Dragon Well — Restaurant in San Francisco

Great Chinese food experience. I went there with a group of six. We made reservations beforehand since the place is small. There was a one minute delay getting our table together and the manger gave us an order of chicken lettuce wraps on the house for our trouble.

The server was very good. He made menu and wine recommendations and didn't come off as pushy or like he was trying to get us to buy the most expensive things on the menu.

My wife is gluten free, and even though the restaurant had a separate GF menu, the server still pointed out good choices for her.

We ended up getting six dishes, plus two orders of pot stickers. The potstickers were very large and tasty. The Kung Pao Chicken (GF) was great, as were the Mongolian Beef (GF) and Beef Chow Fun (GF). The Chow Fun, in particular, was nice... Light and with a smoky flavor.

For non-GF dishes, we got Mu Shu Pork, Walnut Prawns and Savory and Sweet Beef. The mu shu was the weakest, but still good. Walnut prawns had a light batter coating on them, but they still had the tails on underneath. Everyone liked the beef.

Some people have complained about the prices of the meals, but I found them pretty reasonable for downtown San Francisco. The servings were pretty large, and each dish was $15-20, which I think is fair. That's about the price of a decent cheeseburger at a lot of downtown places.

Overall, it was a great experience. My in-laws, who regularly visit San Francisco, said they would be going back.

My one recommendation is that you make reservations because the place is...

Note this is not a review of Dragon Wells food but of their treatment of people. Through our direct experience. We got ice cream from the place next door and sat on the seats that belong to this restaurant without knowing as there was no signage. Us and about 4 other tables had done the same thing. At 5pm someone told us that the tables were for the restaurant so we apologized and got up immediately. Our 2 year old had doodled a few chalk drawings on the deck. The server got extremely upset so I apologized and offered to clean it up and was pulling out baby wipes and some water and the owner came out yelling "they drew on our floor too!!" I felt humiliated and didnt know what to do with myself. I explained that its just a bit of chalk and that we were sorry. It was a small drawing and i was going to clean up. She motioned for us to walk away and said that it was okay. We started walking, the server yelled at us to come back and mop the floor ourselves. So we did. It took half a second literally. I get it- the deck is private property and I respect that but to get upset and embarrass us in front of people after we apologized was so mean and unnecessary. Theres a pandemic lets be kind to one another, my toddler asked me what happened and i had to explain that it wasnt her fault. Lets please be nice...

Dragon well is a cute, intimate restaurant that would be great for date night or taking an out of town family member to a nice dinner! It's a great spot for taking out of town visitors for a great culinary treat! The service is second to none with friendly servers and great ambience! For San Fran, their prices are pretty reasonable. That being said, the food didn't hold up to that pricing. We ordered the wok- tossed prawns first which were a great start to the food. The flavor was great, but it definitely was not as spicy as I was expecting. The wonton- soup was very good and exactly what you would expect and more! Unfortunately, the stir fried vegetables did not deliver. The tofu was a great consistency but suffered the same blandness as the veggies in the dish. We also ordered the walnut prawns, a sweet dish with fried prawns and candied walnuts. It was an absolute delight and paired well with the wonton soup! All said, Dragon Well is ready to be a gem of the restaurant scene in San Francisco but is lacking some finesse as far as...