Chili House SF — Restaurant in San Francisco

The Food During my friend's visit, he wanted to get some Peking Duck. So we discovered Chili House & Peking Duck seemed to be a good option. We ordered a few of their dishes to try Chicken w/ Explosive Chili Pepper (飄香辣子雞) Pork Roll with Chili Sauce Frog Clay Pot Peking Duck (北京烤鴨) We originally ordered three dishes, but my friend thought the chicken was bad and sour. The staff were nice enough to swap and recommend another dish, which was the Frog Clay Pot. The Pork Roll dish was a chilled dish, it was pretty good with the chili sauce. I quite enjoyed the new Frog Clay Pot dish. It came with lotus root and celery that goes well with the frog meat. The highlight of the show was the peking duck, which required reservation ahead of time. They had a chef carving out the duck in front of you. The remains of the duck we decided to make soup with it, which goes well with the duck. It was quite a bit of food for two people, but it was delicious.

The Miscellaneous The restaurant is on one of the main streets, so prepare to look for street parking. They allow inside seating now, but they also have outdoor seating if you want. The inside is decent sized, with a good amount of seating for small and large parties, normal decors. We arrived a bit after lunch hour, so we didn't have to wait for seating. The service and staff were standard, seated us and took our order timely. We got most of our food not too long after ordering, but would have to say the duck took quite a bit. The restaurant has quite an extensive menu, with lots of variety. It can be overwhelming if you don't have an idea what you want. But if you have a big party, you can try quite a bit. The prices are slightly expensive compared to other similar restaurants. But they do have many selections and unique ones to suit people's taste. Probably come with friends to order different...

The best and most authentic Chinese food I've ever had! This place even beats 90% of Chinese restaurants in downtown Manhattan.

Note: advance order of Beijing duck needed otherwise you need to wait for 1hr+. Reservation highly recommended. Service is extremely friendly.

I traveled from Manhattan and found out this place after visiting a couple of restaurants in the Bay area. I had to say this is by far the best one. This place has authentic Chinese food from Szechuan and Beijing.

We ordered: Beijing roast duck: very good. The skin is still attached to the meat, giving a well balance between fat and lean protein. The duck isn't too fatty though, which is a little off from authentic Beijing duck. Still it's nearly perfect. Fish head with pancakes: very good. The broth is sweet and sour and the pancakes are crispy and fresh. You can only order half of the fish head. *

Twice cooked pork: great. Fatty but not greasy and not too spicy. **

Mapo tofu: spicy and tasty. They added a generous amount of peppercorn so it gets your mouth numb (ma 麻) but that's the key of authentic mapo tofu

Meat pancake: 门钉肉饼. Made with pork. Very authentic. Like a huge pan fried dumpling. * Glutinous cake with red bean paste: 驴打滚. Very very authentic and fresh. As someone growing up in Beijing, I almost burst into tears after my first bite - it reminded me of home. This food is better consumed in store otherwise it will harden. *

We enjoyed all the dishes and each one of them are super delicious and flavourful. I will definitely revisit this place if I...

We recently went as a group of 11 (+1 baby) to Chili House and had made a reservation for a banquet on a Saturday night. We were glad to have the reservation, given even if we had gone as just 2 that night, it would have been a very long wait.

The banquet was absolutely spectacular. They bring out the courses as mentioned from the website throughout the evening, although not precisely in the order listed as a heads up. Some of my favorite highlights:

Soup of winter squash, corn and scallops: had the consistency of an egg drop soup and was very delicious. Braised and fried lamb rib coated in cumin and chiles: had a wonderful salty taste with the feeling of melting in your mouth. -Peking duck - always a classic, and well done here.

Definitely was more food than we needed; by the end we were overwhelmed.

This was the week of Chinese New Year, and we were lucky enough that there was a performer there who both practiced the art of chinese mask switching as well as poured Tea from a super long spout. It really added to the night and the crowd at the restaurant really got into it, clapping along.

Overall, an amazing experience and would recommend to anyone - worth cobbling together a group of friends...