Yet Wah - Chinese, San Francisco

2140 Clement St, San Francisco CA 94121
(415) 387-8040
Parking: street parking, pay parking lot nearby

Last Visited: October 9, 2004

Food: 2 to 3 stars
Atmosphere: 3 to 4 stars
Service: 3 to 4 stars
Price: unknown

Yet Wah has a large dining room upstairs, and the ground floor can be a private dining area or a shared area. There is also a private room on the side. The floor is made of dark gray stone tiles.

The evening of my visit, I was at a banquet style meal, with 10 tables of ten people each, so service may be different on a regular visit. Also, since I was sitting at the head table, service may not have been typical. For the evening, they had placed a large double happiness wall hanging in red and separated the dining area from the booths with folding screens.

The area was a bit crowded with tables packed next to one another. The chairs were covered with a cream colored seat cover over the entire chair giving it the look of a high back chair with full square base. The tables were covered with white tablecloths and topped with a lazy susan.

- Suckling Pig & Barbecue Platter – The suckling pig is displayed in the center of the platter and laid on top of jellyfish and a mixture of vegetables. The other typical appetizers of barbecued pork, beef slices, and chicken are arrayed and surround the pig. Overall, I found the appetizers okay, but not to the quality that they could be. Some of the meat was too strong with five spice flavoring. The jellyfish could be a little crisper/crunchier.

- Glazed Walnut Prawns – Prawns are stir fried served in a honey mayonnaise sauce. Glazed walnuts top the prawns. The flavor of this dish was good, but the consistency of the sauce was different than typical sauces. Typical ones coat the prawns so that there is a little additional mayonnaise around the prawns. It looked as though the mayonnaise had melted around these prawns.

- Scallops with Vegetables – Large scallops are sautéed with broccoli. By far, I thought this was one of the best dishes of the evening. The quality of the scallops was excellent as they were large and fresh. The broccoli was not overcooked and had a bright green appearance.

- Braised Shark’s Fin Soup with Crab Meat – Crab meat is served in a shark fin soup which is made with a chicken broth base. Shark fin is braised in the soup which is thickened to give a rich, almost velvety, texture. The flavor of the soup is good, but I prefer thinly sliced chicken strips to crab meat.

- Braised Abalone & Sea Cucumber with Vegetables – Abalone is thinly sliced and braised with chunks of sea cucumber in a thick sauce. The abalone and sea cucumber are served over mustard greens. The greens were good, but the abalone and sea cucumber could be braised longer until they’re softer. Flavoring is good though.

- Steamed Lobster with Vermicelli – Lobster is cut into small chunks and laid out on a platter open faced on top of rice vermicelli. The lobster pieces are topped with lots of chopped garlic and the entire dish is steamed. There is lots of garlic, so if you’re a garlic lover, this is a great dish for you. The vermicelli absorbs all of the lobster flavor and each piece is wonderfully tender. Very good.

- Double Squabs with Superior Soy Sauce – Squab is quartered and cooked in dark soy sauce. Although some at the table with me enjoyed this dish very much, I found the squab to be slightly overcooked and a little tough.

- Steamed Black Bass – A large black bass is steamed and topped with sliced green onions. Soy sauce surrounds the fish. The bass was cooked very nicely and tasted quite fresh. Good.

- Dry Scallops with Egg White Fried Rice – Dry scallop is shredded and egg whites are cooked in a pan. The two are then combined with fried rice. By the time I got to this dish, I was too full to eat much of it. It was a bit on the dry side, but may have been better on its own without all the food served previous to it.

- Double Dessert of the Day – A two colored custard is cut into cubes and is surrounded by sesame balls. The custard was fair, and the sesame balls filled with lotus paste were good.

Overall, Yet Wah has food that ranges from average to good. The selection has nice presentation, but some of the dishes seem to miss while others go beyond the standard. However, it’s difficult to know where the dish you select will fall.