Hakka Restaurant

Tried out this restaurant. Great place for large groups in the Richmond area. Decent sized portions and unique Hakka-​style dishes.

This piace it’s great! When I order take out its ready in 10 minutes and they very friendly.

I was pleasantly surprised by the food that we had at Hakka Restaurant. The dishes were large and quality was above average in regards to most Asian restaurants. We opted to order a la carte as opposed to a set menu, and I definitely recommend this as the way to go if you want to try a variety of menu items.
Favorite dishes of the night:
Whole steamed chicken — juicy, tender and had a flavor unlike the ginger/​scallion
Ox tail clay pot — so much ox tail!
Sauteed pea sprouts — fresh and crisp
Pumpkin coated in salted egg yolk — salty, sweet… I didn’t think I would enjoy this dish as much as I did
Least favorite dishes of the night:
Catfish and bitter melon clay pot — fish wasn’t cleaned well, tasted fishy
Fried tofu and fried eggplant — though seasoned well… the fried eggplant just didn’t hit the spot. It tasted like tempura vegetable.
Sweet and sour pork — apparently, they prep it exactly how hakka cuisine calls for it, but it was definitely on the sour side for me and nothing too special
Other orders:
Sticky rice in lotus leaves
Lamb with sauteed vegetables
All in all, it was a good meal

Great Chinese food in the Outer Richmond district of SF. The staff are fast, friendly, and speak English well. There’s also an upstairs when the place is packed. For Chinese New Year, it’s the perfect restaurant to have a family feast. Parking can be a challenge, especially at dinner time, as with any SF neighborhood. They bring out complimentary soup and dessert. There’s always plenty to take home for seconds the next day. I love me some Hakka cuisine! Get the pork belly, pan-​fried stuffed tofu, eggplant, fish, fried pumpkin, and many more authentic dishes.
This used to be owned by The Claypot House before selling it to the owners of Hakka. Can’t wait to have our Chinese New Year dinner here, extremely festive. I can’t hear anyone during dinner, they’re hella loud, good way to avoid conversations with the family HA!
Happy Year of the Monkey ~ prosperity to all =)

Service: Our server looked like she would rather be lying in a ditch than serving us.
Price: What you would expect from a run-​down Chinese restaurant.
Food: Everything is seasoned well, but the amount of oil they add to their dishes is vomit-​inducing. literally. I yakked 10 minutes after dining here.
Conclusion: If you like interacting with rude servers and often down a pint of oil at every meal, this is the perfect restaurant for you.

If I could give zero stars I would!
Sequence of events in order: found a bug in our soup, obviously we were not happy about it so we placed our bowls back on the table, server approaches and says with a smirk on her rude face, «oh you’re not going to eat that right?», had it taken away with no pause for our answer or even an offer for a replacement, found a rock (YES, a piece of ROCK) in our lotus wrapped sticky rice, which we passed along to the server who just inspected it and walked away with it, AGAIN with no offer of a replacement or even any sincere apology, then were given no complimentary dessert, got charged for the wrong amount on our bill, left with a bitter taste in our mouth for such a sour night, and currently paying for it all on the toilet. FML
PLEASE AVOID AT ALL COSTS!
Obviously this place does not take cleanliness or sanitation seriously. I’ve attached a notice that even Unilocal tacked on for this establishment.
Please reconsider if you even think about coming here!

Authentic Hakka style food!
If you would like to eat their signature salt baked chicken dish, make sure you order in advanced with your reservation. I did order 3 chicken for our Chinese new year dinner. Our group only ate 2 chicken, and the restaurant owner ask us if we want the 3^rd one since they are run out of chicken :)
So make sure you order in advance, since they occasionally run out of salt baked chicken!

Always satisfied when I come here. Food is delicious to the point where its definitely a go-​to place if I can’t decide what to eat in San Francisco and you need to accommodate to the taste buds of your elderly Chinese relatives.
I havent tried anything i didnt like so far but im going to call out the Lotus fried rice and quail because it is on point. So personally I feel like you can’t really go wrong with anything you order here. Complimentary piping hot soup and dessert is great for a cold day.

( Unilocal — three stars is «A-​OK»?)
Anyway, any place that doesn’t pass health dept inspections should not get more than 3 stars.
I really have a formula for a 4-​star restaurant: clean kitchen, clean dining room, fresh ingredients, average service, average cooking skills. Am I asking too much.

Last night we tried Hakka Restaurant in the Outer Richmond of San Francisco. We arrived at 7:40 pm and the place was packed with large tables with a large table party waiting but my daughter was able to get the last available table. No wait.
Our waitress was very patient as we decided on our order. Service was excellent as our plates filled with shells and bones they were promptly exchanged. The food came out fast.
We ordered the following:
Surf Clam 4 stars
Minced pork and garlic clams 4 stars
Stir fried pea sprouts 4 stars
Crab with salty duck egg yolk batter 5 stars best dish of the night salty and savory a must order
Honey and black bean sauce pork ribs 4 stars
Fresh bass with pork and pickled mustard greens sauce 2 stars the bass was over cooked and the sauce was strange It over powered the fish.
Parking is not easy in this area. $ 141 before tip.

The food here is really good. The flavors are on point and well seasoned. The short ribs with black pepper & honey sauce is insanely good. The house special steamed chicken is really tender and flavorful. The prawn with maggi sauce is also really good as well. Honestly, everything here is pretty good.
My only gripe is that I found a few dead ants in my sautéed veggies. The veggies are really good but if you don’t look closely you’ll be getting extra protein that you didn’t ask for.

A group of 16 or so of us came in on a Friday afternoon and got two tables. I kind of felt bad for the woman who was the only server working at that time of day. She wasn’t the most friendly, but she served our tables well. (Like my mom tried to ask her to bring some forks and a few glasses of water, and when she came back bringing out food without forks or water, my mom gently reminded her, and she said [in Chinese], «I know, I know! Food more important!» … which was actually kind of funny.)
She also tried to be helpful and told me which dishes were vegetarian, although there ended up being only one dish I could eat because the other vegetarian/​vegan dishes she pointed out contained wheat (not her fault, as my uncle didn’t make clear to her what I could eat).
But my uncle has been ordering take-​out from here for years, and he has always been able to get me this delicious Gai-​Lan (Chinese broccoli) dish made with a white wine sauce. He made sure to get that again here, as well as a Chinese mustard greens dish with garlic. Both were quite good.

I generally get takeout, maybe once or twice a month. I’ve eaten here but I’d prefer takeout mainly due to the long line + grimeyness of the place. But that’s all good chinese restaurants right?! Peep the line! It says a lot about the place. It pretty much shut down the place that used to be on 45^th and Balboa.
Bonus points cus the boss lady knows I’m always picking up.
My go-​to order for me and my family:
— salt and pepper pork chops
— salt baked chicken (this is bomb. — like, so bomb that I’m trying to make my own version at home)
— fried pumpkin with salted egg
— waat daan ngow yook fan (I’ve never been sure what this is in English but it’s pretty much a slimey egg + beef over rice)
— garlic gai lan
Pro tip:
If you’re picking up takeout, walk straight to the register toward the back and push your way up to pay. Only the boss lady handles the $ so don’t try to pay any ol’ waiter.

Update: I came here for the 2^nd time in a month, and I wasn’t as happy as my previous times. Downgrading my vote.
Why?
— Grimy, dirty dishes. My plate had a ring of dirt around the edge and bottom
— In general, service wasn’t that good. When I’ve previously come, it’s been with people who frequent this restaurant, so we got attentive service. But when I was here with a different group, the service was rushed and impersonal.
— Let’s be real… afterwards nearly everyone in my group had to go #2 in the bathroom. The food was pretty greasy and didn’t sit well. One person said it just had an overall dirty feel.
And now onto the positive–
The food still tasted good, even though it has that hole-​in-​the-​wall feel. We liked the the steamed crab w/​green onion sauce atop vermicelli noodles, the popular crispy chicken sticky rice, the pan-​fried tofu was tasty, and house special basil clams. Though I wasn’t a fan of how they cooked their gai lan (with a sweeter rice vinegar sauce).
Another thing– it’s all Chinese customers at this place. Hakka village food– this place serves authentic dishes.

The restaurant is packed at 6:30 pm on a Saturday evening. Most tables are big which serves about 10 people. If your party is 4 or less, you should get there about 6 pm to avoid waiting for a table.
I went with 2 other people. We had 4 dishes. Plenty of food with leftover too.
What we had:
1) Pumpkin with salty egg: Good
2) Pork belly: Fine
3) Black pepper fried Clam: Very good but a bit salty
4) House special tofu: Good
Check out my pictures.

Got the 4 person set menu that had most of the traditional Hakka dishes on there. A few standouts are the braised pork with preserved veggies (best I have had in the Bay), and the fried tofu and zucchini dish! The fried tofu had substance and didn’t feel greasy or unfresh. Their salt baked chicken was pretty good! It was soft and the skin had a slight crisp to it. The dipping sauce was a bit grainy, probably due to spices. I wanted to try the fried pumpkin, but they don’t have half orders and the order is huge, so maybe when I bring more people next time I will order it.
The pork stomach dish was whatever. Wasn’t really a fan. The beef dish was whatever as well — the beef was marinated way too soft that it seemed very fake. The 4 person set menu was a pretty good deal, so even if one or two dishes were whatever, it was still worth it. Portions are pretty big so plenty of leftovers!

~ Hozzie Bear says… ~
What do you get when you order fish bladder in your saucy rice?
Some Maw the Fukien Fried Rice!
Hakka hakka hakkaaa!
(-_​^) Chinese Bacon w Al Green $ 11.95* (
)
(-_​^) Baked Crab w Yellow Submayolk $ 49.95* (
)
(#_​#) Fukien Fried Rice #isathingbtw (
)
Bring your family.
And your family’s family.
Plus like 2 token white families.
That’s how packed it gets.
Don’t RSVP; I didn’t & got a 5-​top.
Wall posters have a few off-​menu items.
3 ½ rounded up for cray menu & «entertainment».
*Not menu price but receipt price, which they say includes tax.

Awesome chinese food
Pork belly is a must!!!
If you don’t know what to order their menu has pictures
Clean, casual atmosphere
Don’t expect fancy service. It is a chinese restaurant that focus on their awesome food;)

Great Hakka food (a type of Chinese food different than Cantonese food and other regional specialities). The place is no frills and seems like your typical humble Chinese restaurant but rest assured the food isn’t typical. Prices are reasonable for chinese sit down.
The specialty is «stuffed chicken» which is really whole fried chicken skin on top of sticky rice cooked with Chinese sausages. It will taste greasy and indulgent but it will different from anything else you’ve ever had. There isn’t as much chicken as I would have liked and it’s mostly rice but definitely an experience. It normally requires advance ordering (I think the day before) but we managed to get it on the spot.
There was also a giant clam with glass noodles inside the shell that was excellent. Comes in two shells.
The fish and tofu clay pot is excellent too.
Service is prompt but don’t expect any of that non Chinese restaurant smile and friendliness!

I wasn’t wowed, but would still recommend this place. Here’s why: the food tastes exactly what I eat at home with family. For me, it’s too ordinary but it’s also a good testament of how authentic the food is
Ordered all their signature items: Stickey Rice in Lotus Lead ($ 12.95) Pumpkin Strips with Salted Egg ($ 7.95), Turnips & Spareribs in Clay Pot ($ 8.95), Chinese Bacon with Preserved Green ($ 10.95).
No complaints with the food and it seems the local loves it as well. My aunt loves coming here and its’ been a weekly thing for her recently. The boss lady has a great relationship with the customers as well. She was so sweet in coming over to talk to us and even gave us a slight customer loyalty discount.
Like I said, I get this food at home often, but I would recommend it to others to try.