New Lun Ting Cafe — Restaurant in San Francisco

Updated review 4/8/2025: It was really slow for New Lun Ting Cafe on a Monday night at dinner time. It was me and one other patron. The Vietnamese restaurant across the street was empty too. X&Y down the block had people waiting outside though. My food came out within 10 minutes. I can't say the prime rib $24 was delicious, my expectations were low. The meat was rough. I had a hard time cutting it. The roasted pork $14 with the orange gravy is much better. For the first time, I had room for the complementary ice cream.

Updated review 3/1/2022: A lot of the Chinatown restaurants close early nowadays. At 6:30pm, these restaurants were closed: New Hollywood Bakery, New Regent and Yin Du (Yelp hours are wrong) on Pacific Ave., San Sun (Yelp hours are wrong) on Washington St. and VIP Cafe (Yelp hours are wrong) on Broadway. I'm fortunate New Lun Ting was open. The older waitress/owner was working tonight. After reviewing the comprehensive menu for like five minutes, I decided on their runny egg with shrimp chow fun $12.50. This dish is doused with hoisin sauce and was delicious. I only got four shrimps though. That is unusually low compared to other restaurants that serve this dish. I guess the complementary pot sticker and cup of house vegetable soup made up for it. I left really full. Thank you New Lun Ting Cafe aka Pork Chop House.

Updated review 12/22/2021: Nowadays, most restaurants close around 8pm. I love how they are open until 9:30pm. Tonight I had their prime rib with lo-mein $19.65. On the menu, it isn't called prime rib but rather "Rib Eye Roast". It is the 5th down on the left side of the menu. It is due to bad translation I assume. It usually cost $1.50 to change from rice to lo-mein. Since I came after 8:30pm, they ran out of rice and the waitress let me substitute it for free. Spaghetti is also available as an option instead of rice. The meat itself isn't that great but of acceptable quality. I ordered medium and it was cooked perfectly. The butter from the corn spilled over a bit onto the prime rib and it more fragrant. Parts in the middle were a bit chewy. They do provide a decent sized cup of au jus for dipping in case it is too bland. Great job crew at Pork Chop House.

Original review: There's something special about Pork Chop House. It feels old and historic. Our meal started off with a complementary Hong Kong style borscht soup and a pot sticker. We had the corned beef and pork chop combo and their prime rib special. The meals came with a side of canned corn, cooked cabbage and rice. That au jus sauce and the orange gravy is pretty good. The meat wasn't dry and didn't need it. The food tasted so good, we ordered two more plates to-go for dinner. Great job everyone at...

Review in 2022/2023: Beef chow fun / 乾炒牛河 was a 5/5 but this post 2020 Hong Kong-reminiscing neon yellow colored curry chicken / 咖喱雞飯 is a 1/5. Chicken was clearly boiled on the side and sprinkle on the plate before pouring the flavorless curry on top -- making a whole plate very bland. In other words, the curry does not resemble to anything but to those from Hong Kong that would also be rated as 0 stars or 1 star after 2019.

Cold milk tea / 凍奶茶 was good (as expected), but cold lemon tea / 凍檸茶 was too sweet with too much corn syrup -- probably the sweetest lemon tea that I have in 3 decades across the world. Would give the MT a 4/5 and lemon tea 1/5.

I do appreciate the fried dumpling tho and soup tho.

Review in July 2024: Ordered "baked pork" and it was good, but definitely not Hongkongese style baked rice / casserole. Milk tea this time contains a taste of raisin (dry grapes). Soup was good, potsticker was good. When asked for warm/room temperature water, boiling hot water was served. They also served tea without asking if we want tea or water.

There is no bill and the pricing seems ambiguous (e.g. what was being charged aside from the item listing on the menu, with a price that has blue ball pen overwritten.) Mandatory minimum 15% tips regardless of service, or you'll be told to stop and count to the nickel and pennies. Which is why I came back and update this review and dock a star from them. Lack of pricing transparency is concerning when also considering the...

You don't go to New Lun Ting Cafe (NLT) for atmosphere. Instead, you go there for big portions of decent food. While they are known as the "Pork chop house", and they do serve pork chops, they are actually best known for their roast pork, slathered with your choice of red sauce, brown sauce, or yellow sauce (analog of spaghetti sauce, country gravy, or curry sauce). However, if you can't eat pork, they also have beef stew over rice (strangely, no sauce), oxtail over rice, or even prime rib. Or if you prefer more Eastern entrees, check out their menu.

The unique layout of the place is a legacy of the location... There's a row of "bachelor seats" (single seat stools) behind a counter on the left side of the restaurant as you walk in, perfect for single eaters. Families can try the booths, or the central tables.

I would not recommend going to the restroom there though. It's not dirty, but it is down a flight of tight stairs that's not the most visually appealing.

Service is prompt, but not always the most friendly, though when they get busy, you could be forgotten for a while.

All in all, if you do like roast pork, give NLT a try. And they do sometimes sell out. It is a bit of an oddball legacy café in Chinatown, not a tea restaurant, yet not a typical Chinese...