Best Restaurants for Groups in Chinatown

First visit to China Live and what a delight! The perfect execution of the Dim Sum dishes made it a memorable eating experience.

Went with the tasting menu to get outside my comfort zone and see what the best the restaurant had to offer was. For drinks, we got the banh bo gimlet, toastedtini, and a glass of wine. The gimlet was absolutely the single greatest cocktail I've ever had. It was perfectly balanced and aromatic. Not all of the tasting menu was amazing but like 99% of it was. The oysters tasted really bright and fresh. The banh khot caviar is mind-blowing! It was a perfectly balanced single bite of caked and fried shrimp taken to the next level with the addition of a small scoop of caviar. The bo tai chanh also stood out as an exceptional dish because of how every ingredient in that dish felt like it was perfectly used to layer both flavors and textures. You just have to try it for yourself to understand. The Dungeness crab salad clearly tried to do the same thing but I felt that the tobiko was a little overused causing it to overwhelm the other textures. The various components of the manila clams were all executed well and came together to form a delicious dish. I particularly enjoyed the broth and would gladly have just slurped up a bowl of that. After that came the bun cha which had no chance of living up to the excellence of the clams and their unforgettable broth. The bun cha was still good though. The tangy broth that the proteins were marinating in was excellent and the herbs were fresh. It was also fun to put everything together yourself and build your own bowl or lettuce wrap. We got bowls of pho for our seventh course which, at that point, felt less like a treat and more like an obligation. We were starting to get pretty full and the pho wasn't exciting enough to put much effort into trying to finish. Btw, the beef pho is way better than the chicken pho. Honestly, I loved my overall experience so much that I don't even want to mention dessert but I should. It's not good. It's bland and boring. Service and ambiance were top notch. Overall, best Vietnamese restaurant in SF!

One of our party has numerous allergies. Our server went out of her way to help her find healthy choices for the guest, including checking with the kitchen to confirm that two pastas were suitable. A wonderful experience, delicious dishes!

Laura and Sayat have done something really special here. The attention to detail is evident in every dish, beverage, service and decor. There really is no other restaurant In SF I can compare it to. Bravo!

Those who complain on the thread about spicy food perplex me—why did they go to a Sichuan restaurant? I have a lower craving/tolerance for spice than a typical Chinese person with Sichuan roots—I like the flavor but don’t seek the heat necessarily. To me, the food at Z&Y was the appropriate level of spicy and flavorful. Actually, there’s a variety of regional specialties, and our party just ordered what we felt like without regard to trying to get a typical Sichuan meal. I had meant to book a table at Z&Y Peking Duck across the street, but I didn’t mind the mistake! I don’t live in SF, and am willing to shell it out for a Michelin fine dining experience. I found Z&Y was relatively expensive and in slightly more modest proportion to what one might expect for a typical Chinatown restaurant, but worth it due to the extremely high quality and authentic food. Decor and service style are also typical Chinatown vibe. We had to get egg rolls for the youngest adult with us, and they were crisp and tasty. Tan tan noodles had spice and subtle flavor at the same time. We ordered Peking duck and I wondered if we got the tea smoked duck, but we didn’t even complain because there was a LOT of duck and the smoky flavor was unique and delicious—and there were enough thin pancakes, sauce, cucumber, and spring onions. Pea shoots and cumin beef were very tasty. We added on Dong Po Ro (Pork Shoulder) as our last dish came to the table because we needed more food. It came to the table quickly and was melt in your mouth tender. Yes, it is very fatty, but that’s the point of this cut—if you don’t like fat, don’t get Dong Po Ro! Lots of happy accidents with this meal, wouldn’t change a thing.