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Restaurant ReviewTian Sing (San Francisco CA)
| (415) 398-1338
| 138 Cyril Magnin Street,
San Francisco, CA 94102
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Reviewed by: Jacqueline M. Newman
Fall Volume: 2007 Issue: 14(3) page: 29 and 32
 This sliver of a triangular-shaped place on a corner gets wider and more comfortable as it expands. Best to select a table on the up-hill end at this eatery that serves dim sum and dinner. The food is real Chinese food in the heart of the city, not near Chinatown, that serves more than eighty different dim sum dishes for lunch, some so good it is hard to quit at just one even though you want to savor all their other dim sum delights.
Wonder what they are? Ask for the small take-out menu, it lists many items found on the carts that wander about. The prices are odd, each either $3.38, $3.88, $4.38, or $5.88, for small, medium, large, and special plates they are served on. Be lucky, as the number eight is to the Chinese, and enjoy many of them. Do not know what to order, peer into the carts or on them, or ask. Most of the staff speaks English. At dinnertime, the seventy-four item dinner dish menu is in color; all four pages of it. Our suggestion, ask for the take-away page before you order; it helps and then take it with to recall what you enjoyed. Another suggestion, before deciding, peer onto the tables of their ever-so-many regulars. Your eyes will help your stomach enjoy. Never saw a Chinese kitchen? Before going in, watch award-winning Executive Chef Jimmy Pang and his crew create dishes for dining pleasure. Can not locate him or the small street called Cyril Magnin? Head for the Renaissance Parc 55 Hotel, it is across the street. One problem here is that it is very easy to pig out. We did enjoying two orders of Shanghai Soup Dumplings. They come as six small ones, juicy as can be, and with the high-quality red vinegar and the slivers of fresh ginger. We wanted more ginger, that request did take a while to be satisfied. What amazes at Tian Ting, is that their clientele is mostly non-Chinese, and the food really tastes as though it came from the Middle Kingdom. Here, they cook as if all customers are Asian high brows who love great Chinese food. Simple things such as Hot and Sour Soup, Phoenix Tail Prawns, Chicken with Cashews, Lemon Chicken, Minced Chicken in Lettuce Cup, Hot and Spicy Eggplants, Yum Yum Watercress, Five Spices Beef Noodle Hot Soup, and House Special-Crab in Clay Pot taste as Chinese as if you were eating in a Chinatown or in China. On our next trip we plan to try the Peking Duck, a Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaf, Poached Beef Tripe, Shrimp Dumplings, and more.
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