Penang Garden Restaurant
(415) 296-7878
728 Washington St
San Francisco,
CA
94108
37.7954
-122.4055
Neighborhoods: Northeast, Chinatown
What People Are Saying About Penang Garden Restaurant
The Editor
Contributor
Citysearch
Southeast Asian cuisine including seafood, meat, noodle and rice dishes from Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand; lunch specials, wine list available.
User Reviews
MsKayza
August 14, 2008
I work in the Financial District and have had a really hard time finding good quality Chinese/Thai/Korean, etc restaurants that cooks the food well and isn't too saturated with salt and probably MSG. This restaurant has a relatively ok location, the inside is roomy & wasn't too crowded during rush-lunch hour, the waiters/waitresses are averagely attentive, and the lightning was a little dimmer than necessary. However, the food was DELICIOUS... done a little differently than how I'm used to but creative, fresh, and just plain GOOD!! I had the regular spare ribs (not the coffee or strawberry flavored) and they were excellent. I also had a weird taro chicken dish that was also really tasty and delicious. I would definitely recommend this place for a casual lunch or for take-out. But not for a romantic date.
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senatorsmith
July 16, 2008
This restaurant offers a mish-mash of South-East Asian dishes, none done particularly well. We had Beef Satay, Tom Yum, Spare Ribs, Senten Lamb and some vegetables. Each was worse than the last. Strange mix of spices. Gristly, sub-standard meat cuts. All excessively salty. All deep fried and pooling in oil. Even the drinks we ordered were suspect. The lemonade was luminescent like highlighter ink and sugary enough too frost a cake. The Malaysian Iced Tea -- unknown in Malaysia -- turned out to be the cold tea that we routinely throw away at home because it hadn't been drunk warm. The dishes we had were not the ones we ordered. The menu is mess with many dishes sharing identical names and the staff made the wrong assumptions about what we ordered. However, we didn't have the heart to send back the incorrect orders. People at other tables also seemed to have received incorrect orders. One woman was in tears that she had not received her favorite dish. Service was solicitous but clearly ineffective. Decor was utter kitsch with Christmas lights and beach motif. Prices were scandalous, almost twice what this quality meal normally costs. Leaving the restaurant I had the strangest feeling of having lost something: my time, my money, my appetite for Malaysian food, even my enthusiasm for trying new places.
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cicilee
March 07, 2006
Great food, but most of all great Durian Chicken Soup. It's not on the regular menu and if you don't like durian, you shouldn't order it. Some people detest the smell it produces, but when it's in this soup and cooked for hours with the chicken, the result is divine. The rest of the menu is great too of course. Pretty standard Asian food. Pad Thai, noodles, curry, rice. Very tasty and some out of the ordinary items you wouldn't find at a place that tries to cater to the majority, whole preserved eggs, seasoned fried tiny fish, etc. Probably the cleanest restaurant in Chinatown and has better than the average service in Chinatown. You get 2 hours of free parking if you validate your ticket at the underground parking lot across the street. And there's a website! Imagine that. http://www.penanggarden.com/index.html
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