various plates of dim sum

I received this great dim sum restaurant suggestion from Fog City Foodie after he read my post soliciting for Suggestions a few months ago.

To read more about Fog City Foodie’s insightful reviews of restaurants and food adventures like this post in the San Francisco Bay Area, please check out his blog.

And to suggest other dim sum places to go, please send me your suggestions.  Thank you.

rice noodle with beef

phoenix claw (aka chicken feet)

After the suggestion, I remembered that I have actually been to City View before, but it has been a while (we had a team building event customized by sf treasure hunt a few years ago that ended at this restaurant), and frankly we don’t do dim sum in Chinatown often enough to remember this place.  So was psyched about this revisit.

City View Restaurant is located on a historic street in San Francisco. To quickly digress, Commercial Street is part of the Barbary Coast District.  Back in the heydays of the Gold Rush, Barbary Coast was the red-light district known for gambling, prostitution, crime, and alcohol smuggling.  Nowadays, this district is known for their design + architectural firms, P.R. firms, law firms, commercial buildings, some great restaurants, and some coveted residences.  And yes, there’s also the red-light district on Broadway and Columbus, but even that’s probably tame compared to the Wild, Wild West of San Francisco’s yesteryear.  At one point in history, this whole area was under water and the port was where Portsmouth Square (Chinatown) now stands.  Another interesting historical tidbit about Commercial Street is that The Original U.S. Mint used to be  located here until they demolished the building and moved to the 5th and Market site.  Currently occupying the same site (but not the same building) on Commercial Street is The Pacific Heritage Museum.

rice cakes

So after about a month’s scheduling, my friends and their respective significant others were able to meet and to enjoy this dim sum brunch in the City.  We had a great time and the food was delicious here.  I gave up photographing the food after a few plates because it just got kind of chaotic.  Dishes of food, chopsticks going every which way (I am talking about myself here just in case you are all reading this and getting offended. 😉 ), more food, and dim sum servers constantly bombarding us with more food, did I mention more food???

Talking about getting bombarded, do expect to be interrupted constantly because dim sum servers are notoriously good at presenting you with goodies right when you start a conversation making you forget what you were talking about in the first place.  Don’t worry…nothing’s wrong with you.  It has happened to all of us.  And it’s not considered rude either because you are there to eat, and they are there to serve you more food.  It’s definitely okay to point at what you like, but not with your chopsticks (now that would be rude).  🙂

The restaurant itself is pretty nice and has two levels.  We sat on the street level facing the street while the last time I was there, our team of treasure hunters sat downstairs because of our group event.  I like sitting upstairs (street level) better though.  The only negative thing I have to say about this recent visit is that there was only one operating toilet, so there was a huge line of people waiting downstairs looking like they are doing the Samba.  Great if you are actually dancing, but not so attractive if you are waiting for the bathroom though.

All in all, to sum this up, I would say that this is a great dim sum restaurant to try because it offers delicious dim sum, attentive service, and interesting historic places around to explore after your meal.

And trust me, you will want to.

City View Restaurant | 662 Commercial Street | San Francisco, CA