Restaurant Review: King Ling in San Francisco, California

King Ling Hunan Szechuan & Mandarin Cuisine
683 Geary Street (at Leavenworth)
San Francisco, CA
# 415-567-1888

* Eat-in, take-out and delivery (limited eat-in seating, free delivery with $10 purchase)
* Accepts cash, credit and debit cards
* Limited parking on street

King Ling is a reasonably priced little Chinese restaurant on Geary Street in San Francisco.

It's a small place, but clean and appealing. There's a few small tables if you want to eat in, but most of the business is in carry-out and delivery. Service is very pleasant, with complimentary tea if you do eat in, and the wait time for food to be prepared is very moderate.

The food is basically standard Chinese takeout, but the quality is pretty good. Expect to pay anywhere from six to ten dollars for your meal, very few items on the menu exceed ten dollars. The Lunch Specials are a particularly good deal, although they are only available from 11:00 to 3:00 on Monday through Friday. For $5.25 you can score some General Tsuo's Chicken, Mongolian Beef, Kung Pao Chicken, Szechuan Sesame Chicken, Curry Chicken or one of fourteen other menu items along with soup and your choice of steamed or fried rice. It's a pretty filling and tasty meal for under six dollars. Fifty cents extra will get you one of several dishes with prawns or fish.

The dinner menu is much more varied - soups, seafood, pork, beef, lamb, fowl and vegetarian plates are all available (I particularly enjoyed the garlic eggplant over rice dish at $5.50). Various rice plates and chow mein hover in the six dollar range. Appetizers include steamed rice alone at ninety cents, egg rolls, drumsticks, pot stickers, dumplings, won ton, fried prawns, Chinese chicken salad, prawn salad and green onion cake in peanut sauce. If you're feeling particularly High Rollin' this evening, you can try the House Duck at $13.75 or Spicy Salt & Pepper Shrimp at $11.50 (the two most expensive items on the menu by far). Mango Prawns also sounded interesting ... not necessarily delicious ... but interesting.