Chinatown

San Francisco Chinatown is the oldest Chinatown in the U.S. The main west-east streets are flat while the north-south streets are hilly. The main west-east street is Grant Avenue: more of the tourist street where you'll see lanterns and souvenir stores lining the street. Stockton Street is lined with grocery and produce stores that locals frequent. Many of the alleyways are wide and frequently hold events like festivals or galleries.

If you're visiting Chinatown, we recommend signing up for a guided tour with Chinatown Alleyway Tours. This is a youth program from Tina's previous company, Chinatown Community Development Center, that inspire youths to design tour routes, research the history of Chinatown, and lead tour groups. They even built a replica of SF Chinatown in Minecraft.

The key to exploring Chinatown isn't exactly hitting key locations but just immerse yourself in the hustle and bustle. That's why, we mostly have food recommendations.

🥠 Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory - 56 Ross Alley, San Francisco, CA 94108

Nestled in one of Chinatown's many alleyways, Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory is always a fun place to visit. No photographs inside but they're very generous with free samples of their fortune cookies hot off the machine. It's a small store but you get to see how fortune cookies are folded.

🍴 Capital - 839 Clay St, San Francisco, CA 94108

An old Chinatown staple restaurant. Famous for their friend chicken wings. We like their salt and pepper version (椒鹽雞翼) and the Thai-styled chicken wings (泰式雞翼). Other tried and true dishes: fried calamari (炸新魷), sauteed pea sprouts (蒜蓉大豆苗), eggplant with meat sauce (肉醬茄子), egg tofu with spicy meat sauce (炸醬玉子豆腐), and tomato beef noodles/pan fried noodles (蕃茄牛肉麵/煎麵).

🥟 Dim Sum Bistro - 675 Broadway, San Francisco, CA 94133

There's not a lot of seating here but part of the experience is eating your dim sum out of a bag on the busy streets. This is more of a bakery than a cafe. The staff are more comfortable with English than other dim sum bakeries we've seen AND they take credit cards.

🚃 Cable Car Museum - 1201 Mason St, San Francisco, CA 94108

Small but mighty, free museum about San Francisco's famous cable cars. Warning, it's on a very steep hill.

Treasure Island

Treasure Island is a man-made island that hangs off the Bay Bridge. It was used as a naval base during WWII.

If you're here during a weekend in the summer (summer lasts to October here in the bay), check Treasure Fest. It started as a weekend flea market and has now grown to a summer weekend market. You can find vintage items, good food, and a view of cities in the bay.

T&M