Pakwan Restaurant - Tenderloin — Restaurant in San Francisco

I know everyone raves about this place, and yes ... it is in the tenderloin but I have to say for many reasons I'm not very impressed. The food flavor was great, but both he and I got a stomach ache afterwards from having their chicken curry special of the day and the lamb biryani.

While I was there, a homeless lady came in through the door, and took a soda off the remains of an empty table from some people who left. It is likely that the restaurant would have thrown away the soda, but they actually sent a guy outside to wrestle the soda out from her hands. She came in and asked for the soda again because they were going to toss it out, and they basically roughhoused her outside until her pants fell and she came crying in the restaurant again and ended up taking another customer's soda. She became belligerent and yelled out that she just wanted the soda but the staff was rude and continued to what I would say abuse her and handle her roughly (physically).

This left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. As much as I understand how a business in the tenderloin needs to protect themselves and give a good experience to their customers, I don't really think that this was a great way to handle this particular situation. Homelessness in the tenderloin is a pervasive problem and they're honestly just making it worse. A little compassion could go a long way.

I won't be...

I had hopes because they have decent reviews and maybe we didn't choose the right things to eat, but we were disappointed in the food. The restaurant is a little smoky overall so don't expect much ambiance wise. Due to the location parking will be a headache. We just walked here.

We ordered the chicken seekh kabab wrap, the chicken biryani and the Malai boti. The seekh kabab wrap was the most decent of the 3, mainly due to the tamarind/soy based chutney that the kababs were doused in. Otherwise, it was pretty plain. The chicken biryani was the most disappointing of the whole thing because 1. We saw them take white rice and mix it with the chicken prepped separately which is not the authentic way to make biryani 2. There was no flavor. A biryani is an explosion of flavors and this wasn't anywhere close. The chicken pieces were fine but as biryani fanatics, we were sorely disappointed. The Malai boti was supposed to be one of their specials and it wasn't creamy or melt in the mouth. The pieces were quite big and a little chewy overall.

All in all, we were disappointed with the whole fare. We won't make a...

First and foremost the woman who works at the register needs to get fired asap. She provided us with the worst customer service ever at a restaurant. She was rude, hostile and carrying an attitude. After we paid for our order she was asking us for our vaccine cards which we don't mind showing at all as we all respect the laws. But the way she was asking was downright disrespectful. Why will you take our money first and then ask us for vaccine cards instead of doing it the other way around!. On top of that she didn't even ask the white people for their cards, it's funny that she has some vendetta against people of color when she herself is a person of color. Plus the whole dining area was filthy and tables were not clean. She was on her phone the entire time while she was suppose to be cleaning the tables instead. She kept touching her mask,phone and then was touching the food Disgusting!. The cooks were constantly cooking while she was on her phone.The food was fine.

Never going back again. Hopefully the owner gets rid of this mannerless person or teaches her how to do her job otherwise they will keep...