David Chan’s Chinese Restaurants

10. Jai Yun

Location: San Francisco, California

Chan says:

“Besides being one of the best Chinese restaurants in the U.S., it is also the quirkiest. It’s located a half-block outside of San Francisco Chinatown, close enough to describe it as being in Chinatown. It is highly controversial as it elicits both extremely positive and extremely negative comments. There is no menu at Jai Yun. Rather you tell the chef how much you want to spend (e.g., $35 per person, $50, $100, etc.) and he’ll provide you a selection of small plates of his choice, based on the ingredients he has purchased for the day. The chef is from Nanjing, and his cooking reflects a variety of eastern and northern Chinese locales…”