Dragon House Restaurant

This place closed for remodeling in late 2007, but never reopened.
It has been replaced by «Watami Shabu Shabu and Ramen» in February 2008.
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This was one of my favorite places for cheap chinese food. In addition they also served Shanghai-​style cuisine. The food was usually well prepared, service was fast, and the owners (2 sisters) were always very nice and accomodating.
I’m sad that this place is now gone. They had 2 vegetarian dishes that I loved: A fake chicken appetizer, and a fake goose with mushrooms, both made with a soy-​based meat substitute. They were delicious! and sadly no other place in SF has anything nearly as good.

THIS PLACE IS CLOSED. Lost their lease to a greedy landlord.

I love the food here. Sit-​down or take-​out. :-)
Delicious americanized Chinese food at its best.
Good for groups.
Service is decent, once you get used to the ESL. They’re actually friendly though.

I am so sad that this restaurant is now closed. This has been one of my favorite Chinese food for the last 10 years when my husband (then boyfriend) introduced this restaurant. We love all the dishes because it’s always fresh and great value. When we tried going there tonight and saw the sign we were wondering what is going on. Now I understand from other people’s posting that they are gone for good.
I have no favorite Chinese restaurant anymore in the entire Bay area :(:(

we came here for the dim sum. it wasnt spectacular. .but the line was super duper long filled with chinese families. i guess that means they must have been doing s’thing right. I dont understand why they don’t speak english very much… nor do they speak mandarin. :(Makes communicating very hard.

I have to start with the fact that I haven’t been here in a few years, but for good reason!
My family used to come here for birthday dinners and such — food was pretty good for the price. We always got the same thing: steamed fish, «honey» walnut prawns, salt and pepper shrimp, steamed clams w/​black bean sauce, etc. The place wasn’t as clean as I’d like but, to dis my own heritage, chinese restaurants are rarely squeaky clean.
So the reason we stopped going here: my mom had come out of the bathroom and a while later (after a few ladies went in and left, mind you!) one of the waitresses said in chinese that the toilet had gotten stuck and the sink was a mess AND they accused my mom of doing it! They were obviously talking between themselves but didn’t try to be secretive or anything. The nerve!
I’m being generous for two stars but for the rest of you, it’s good enough if you want to get the chinese food fix.

It’s good. Not something you would get at a top quality «wine floor» place, but reasonably priced and with good food all round. (yes, I would choose to go here more often than those fancy places, anyway… =)). It reminds of the good stuff I had when I was a wee tyke painting the town red with my family at all the chinese places. The owners are nice… a place that you can go eat at regularly. I like their westlake beef soup. The shanghai style cake noodles are pretty good, too.

Really good shanghai-​style smoked fish and rice cakes with pork and cabbage. Also has soy milk and you tiao (chinese fried donuts). Yum!

I decided to check this place out since it was in my neighborhood and the reviews sounded decent. My experience mimicked some of the other reviews like an episode of Twlight Zone. A bit freaky but overall a good experience. I had the ma-​po tofu and Shanghai noodles. The ma-​po tofu was spicy enough and they used the right kind of tofu. The noodles weren’t too greasy and for the price, you get enough.

Everyone has that worn out pair of jeans that they can’t bare to throw out. You know, the leg cuffs are tattered, there’s various ink /​paint /​grease stains embedded in the fiber of the denim, and the fabric around the rivets attaching the pockets are showing signs of fray. Yet, nothing is more comfortable than those broken in, beloved jeans.
Well Dragon House is similar to those jeans. Easily comforting whenever you put them on.
The food is pretty good and certainly not lacking in authenticity. The prices are pretty cheap and portions are reasonable. Dinner is good, but the jewel of this establishment is the Shanghainese /​Taiwanese style weekend brunch. Their warm sweet soy milk and fried donuts are both homemade and made completely in house (For those that don’t know, most Chinese restaurants don’t bother making their donuts from scratch — they purchase the ready made dough from their noodle distributor. These guys go all out and make the dough themselves — a definite must-​try) The balance of their brunch menu is quite good, though their Shanghai steamed dumpling isn’t a quite up to stuff.
As far as décor, they recently spruced up the place by using pink tablecloths instead of white tablecloths. This place will definitely not get your date in a romantic mood. It would be mean to call this place a dive, but regrettably the truth hurts. But trying to change this place would be the same as trying to mend that hole in those jeans — it may make it a little bit better, but I prefer them the way they are.

This is where the gay male Joy Luck club will come and have dinner everytime we finish playing a good couple of rounds of mah jong. Yes, we are like the Joy Luck club, we have lots of food, drink lots of tea, talk a lot of gossip in Chinese and we have relationship dramas… well except me, I think I might be the male version of Waverly.
But anyways… back to this place. The 2 ladies of this place knows us and are very freindly but kind of suprise why they never ask us why there are no females has ever come with us yet. Their food is a good mixture of various regions. The Shanghai, Hunan and Cantonese style. We usually order off the special Chinese menu in which their dishes on that list is $ 5.95, since all of us can read Chinese that is the best way to go. So if you go there, best thing to do is bring a friend who knows Chinese. I know it is kind of bias, if all the food that is on those menu is ever was translated in English, you guys will probably be gross out.
They do an good honey walnut prawns and my favorite is their cripsy chicken. The veggies are pretty good if you give them free rein to helping you choose because they know which of those veggies are the most freshest. Also the steel plate beef is also very good here. Every time I come here I have yet paid over 10 bucks per person yet. Though it is not a nice restaurant more like a hole in the wall. The food has always been consisent and the people very friendly here.
Head over here if you want to do something lowkey. This is the place to go.

I was in the neighborhood so I thought I’d get some chinese food. I started with a special wonton soup which had almost no flavor, even after injecting a ton of soy sauce. I also had a chicken with mushroom dish. The chicken was very similar to rubber. Flavor was OK but the ingredients weren’t too high quality. I give 3 stars though because they are very friendly and the service is good. Oh well :)

I generally do a lot of take out from this restaurant. Joanne and Amy are always very helpful with my ordering as some of the dishes I order are not available on the menu.. .one of my favorites is tomato beef noodles (Shanghi style) with extra curry sauce.. . amazingly yummy — enough for 2 generous meals. Another favorite of mine is wonton and pork with gravy. .double yum.. . i have tried a number of their dishes and they were all excellent and within my budget.. most dishes are in the $ 7.00 range. .

***8.24.07 The sign says closed for remodeling but the word is that the owners (the sisters) retired and sold the business. I’m curious to see how much of it will change.
The food here is usually a sure bet. No frills and pretty clean. The 2 ladies who run it are friendly but also take no guff. They speak really good English too. My mom goes here all the time and she’s super picky about the Chinese restaurants we go to. Some of my favorite dishes are:
Shanghai style chow mein (lean bits of pork and spinach with thick noodles with a dark soy type sauce)
seafood chow mein (thick noodles with really fresh shrimp, calamari, scallops, mushrooms)
large leaf pea shoots (so good!)
salted fish and chicken fried rice (comfort food!)
vermicelli noodle soup with preserved mustard greens and lean pork)
hot and sour soup (excellent here. Say what you will about this type of soup but nothing beats it on a cold day!)
There is so much more that is great. I truly haven’t had a thing here that I wouldn’t eat again.
Ordering to go over the phone can be a little brusque. «Hello. Dragon House.» and then after you’ve ordered what you want, «Okay. 15 minutes» click. That’s it. No asking your name or phone number or even giving you an idea of what the bill is. So if you order over the phone, be sure to ask.

Dragon House serves good cheap comfort food in the richmond. Most lunch rice plates are under $ 5. They have several different styles including Shanghainese, Cantonese, Hunan dishes. Don’t be surprised if the little old waitress ladies (sisters?) tell you the dish you’re ordering is too spicy for you & that spicy foods aren’t that good for you. Doesn’t that make you feel like home? I think my mom used to tell me that.

Cheap, tasty Chinese food in a simple space on Geary. The Hong Kong style Chow mein and crispy fried chicken are my favorites.

My cute little grandma used to walk the 6 blocks from my house to this restaurant. Ever since she’s moved, she’s craved coming back here! My philosophy: if your grandma loves it, it’s gotta be good.
I was reminded of how great the food was today. The family went there for a traditional shanghainese brunch — sweet soy milk, Chinese style donuts (you tiao), onion pancakes, and rice cakes with napa cabbage and pork (just to name a few).
The wait staff is absolutely fantastic. We went in there today and it’s the same few Chinese ladies serving all the time. My grandma hasn’t been there in years, and our waitress still remembered her and asked how she was doing! It made the meal all the better. The most incredible thing — this if the ONLY restaurant where I have EVER had a waitress tell me we’ve ordered too much food. She was absolutely right but everything is so good we couldn’t resist.
This place is definitely worth a try if you haven’t been before!

Straight out chinese dive. On the QT, nothing hip or cool about it but the food! All out asian crowd (good sign). The food was fresh, seasoned, tasty. Try the cod or soy sauce pigeon. Had some mushroom dish with veggies. MMM. We were going to Hong Kong Flower Lounge next door (a guaranteed favorite, but pricier) but couldn’t get seated right away and decided to try this place. Picky moms might choose Jif, but mine actually gave the thumbs up to this place.