Golden Flower Restaurant — Restaurant in San Francisco

Chinatown has three Golden restaurants all within a five-minute walking distance from each other. I mean there is the Golden Flower Vietnamese Restaurant, Golden King Vietnamese Restaurant and the Golden Star Vietnamese Restaurant all close to each other. By sheer chance I happened to try Golden Flower Vietnamese Restaurant first from the lot. It is located on Grant and Jackson so right in the middle of the tourist circuit. At the peak lunch hour on a Saturday it was about 40% full. Like other Vietnamese restaurants it has a trillion variations of Pho, bun and rice plates. I decided to get the Five spice chicken ($8.75) to-go.

After ordering I waited for about 10 minutes at one of the open tables and then was off with my order. While paying I was surprised that I could pay by card which is very out of charter in Chinatown. I got a small size container with the Five spice chicken that was almost hidden under the serving of rice and two smaller containers with dipping sauce. The chicken and rice were both pretty good while the dipping sauce was terrific. Overall this was pretty good.

After the good experience I came back to try the Five spice chicken noodle soup ($10.75) which is noodle soup plus the five-spice chicken. This time I found the noodles to be a little clumped together but they managed to open up when dipped in the broth. Overall not bad. During my third visit I decided to get the Chicken with lemongrass ($10.25) from the Dinner Special section of the menu. This time it was a disaster a small serving of rock hard pieces of chicken with over steamed rice.

Price wise it was pretty cheap and in-line with what you would pay at other Golden restaurants in Chinatown. My take is that they have the batch produced items like Pho and five spice chicken locked down but for that needs to be cooked to order the kitchen surely falters. Considering the overall package of quality, price, service I feel that this is a 3.5-star type of place so I'm rounding...

My party of five (plus our service dog) came in because Z&Y Restaurant was filled. I didnt want to pre-judge this hole-in-the-wall (from past experience these could be quite good). Despite cramped quarters, a good amount of people indicated possible good food. However, bad things happened from the outset. As we got seated, the young waitress/hostess spoke in vietnamese to (I assume) the owner and then said our dog was not allowed in. I responded that he is a service dog as his vest indicated. She wanted to see his certification. I responded there is no such thing and by law she cannot ask me for that. She and the "owner" went back and forth in vietnamese. The "owner" appeared upset and walked away to the kitchen. Next, the bathroom and pathway to it was dirty, untidy, and in worrisome condition. Finally, it is important to note that our two kids dont eat like adults. So, we ordered 3 large Phô soups to share amongst us. The older lady (owner?) came and said that for 3 orders she wasnt willing to seat 5 ppl at a large table esp. becuz she was expecting possibly a party of 8 at some point. We shared that she could seat us at a table that seats 5 ppl. She didn't want to. I said we are paying customers that had hungry kids. She said she was sorry but she didn't want to serve us. I repeated that she could seat us at an appropriate table. Confused (or perturbed) she walked away saying she had to figure something out. My family and friends shared that they were uncomfortable there and were afraid what the restaurant would do to the food if we stayed. So, we left. Some people around us spoke to each other that it appeared that the real problem seemed to be that the restaurant didn't want a service animal in there restaurant. I wondered the same. We will not be returning. I hope any person that supports service animals will not support this...

I felt welcomed when arriving in, the food was okay it definitely wasn’t bad, the reason this review is a 1 star is because of my experience. This old man who worked there gave us our food once it was ready (we ate inside), and we said thank you and he took it in some weird way, and started standing there threw a cool couple chuckles at us and staring and looking back, we simply thought it was weird but nothing to crazy, so we started eating and this man sits in the table in front of us so he can stare at me(I’m a man, also a minor) and he sat there the entire Time staring at me in my eyes while I ate and I tried to ignore it by looking away but I saw from the side of my eye and the mirror that he was staring still, not only did this make me feel discriminated as a Hispanic, but this made me insanely uncomfortable, he started smiling then the smile turned into a straight face looking into my eyes. I looked at him in the eye when he was staring and he just put his mask on and kept staring still. Dude should be fired and really learn how to socialize before being hired, this guy wasn’t that old considering how he’s working, but staring at someone who’s a different race in a freaky way i think really disrespected me, I don’t know who he thinks he is. Lady was super nice though. Maybe he just had a problem with me or something because there was a white family and they were casually eating with no bother. I shouldn’t be concerned for my safety or feel any discrimination when eating. I don’t recommend this place for anyone who does not like being watched while you eat. Food was okay though it wasn’t bad. Just watch out for any...