know there is no Hawker food in SF.

In the East Bay and South Bay there maybe a couple but I have not been in a long time so I would not like to make any recommendations.

[K K]

Hawker style is synonymous with "dai pai dong" in Cantonese.

[PeterL]

It's like a food court on steroids. Kind of like the food court in the SF downtown mall, only a lot bigger and cheaper, and the food better.