Great Eastern Restaurant Dinner, San Francisco

Reviewer: Foodnut.com Great Eastern Restaurant 649 Jackson St (Near Grant) San Francisco, CA 94133 415-986-2500

Great Eastern Restaurant in San Francisco has been serving Cantonese Chinese food in this location for many years. They serve dim sum during lunch and traditional items during dinner. Great Eastern dim sum lunch was reviewed separately. President Obama dined here in February 2012.

Great Eastern Restaurant has an extensive menu, live seafood in tanks, and some preset dinners. We were here for a $310 dinner for 10 people in 2009 and returned for dinner in early 2012. Last dim sum meal was in 2017.

Be sure to read our article How to order in authentic Chinese dinner

Decor, Vibe – Great Eastern is a Busy, loud Chinese restaurant. They have a downstairs dining room, which feels like eating in the basement. Some tourists, big family gatherings, and some Caucasians were dining.

Great Eastern Restaurant, San Francisco Menu Pictures

See our dim sum lunch review for their menu.

Great Eastern Picks:

Lotus Root Soup of the Day ($11.50) was very good.  Solid long boiled flavors including some calamari hints.

BBQ Assorted Cold Platter with Soy Sauce Chicken, Roast Duck, marinated beef, and jellyfish was very good. The quality of the duck and chicken were especially fresh and flavorful.

Roast Duck, BBQ Pork, with Jellyfish ($13) had excellent roast duck, juicy, and hot. The BBQ pork was just fair, while the Jellyfish good.

Sauteed Scallops and Prawns with straw mushrooms and snow peas was done just right. Lots of tender fresh scallops and shrimp.

Steamed Fresh Prawns in Garlic Sauce ($32) for about 7 good sized prawns, pre-sliced and bathed in soy sauce, garlic were fresh out of the tank and very sweet.  Pricey but good.

Sauteed Clams with black bean sauce was done perfectly. Lots of tender clams.

Crispy Fried Chicken with shrimp chips were fried to a golden brown yet still juicy and tender.

Peking Duck with steam buns was a good dish. Duck was not huge but flavor and cooking was just right.

Ginger scallion Crab had 2 big crabs cooked just right. Really messy and pain to take apart, but very good nonetheless.

Abalone mushrooms with greens had a bunch of mushrooms that were pretty huge. Good stuff.

Eggplant & Minced pork with salted fish in Clay Pot ($11.50) was sizzling hot and full of tender eggplant with lots of fish and pork mixed in.

Free red bean dessert soup with pearls was done just right and was not too sweet.  Ask for it nicely during dinner..

OK:

Shredded dry scallop Soup with chives, mushrooms, and shredded chicken was full off ingredients. The broth was very good, while the ingredients tasted ok.

Fried Rice with salted fish is a classic heavy duty starch dish. A little more over powering that we needed with all the food plus it was way too salty, but still good.

Deep Fried Squab ($12) was just average.  Hot out of fryer but slightly overcooked.

Pans:
None

Great Eastern Restaurant and R&G Lounge have been our go to places for dinner in San Francisco’s Chinatown for years and continue to be. The food was very good and even the service decent.

While places like The Kitchen and Koi Palace on the Peninsula offer top notch food with many exotic specialties, Great Eastern Restaurant continues to deliver solid traditional Chinese food in San Francisco.

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