Fondue Chinoise — Restaurant in San Francisco

This was by far the worst experience I’ve ever had at a restaurant. It was a busy night, and we had a reservation at 7:30. They clearly did not have a system for honoring reservations or the live waitlist on the clipboard. Parties that showed up after us were being let in because they stood closer to the front of the restaurant. Every time I asked the host where we were in the queue, they’d say they were cleaning the table and we were next (they kept telling us this for 1 hour+). We ended up waiting for 2 hours before getting our table.

When we got our table and placed our order, our food came 15-20 mins later. We noticed we were given a lot of food we didn’t order. After some back and forth, turns out they messed up half our order with another table. They had no idea what was served or wasn’t served to us, so we had to go through item by item to show them what they still owed us. After we finally sorted out the order, we kept waiting for the remaining food to come and it never came… We waited another 40 mins, and at this point, it was past 11pm. We ended up getting really frustrated so we just asked them to cancel the order and refund us.

Oh also, there are definitely sanitary issues with this place. There was a layer of oil in the water jug they gave us.

Overall extremely disappointed, we all left hungry because half our order never came, and even so it came out to be roughly $30/person. Poor service, long wait times, and...

Welcoming hot pot restaurant with bright vivid walls, chinoise decor, and a charming hostess/server named Lilly. We were desperately looking for a meal after an event in the Downtown/North Beach area at 9pm on a Thursday. We stumbled upon this gem -- overshadowed by the strip clubs and closed storefronts of Broadway. The minute we walked in, we knew we were set. Lilly(sp?) was so helpful in suggesting our broths (mushroom -- is remarkable with enoki, shitake, goji berries and more; spicy beef (medium) -- is rambunctious, teasing you with gentle bubbling in the beginning but sweeps you off your feet with umami, peppers, herbs, and spices). Lots of sides --noodles, meats (no chicken), veggies, etc. Order the fried pork and the cilantro meatball -- you won't regret it. This is the kind of meal that does justice to beer and sake. Bring a group cuz eating like this is so much better that way. Definitely...

Oh man, I can’t say enough good about this place!

The restaurant itself is beautiful. Very clean and upscale. You can definitely tell the owners take pride in what they do and try their hardest to make a great dining experience for their customers!

This was the first hot-pot I’ve ever been to, and the employees were fantastic at giving recommendations and advice to our group.

The food was unbelievable. The broth is fantastic by itself, and the SAUCES you can make are out of this world.

One of the owners of the restaurant made sure to talk with our table, and she even gave us an authentic dessert on the house. Everyone was so kind and the next time I’m in San Francisco, I’m sprinting to Fondue Chinois!

The one thing I will say, is if you have a low spicy tolerance, chose the mild option for the hot oil. It’s definitely spicy but you can tone it down...