Wing Lum

Howdy folks. This is by far my favorite Chinese restaurant in the city of San Francisco. I know that there are many Chinese restaurants in San Francisco that offer competition. But this establishment gets five stars from me which is significant because I don’t pass out five stars generously. But Wing Lum deserves every bit of those five stars.
Ok I know there are a lot of good Chinese restaurants out there. But there is usually something I don’t like about them. The portions aren’t big enough. They won’t take the vegetables out of the fried rice (I don’t do vegi’s). The servers are unfriendly. Too over priced for what you get. Not here at Wing Lum. Everything from the quality and portions of the food served to the service and price is right on the mark with what a good Chinese restaurant should be.
Lets focus on the food right now. I’m sorry but nobody does it right like Wing Lum does it. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, I do realize that there are a lot of good Chinese restaurants out there. Especially in a city like San Francisco. But no matter where I am at the moment, I will go out of my way to be able to eat at Wing Lum. I recommend their sweet and sour pork. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Not only is it delicious but they give you a lot of it. By the time time you finish you will be full. :-) The great thing is it won’t cost you an arm and a leg to get full either.
The same waiter always waits on me and my friend every time we go in there. He’s always super friendly and very prompt with the service. You never have to get his attention for anything. That is the sign of a good waiter. He pays attention to his customers so they don’t have to come to him for service. He’s right on it.
I could go on and on saying good things about this place. But I think you all get the idea. Wing Lum is a groovey place to get some excellent Chinese food in the beautiful city by the bay. Alright! Yeah! Uhhhh!

I don’t know what kind of chicken they use but it doesn’t taste or look like chicken. I wouldn’t eat here again if you’d pay me.

I ate here a year ago and was disappointed in the Honey Walnut Prawns; no honey glazed walnuts, no honey at all, or walnuts for that matter, just mayonnaise sauced fried prawns (luke warm) with plain cold cashew nuts. This was a very poor showing for a dish that many consider the benchmark of a Mandarin Hunan cuisine.
(Fast forward to tonight) I hosted a dear friend for dinner at the Wing Lum restaurant (his choice). My friend is their very frequent customer and has a good relationship with the waiter John, both being on a first name basis. I ordered a Budweiser and was told that they only have a selection of imported bottled beers. Okay, Heineken will have to do. My friend is fond of the cashew chicken and alas is frequently constrained by a rather tight budget. What we finally decided we truly wanted this evening was Honey Walnut Prawns. I ordered a dish of combination chow fun to share. The chow fun came in good time but both the noodles and morsels were luke warm, not heated through at all as one would expect. Our Honey Walnut Prawns came shortly thereafter; the prawns were completely tepid (luke warm) and the accompanying nuts were, you guessed it, cashews not walnuts, and also bore no honey glaze. I announced the deficiency to John. His explanation to me was that the honey was in the mayonnaise and that they use cashews. Had I not been with a friend who had a customer relationship with John, all three dishes would have gone back to the kitchen for an appropriate addition to their compost bin.
I am not fond of plain cold cashews. I ate what I could of the cold chow fun and sent my inedible prawns home with my friend. John received a 25% tip from me which totaled my at around $ 52. My friend waited outside as I discretely explained the nature of my dissatisfaction to John. I lost all respect for the smiling «cheat and retreat» tactics to which I was treated; «We don’t use walnuts. You come back and see us again», complete with good buddy reassuring pat on my upper arm.
I made nice and gave John a chance to do damage control with me, honestly telling him that I intended to write a negative review. Thanks to Unilocal I have a forum in which to warn the unsuspecting. My fault I fear for allowing myself to be played for a schmuck. Never again.

We found this place just by walking around the city. The food was extremely delicious, very tasty! They also have great service, the server was very helpful. This place deserves more stars than it currently has.

Fast and large portions. The restaurant décor is hilarious — feels like you are in a gift shop — however it has a charm to it. Share you food — each plate can feed 2.
Has a good lunch special — that’s what I got here.

This isn’t the cheapest but its really reasonable (under $ 10 for lunch specials) and everything is so good! The honey walnut shrimp are SO GOOD. Also the dining area is so cool! Tucked away you won’t even realize you’re right off of Polk. We live in the neighborhood and love it! Plus the guy who works there is awesome.

Wing Lum is my favorite casual Chinese place in San Francisco. Food quality is very good, service is friendly, they deliver, and they are open late. What more could you ask for?

I work the graveyard shift at a nearby hotel and we always order from here. Open late and occasionally deliver late too. Food is tasty especially the lemon pepper pork and pork chow mien. People are extra friendly and through in a little extra «sumptin sumptin» since we order for a big group. We recommend this place to all of our guests looking for some late night eats.
PS: probably tastes like heaven when you are drunk.

I’m not sure what part of China these people are from. They are definitely not from the part that makes good food. I ordered chicken w green beans and beef with broccoli. It was sour and the egg drop soup had no flavor. I would say this is the worst Chinese food I ever ate. I have had the best Chinese food in New York in china town and even the most crappy food in New York is better than this.

Another great find for dinner near my hotel in Nob Hill. While the place has some funky… maybe even tacky decorations, don’t let that detract you from coming here. The server was super attentive while still feeling very homey and cozy as if we walked into his house and he was trying his best to be the perfect host. We ordered the lemon chicken and the chicken egg foo yung. The food came faster than expected and you could tell it was freshly prepared. The food was great and for the price we got a huger portion. Definitely glad we stopped here for dinner.

Family of six
Had wonton soup fantastic
Eggs rolls were over cooked
Sweet and sour chicken dish wiped clean
Chicken wings plate finished
Chow mien hardly touched as the portions were quite large and Mongolian beef which we took home we were full.
Not as cheap as I thought but consider each dish we didn’t really touch was 10 each 10 bucks a head for good food I think is a good deal.

Really friendly guys who run this joint, and you know what? Good customer service counts for something in the restaurant industry, especially the Chinese one – they make sure everything is right, and recognize their repeat customers accordingly.
They customize pretty much everything on the menu to your liking – spicy? Yep. Pork instead of chicken? Okay! Extra sauce/​pork/​green onion? No problem!
This is the only Chinese restaurant I go to anymore. I would have deducted them a star for not having Eat24, but I find that hardly fair, as these guys work really hard and make the best CHINESE AMERICAN food in the area (nothing exotic, everything familiar, comfortable, and tasty).
My favorite Chinese place in the city. A really mixed crowd – Chinese, a lot of Mexicans, Russian Americans like me, etc.

This place is exceptional. We came in last night late and starving. The service we received was unbelievable. We barely had to lift a finger. The place was really cool and the ambiance was nice. Oh and the food, best Chinese food hands down I’ve ever had!

I love this place and have been coming here for about 10 yrs. Love the owner and his employees they are all VERY nice. When my parents come to visit from Mexico and my sister from Chicago they all ASK for Wing LUM. They all remember and love this place, they have said this is the best Chinese food they have ever had. YUMMY.

So i love there Won Ton Soups and there pot stickers. I work a few blocks away and always use them when im sick and just want to munch on something.

So first time i ordered from here i ordered a dinner special
It came fast and was cheap
Two egg rolls sweet n sour and soy sauce
One big soup sweet n sour and really good
Rice
Meatless chicken
Fortune cookie
They forgot the tea
Second i called on Saturday and tried to order a lunch. Special but i forgot that is m-​f
He said no. Prob
Again fast and cheap
Wonton strips sweet n sour sauce soy sauce
Cutlery napkins
Small sweet n sour soup not as good this time but still good this time the color was more yellow than pink-​red
Tofu over rice with veggie hot and delicious
Meatless salad creamy!
I will order from here again

Tl;dr version: Best Sweet & Sour Chicken in the known universe
—-
«That’s enough!» you yell at your henchman. He pauses mid-​strike, glances at you, nods, and re-​holsters the Glock 9 he was using to pistol-​whip who seems to be the lead physicist of the group.
You’ve taken over the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator ever created. Since this device can smash subatomic particles together and reproduce the energies that existed a fraction of a second after the big bang, along with creating Z bosons, pi mesons, and the strange quarks that construct the fabric of the universe, you are pretty certain that you can use this thing to make the best Sweet and Sour Chicken of all time and dimensional spectrums.
«What’s your name?» you ask the battered scientist.
«Christoph. Christoph Virdee. Please. I have two kids. I just want to go home. What you are asking is not even possible. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. You want to make Sweet and Sour Chicken as you imagine it would taste like if you were an extra in John Carpenter’s „Big Trouble in Little China“ in the 1986 version of San Francisco’s China Town? It’s insanity! There’s no way to calibrate that. No way at all! This is not even remotely possible. This machine does not work like…,» you shoot him in the forehead.
«Would anyone else like to tell me why this will not work?» you ask the twenty or so scientists you’ve taken hostage. You are genuinely asking for their advice because you are starting to second guess your plan but you kind of get why no one is responding, given that you just shot that dude. «I am never going to eat a goddamn weed brownie again,» you think to yourself, reflecting on the increasingly absurd situation you have got yourself into for the purpose of getting decent Sweet and Sour Chicken. Shake it off.
«It’s time,» you tell Matt Reaver, the head of your freelance group of armed thugs.
«Signing up to be a Task Rabbit has ruined my life,» Matt thinks to himself, as he drops a live chicken, 1 cup cornstarch, 2 eggs beaten, 3 tablespoons light brown sugar, ½ cup white distilled vinegar, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 teaspoon garlic salt, and 1 cup canned pineapple chunk into the Large Hadron Collider.
«Yes!» you hiss, as the ingredients collide at 7 teraelectronvolts per nucleon. Time, space, and matter fold infinitely onto itself, and in the nanoseconds of a cosmic clap, the universe and existence as we can faintly comprehend it cease being.
6 BILLION YEARS LATER…
«I told you Wing Lum has the best Sweet and Sour Chicken ever made!’ you tell your roommate, Matt, as you eat dinner in the restaurant.
«It is the best,» he sighs. He looks distraught. «I just can’t shake this feeling. Like, what do you call it? Déjà vu? It… I don’t know. It’s the most delicious Sweet and Sour Chicken I’ve ever had, but… it tastes kind of like… doom…if that makes any sense.»
«Fuck no it doesn’t!» you yell, as the weed brownie you ate earlier starts to kick in and your eyes roll wildly around in their sockets. «Hydroman collaborator!» you blurt out, not knowing why. The impression of a laughing crow’s skulls fills every single piece of your brain matter, exploding through your fragile dendrites and killing you instantly. Your head hits the table and Matt vomits.
In the immeasurable slimmer of time that takes place between your corporeal existence ending and the transcendence of soul to universe, you hold audience to the incomprehensibly powerful being that has taken the form of a crow’s skull.
«You have much to atone for,» the ancient god from forgotten dimensions transmits to you. «Your concept of pain is but a feather’s touch to the horrors I shall impart on you.»
Billions of years of reincarnation open to your mind’s eye and you recall a time eons ago where you destroyed the entire universe.
«Oh shit!» you gasp. «Did I end all of existence to try to make Sweet and Sour Chicken?»
«Yeah,» he says. «It was kind of a dick move.» He glances around uncomfortably.
«I’m sorry about that,» you say. «You can tell I’m lying, huh? That I’m not really sorry.»
«Yeah,» he mumbles. «It was, I mean, that was just really, really unnecessary. I just kind of don’t get it.»
«To be honest, that was a pretty weird period of time in my life, I was super into weed brownies, and it just made me make some really bad decisions.» Pull the weed brownie from your cosmic ghost pocket and take a bite. Don’t break eye contact with the crow’s skull while chewing.
«Seriously dude? Seriously?» the all-​powerful deity asks in disbelief, as you bite off more than the recommended serving. «Not cool man.»

Waiter was extremely kind and attentive to us. The food came fast and was SOOO good. Don’t mind the funny decorations, this place is great! We intentionally didn’t check Unilocal before we came in because you guys are all assholes. I plan on coming back many times.

The guy was nice, but the black bean fish was made entirely of msg and the garlic eggplant tasted entirely syrupy.
Also they forgot our tea and couldn’t get the food out at the same time, despite the fact that the only other patrons had already been served
In a hilarious cherry on the top of the Sunday of awfulness that was our experience, the fortune cookies were not in wrappers and mine was missing its fortune.
Someone stole my fortune dangit! There will be heck to pay.

I never thought I’d say it, but Wing Lum was the restaurant that saved Christmas!
My friends and I have an annual Dec. 25^th tradition. We catch a matinée at the AMC Van Ness, and then we duck in to Mel’s Diner next door for a bite to eat. Unfortunately, the line to get in to Mel’s this year was out the door. We searched up and down Van Ness and Polk Street for a plan B. We pretty much heard an angel choir singing when we saw the Open sign at Wing Lum.
The décor of the place is pretty funky. Lots of fountains, pastel colors, plants, and weird ornaments (none of which really seemed to match). But we didn’t care — we were hungry, and these guys were serving.
Normally, I’m leary of restaurants that have menus a with a long laundry list of food options. Wing Lum’s menu is HUGE. They had over 244 choices (no joke) to select from. Since I was hungry and unfamiliar with the quality of the food, I decided to stick with tried and true Chinese favorites — pot stickers and chicken fried rice. My friends order the prawn fried rice and the no-​fried lemon chicken (which is a cute way of saying tofu). Everything turned out to be just fine. The pot stickers were a bit on the doughy side, but the pork filling was tasty. Plus, we got 8 in our order, so it was easy to share. You’re lucky to get six pot stickers per order at most restaurants. My chicken fried rice was also decent. The chicken and veggies were plentiful. The rice was a bit on the greasy side, but it all tasted good.
Prices are reasonable. Service is efficient. Thanks, Wing Lum for saving our Christmas!