Budget
Ananda Fuara
This vegetarian restaurant is a little different as it's run by an Indian religious order called 'Sri Chinmoy'. Ananda Fuara means the "Fountain of Delight" and their food is intended to harmonize you both inside and out.
Chutney
Affordable and excellent selection of authentic Indian food. Speedy service and filling portions, and free Chai tea for all customers. A recent addition and a neighborhood favorite.
Dottie's True Blue Cafe
Top-rated breakfast cafe in the Tenderloin and a top contender in San Francisco proper. Affordable food with friendly service; comfortable, intimate atmosphere, and excellent food. Arrive early to stand in line with all the other admirers.
Golden Era Vegetarian Restaurant
This pleasant, quiet restaurant specializes in the sort of seitan-based, faux-meat concoctions that will make a hardcore carnivore happy, and may make a lifelong vegetarian feel a bit squeamish. Nonetheless, the vegetarian "lamb" clay pot is something to try. Everything can be served vegan upon request.
Joey's Laundry
What is a laundry doing under 'Eat'? Joey's serves Mitchell's Ice Cream, widely recognized as the best in the Bay Area. If you're bored with chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla, try the green tea or macapuno ice creams. For the launderer seeking more solid sustenance — or if you get hungry while using their internet access $7.50 per hour — there are breakfast pastries, pizza slices, and coffee.
Bang San
This tiny hole-in-the-wall serves up some of the best darn Thai food this side of the Mekong River. They have 12 categories of dishes from which to choose. Sit down, order, and watch as delicious food is cooked before your eyes.
Old Chelsea
As well as supplying fish-and-chip orders for the Edinburgh Castle bar around the corner, the Old Chelsea offers take-out. You'll want to take your order out, as seating is limited to two somewhat sticky tables, and the air is hot with grease. The fish justifies the trip.
Olympic Flames Cafe
Spacious, affordable and home-cooked breakfast joint. Excellent omelettes. This is a viable alternative of Dottie's True Blue Cafe which almost always seems to have a line.
Shalimar
Northern Indian/Pakistani food, they have a tandoor clay oven which means excellent naan flat breads and murgh boti barbecue chicken. The curries and rice pilaf are also worth checking out for their unique combination of spices.
Tommy's Joynt
Open since 1947, Tommy's is a classic San Francisco eatery and bar. You can't miss this place — on both the inside and out it's colorful and quirkily decorated. They serve wholesome, filling food like "hand-carved" sandwiches, stews, and mash potatoes.
Moulin Rouge Breakfast Cafe
If you can't stomach the line or the hipster clientele at Dottie's, the Moulin Rouge Breakfast Cafe around the corner on Geary offers solid grub at much cheaper prices. The elderly couple who run the place are always friendly and never hurry you, and the shabby faux-French decor is weirdly charming despite liberal amounts of duct tape holding the place together.
Pakwan
Pakistani food featuring curries, tandoori fish, and piping hot naan. Unlike some of the local eateries in the "tandoor-loin," the seating is clean, comfortable, and fairly new possibly the results of some other restaurant's going-out-of-business sale. The restaurant tends to be comparatively quiet, as well as offering an excellent view of police actions on Jones St.
Midrange
Bodega Bistro
In Vietnamese Bo-de-ga in Vietnamese means beef-lamb-chicken — all popular Vietnamese dishes. The menu also draws equal inspiration from French cuisine making this an unusual dining experience.
Kim Thanh
Check out the aquariums in the window if you want to know what's for dinner. If you've never seen a geoduck, you will not soon forget it.
Kyoto Sushi
With the multitude of sushi places it is hard to say which is best, but this one rates at the top for taste, freshness, and authenticity.
Maharani
Four star Indian restaurant with great food and a romantic rear hideout.
Original Joe's
Joe's is a local institution, a Rat Pack dream of an Italian restaurant. The after-hours haunt of the theatrical and musical set in the 1950s and 1960s, Joe's fortunes fell with those of the surrounding neighborhood, and it's considerably frayed at the cuffs now. But the owner and staff maintain dignity through adversity — all the waiters wear tuxedos and are delightfully polite and thoughtful — and the tasty food in generous portions is probably the best meal you can find after midnight in SF, bar none. Reasonable prices, great service, oh-so-cool atmosphere — don't miss Joe's if you can. Unfortunately, in 2007, it closed due to a kitchen fire, and there are no plans to re-open.
Vietnam II
At any number of eateries around the 'Loin, you can order pho, the Vietnamese beef and noodle soup that's correctly written with some curly bits over the "o," and correctly pronounced somewhere between "phuh" and "phah." It will always cost about five dollars; it will always come with your choice of meat slices of rare beef, well-done brisket, tripe, tendon, and meatballs are the most common simmering in a clear, pungent broth along with a tangle of thin rice noodles; it will always be accompanied by a heap of mung bean sprouts, leafy basil and mint stalks, lime wedges, and slices of chili pepper; and it will always be served in bowls ranging from merely large to mind-bogglingly enormous. But only at Vietnam II will you enjoy your pho while gazing upon an indoor koi pond, and browsing through a vast menu of other delicacies. Everything from deep fried quail to pig intestine porridge is available to the adventurous, along with Chinese standards like lo mein and fried rice.
Top end
Canto do Brazil
Traditional Brazilian food, very affordable, but mixed reviews on service.
Fleur De Lys
This windowless Michelin Star restaurant is one of the finest formal French restaurants in the US and it frequently wins awards. The service is excellent and the food exceptional. They have a "prix-fixe" menu and over 700 wines to choose from.
La Jardiniere
French food in American style, quite pricey, great decor, appetizers, deserts, mixed reviews on entrees. They have both an "a la carte" and a "prix-fixe" menu.
Market Street Grill
Serves up Asian and Italian inspired dishes using fresh American ingredients in an ornately decorated dining room. They also have live piano playing most nights of the week.
Max's Opera Cafe
The California version of a New York deli.
Millennium Restaurant
This is an environmentally friendly vegetarian/vegan restaurant that does its best to source local, organic and non-genetically modified food. If you're one of those people who think veggies can't be tasty... you need to go here, the food is delicious — very pricey — but delicious!
First Crush Restaurant Wine Bar and Lounge
If you like romantic restaurants and have also fallen in love with California, this is the place for you. Popular with couples, this restaurant serves up modern Californian and American cuisine and they've got a HUGE selection of Cal wines to wash it down with.
Grand Cafe Brasserie and Bar
With 30-foot high ceilings supported by pillars, sunken tables, sculptures, and artwork adorning the walls, it's not hard to see that this place was once an elegant ballroom. Today it's an elegant dining room where they serve excellent French cuisine.
| This guide uses the following price ranges for a typical meal for one, including soft drink: | |
| Budget | $10 or less |
| Mid-range | $10 - 20 |
| Splurge | $20 or more |
Given the grittiness of the area, much of the food is very affordable. Vietnamese, Thai, and Indian restaurants are well represented in the Tenderloin. One of the best options for a cheap lunch is picking up a "Vietnamese sandwich" from any of a number of corner delis in the area they're packed especially thick along Larkin St. For about $2.50 you can expect to get a generous helping of your choice of meat and shredded vegetables sandwiched into a quarter of a baguette and dressed with a thin, tangy sweet and sour sauce. Be sure to bring cash, as these places don't take any credit cards. There is actually a decent selection of restaurants in the area, but if you are not satisfied, there are many other excellent eateries just west of the Civic Center, around Hayes St, and northeast of the Tenderloin around Chinatown and North Beach. Generally speaking, for mid-range to high-end restaurants in the area seating is easier around 8PM, when opera and symphony patrons depart.